Bryant said he was launching a new series for November titled, “Called to Create,” adding, “I’m going to preach from the subject this morning, ‘I don’t need a walker.’” The pastor recounted a story of when, while traveling with televangelist and prosperity preacher Benny Hinn on international healing crusades, Bryant saw a woman who used a walker healed. The next week, he saw the same woman again still using her walker. When Bryant asked her why she was using the walker even though she had been healed, she said it was because she was used to the walker, people know her by it and she paid a lot of money for it.
Bryant used the walker as a metaphor for conditions in life that people depend on instead of God, such as drugs, relationships, status or their looks. The pastor said he had not thought about the incident with the woman and the walker for a long time until he was triggered by commercials promoting Herschel Walker for Senate. It was then that Bryant launched into a several-minute critique of Walker, saying, “When the Republican party of Georgia moved Herschel Walker from Texas to Georgia so that he could run for Senate, it’s because change was taking too fast in the post-antebellum South.” Walker was a resident of Texas before relocating to run for Senate in the state of Georgia.
“The state had been flipped blue,” Bryant continued, “and there are some principalities that were not prepared for a Black man and Jewish man to go to Senate at the exact same time.” Bryant appeared to be referencing Warnock, who is Black, and Warnock’s fellow senator in the state of Georgia, Jon Ossoff, who is Jewish.
“So they figured that they would delude us by picking somebody who they thought would in fact represent us better with a football than with a degree in philosophy,” said Bryant, later adding, “Since Herschel Walker was 16 years old, white men been telling him what to do.”
Growing increasingly animated as the congregation applauded and cheered, Bryant said, “We don’t need a Walker, we need a runner. We need somebody who gon’ run and tell the truth about Jan. 6. We need somebody who gon’ run and push for the cancellation of student loan debts, we need somebody who gon’ run and make the former president respond to a subpoena. We don’t need a walker, we need somebody who will be steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding, knowing that your labor is not in vain. Georgia, I need you to know, the slave Negroes ya’ll are used to don’t live here no more. We can think for ourselves, function for ourselves and vote for ourselves. Why? Cause we don’t need a walker.”
Bryant then returned to his message based on 2 Samuel, encouraging his listeners that God’s favor is still on them despite their wounds and their past failures. Notably, during his sermon, Bryant seemed to contradict his previous comments related to giving, saying that the church has built a “false precedent” that if people tithe, pray, etc., they will receive a miracle. The truth is that people can take all of those steps and truly love God without their circumstances changing. “Who you are to God is not connected to tangible stuff,” said the pastor.
