Walker, Warnock offer clashing religious messages in Georgia

By BILL BARROW
Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — Herschel Walker warns that “spiritual warfare” has entangled America and the Republican nominee in Georgia’s Senate race offers himself to voters as a “warrior for God.” His Democratic opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock, is the ordained Baptist minister who leads the church where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. That hasn’t stopped Walker from openly questioning the religious practices of a man who calls himself “a pastor in the Senate” and declares voting the civil equivalent of prayer. Both men feature faith as part of their public identities. But they do it in distinct ways, jousting in moral terms on matters from abortion, race and criminal justice to each other’s personal lives and behavior.