The great clarification

James Talarico knows exactly what he is doing, and where he is aiming. New York Times columnist David French likes what he sees, and recently declared Talarico “one of the most faith-forward politicians in the United States.” That statement comes in an astounding edition of French’s column in which he refers to what he declares “the Talarico moment” in American politics.

Talarico is now the Democratic Party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who has held the seat for four terms. Cornyn, a fixture in Texas politics for decades, is an establishment Republican who has a near-perfect voting record in line with President Donald J. Trump. Cornyn looks and sounds like what he is—a respected and statesmanlike U.S. senator. He now faces a runoff with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running as a Republican populist. Paxton carries a lot of controversy wherever he goes, and his personal and public lives are what one observer described as “rather complicated.” As you can imagine, that’s an understatement. To my knowledge, he is the first senate candidate to run for office just as his wife filed for divorce “for cause.” These are strange days, and not just in Texas.

But it is in Texas that James Talarico, a young member of the Texas House of Representatives and a seminary student, is trying to raise the banner of religious liberalism in the name of opposing the influence of conservative Christians. David French likes what he sees. While French says he disagrees with Talarico on some issues, he says that Talarico is “giving people hope.”

Hope of what? It has been a long time since the Democrats in Texas have won an election for statewide office. Every cycle or two, the public is told that a “new” kind of Democrat is running for office, hoping to bring in the lost sheep of moderate voters. In 2018, Texans were told that Beto O’Rourke was the shiny new thing what would attract the middle. Now, it’s James Talarico. The really interesting thing about Talarico is the extent to which he pushed his personal identity with his personal religious faith, which is why David French labeled him “faith-forward.”

The Democratic Party has not been overwhelmingly positive about faith-forward candidates, and a Talarico ticket would never get far in lands of Democratic dominance. That party is rapidly secularizing as it moves ever further to the ideological and political left. But in Texas, Talarico might have a shot.

David French likes Talarico’s attack on what he calls Christian nationalism, which is all about hate. French quotes Talarico as stating in 2023: “Christian nationalism controls. Jesus saves. Christian nationalism kills. Jesus started a universal movement based on mutual love. Christian nationalism is a sectarian movement based on mutual hate.”

There is a lot to unpack there, but neither French nor Talarico bothered to define Christian nationalism. Listening to Talarico, it’s clear he refers to any Christian citizen who believes, for example, that unborn human life should be protected and who does so based in Christian conviction as a Christian nationalist. He constantly refers to conservative Christians trying to impose their values on the nation, which he declares is a threat to the republic, while peddling his own version of liberal Christianity that allows him to be enthusiastically pro-abortion and all in on the LGBTQ revolution. By his definition, the vast majority of evangelical Christians and a good number of conservative Catholics are Christian nationalists. But he says it all with a smile.

Liberal Christianity is, as Presbyterian stalwart J. Gresham Machen recognized a century ago, a new religion posing as Christianity. Talarico may be David French’s ideal of a “faith forward” politician, but Talarico’s brand of theology not only includes abortion rights and the LGBTQ revolution, but is part and parcel with the liberal theology of his own denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA). He proudly relates that his boyhood pastor was one of the first to perform same-sex celebrations. In one video clip, Talarico has pressed even further, declaring, “God is nonbinary.”

Like the “red-letter Christians” who have sought for decades to reduce Christianity to a reduction of the four New Testament Gospels, Talarico wants to stand on the Sermon on the Mount and selected texts including the parable of the good Samaritan, while quickly directing attention away from the rest of the Bible. The Jesus he describes is the Jesus of liberal theology through the last century and more. In an interview with Ezra Klein, Talarico relativized Christianity by asserting: “I believe Christianity points to the truth. I also think other religions of love point to the same truth. I think of different religious traditions as different languages.” He continued, “I believe Jesus Christ reveals that reality to us. But I also think that other traditions reveal that reality in their own ways, with their own symbol structures.” Wow. He sounds just like a religious liberal, going back at least to the 19th century.

He cites a boyhood pastor as explaining that “religious symbols are like aspirin: In order to work, they have to dissolve.” Let that sink in. Say goodbye to Christianity as the faith “once for all delivered to the saints.”

In his column, David French states that “Talarico is one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian, and by acting like a Christian he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the MAGA Christian movement that’s dominated American political life for 10 years.”

A few paragraphs later, he cites Talarico as saying, “I’m tired of being pitted against my neighbor. I’m tired of being told to hate my neighbor.” Who told him such a vile thing? To state my frustration clearly, I am tired of being told about people who told him to hate his neighbor. Who told him that? To be even more clear, we know what he is doing here. He is a talented politician who is running as a “faith-forward” candidate while condemning conservatives for running as “faith-forward” candidates, and he condemns evangelical Christians for attempting to influence politics while he seeks to establish his own religious liberalism as law. Talarico wants to divide voters just as much as Donald Trump, but on different grounds and along different lines.

What is David French really telling us here? Honestly, there was nothing new about James Talarico in French’s column. What’s new is the public intensity of David French’s dismissal of conservative Christians as sold-out on the issue of character, combined with his admiration of a liberal candidate like James Talarico. I don’t think his argument will convince many evangelicals. He predicts that if Ken Paxton wins the Republican primary, evangelical Texans will still vote for him rather than Talarico.

I think he is right about that, and it’s because most evangelical Christians understand that moral character includes taking responsibility for the ideologies at stake and the policies that would result from your vote. Politics in a fallen world is messy and getting messier. This is no time for triumphalism in Christian political life. On the other hand, it’s certainly no time for deception and surrender, which is exactly what the “Talarico moment” would represent.