FLASHBACK: Raphael Warnock praised antisemitic group Nation of Islam

Video footage has resurfaced showing Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia praising the Nation of Islam (NOI), describing the religious organization as "needed" and "important."

"The Nation of Islam is significant," Warnock begins, in the video clip from 2013. "But its numbers don't come anywhere near the membership of our churches."

He goes on to elaborate on why, historically, he feels that the NOI has been so important.

"Its voice has been important ... even for the development of Black Theology," he says, "because it was the black Muslims who challenged black preachers and said 'you're promulgating, you know they call it, the white man's religion – and that's a slave religion. You're telling people to focus on heaven, meanwhile, they're catching hell.'"

"We've needed the witness of the Nation of Islam in a real sense," he adds, "to put a fire under us and keep us honest about the meaning of the proclamation coming from our pulpits."

Warnock has been senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta since 2005, a church affiliated with the predominantly black and heavily left-leaning Progressive National Baptist Convention.

He is currently in a race for the Georgia senate seat againt Republican candidate Herschel Walker. The midterm election in November saw neither candidate receive more than 50 percent of the vote, so a runoff election will take place on December 6.

Warnock has painted himself as the progressive and inclusive candidate, but this alliance with a group led by a known anti-semite will certainly put a dent in that image.

The head of the Nation of Islam, black supremacist and antisemite Louis Farrakhan, has repeatedly described Hitler as a "very great man" and regularly refers to Jews as "satanic."