Since winning the Texas Democratic Senate primary earlier this month, James Talarico has come under a lot of fire from Republicans. That’s not surprising, he’s their political opponent after all. But what makes this situation unique is that the focus of many of the critiques has been on his Christian faith. The “wolf in sheep’s clothing” epithet has been bandied about in response to some things Talarico has said over the years.
Adding to the controversy was David French’s recent column about Talarico, which has triggered responses from the sort of people that are usually triggered by David French. It will come as no surprise that I largely agreed with French’s take, but I want to engage honestly with the criticisms of Talarico’s theology.
I read a few critiques from the right. Some, like this one, make repeated claims about Talarico’s false doctrines, but the only examples given are his support of abortion rights (which is not a doctrinal issue) and his statement that “God is non-binary” (which is a politically charged way of saying what orthodox theology has long held - that God doesn’t fit into narrow categories like gender). The most substantive argument that I found was this article at National Review, which I think makes a valid point that can be applied to partisan Christians on both sides of the aisle (emphasis mine):
James Talarico’s God not only supports abortion — isn’t that the true meaning of the Incarnation, after all? — he also wants Texans to house abortion clinics in federal buildings. James Talarico’s God defers to “modern science,” and knows exactly how many sexes there are. (The answer, apparently, is six.) Does God ever make any demands of Talarico that might put him crosswise of his activist base, or are the heavens secretly ruled by choirs of genderqueer angels?
As my pastor likes to say (paraphrasing): if your God has all the same beliefs you do, then your God is made in your image, not the other way around.
This is a fair criticism of Christian politicians like Talarico, and one that I have made numerous times of outspokenly Christian Republicans whose God doesn’t seem bothered by their party’s treatment of immigrants or those on the opposite side of the culture war. As I have also said, when your politics and your faith are too closely intertwined, you risk corrupting both. I’m also not a fan of Talarico’s tendency to weave political arguments into his sermons.
So yes, I think there are fair critiques to be made about Talarico’s flexible theology. To be honest, though, while he’s prone to some cringe-worthy mental gymnastics to apply certain scriptures in support of certain progressive ideas, these are generally not core issues of Christian orthodoxy. The main claim of heresy that I think may be warranted is that he has a tendency to suggest an equivalence between religions in their ability to point people to God. I say “suggest” because he mainly focuses on the idea that other religions have wisdom and insights that we can learn from, which I agree with. But he has said things that reasonable listeners could interpret as a denial of John 14:6 (“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”).
If you want to call that heresy, fine. And if you want to say that this belief is disqualifying in a Christian pastor, I won’t argue with you. Orthodoxy (correct belief) is an important criterion in a pastor.
But I’m not voting for Talarico to be my pastor.
That sounds familiar. I recall a lot of Christians making that same statement justifying their support for Donald Trump despite his myriad moral failings. But these are not the same point. The criticism of Donald Trump’s lack of fitness for office was not based on his theological beliefs, but his lack of character. The biblical argument against Trump was never about whether he was a true Christian, but whether Christians could support a man who routinely violates nearly every moral command of Jesus.
The critiques of Talarico are not about his character, but about his theology and policy positions. The policy disagreements are fair enough, after all, that’s what politics is mostly about. But the focus on his unorthodox beliefs is largely irrelevant to the position he seeks. “I’m not voting for him to be my pastor” is a fair excuse because theological beliefs are a key qualification for being a pastor, not for being a senator. Character, on the other hand, ought to be a key qualification for any position of leadership or authority. That’s why I never found the “I’m not voting for him to be my pastor” a compelling argument when applied to Trump. It suggests that pastor is the only role where character matters, which is obviously not the case.
But how can I, as a Christian, support a Christian politician who has said things that mis-represent the Bible and, in at least one case, a direct quote of Jesus? Doesn’t that make him a false teacher, which the Bible warns us about?
In the literal sense of teaching something false, yes, if he denies Jesus as the way to be saved. But if we’re going to disqualify politicians on the basis of theological purity, we’re going to run out of politicians very quickly. And the words of Jesus that Talarico does affirm clearly and often - what Jesus himself called the greatest commandment in Matthew 22:36-40 - happen to be what I believe are most relevant to the job he’s running for.
Ultimately the argument over Talarico is an argument that exists in Protestantism overall: the difference between progressive, mainline denominations and evangelicals. The Dispatch had an excellent article contrasting these traditions and summarized them as follows:
From the evangelical perspective, liberal Protestants are heretics because they don’t seem to care about individual justification, which for evangelicals is the sine qua non of being a Christian.
And for liberal Protestants, modern evangelicalism is a dangerous distortion of the faith because it stands in the way of the central ethic that they believe is the defining feature of Christianity: love, which they tend to define in social terms that are compatible with pluralism, justice, and equity. If Jesus came primarily to lift up the poor and marginalized—and if a majority of American evangelicals support a political ideology that according to liberal Protestants oppresses the poor and marginalized—evangelicals are opposed to Jesus.
I think both sides have a point. Doctrine does matter, and progressive denominations have a tendency to jettison or de-emphasize biblical teachings that don’t accord with their cultural posture and values. On the other hand, I think many conservative denominations (including my own) are susceptible to placing a higher value on being right than good.
I recently read the book Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around: How the Black Church’s Public Witness Leads Us out of the Culture War by Justin Giboney of the AND Campaign. He points out how the Black church in America has managed to remain theologically independent of the extremes of both the progressive and conservative churches. They’ve managed to align with the left’s focus on racial justice and equality, without watering down their doctrine to accommodate everything else the left values.
The Black church shows that we don’t have to choose which end of the Christian spectrum gets more things right. We can learn from both.
In his article about Talarico, French wrote:
For too long we’ve evaluated Christians in politics primarily through their policy positions. Are you pro-life or pro-choice? Do you support same-sex marriage? What’s your position on immigration enforcement? Yet this is exactly backward.
If you were to crack open Scripture today and start reading, one of the first things you should notice is that the Bible contains remarkably few political mandates. You can read it from cover to cover and not know the definitive biblical tax rate, welfare program or foreign policy.
But the next thing you’ll notice is that there is an immense amount of guidance describing how Christians should behave. Indeed, in the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul says that the fruit of the spirit is a set of virtues — “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
We don’t elect our representatives to be theologians, but public servants. Talarico may not perfectly represent all of the doctrines of orthodox Christianity, but the parts of Christianity that he does emphasize are also those that matter most in our politicians. As Talarico said in his primary election victory speech:
We’re not just trying to win an election. We are trying to fundamentally change our politics. My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas. And he told me at an early age that we follow a barefoot rabbi who gave us two commandments: love God and love neighbor. My faith teaches me to love my neighbor as myself. Not just my neighbor who looks like me. Not just my neighbor who prays like me. Not just my neighbor who votes like me. I am called to love all of my neighbors the way I love myself.
Whatever else Talarico may believe, this is the message I want to be hearing from Christian politicians, and why I plan to vote for him in November.