When Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Texas last December, some political observers had an immediate reaction: celebration. Not because the race suddenly became competitive, but because it promised entertainment.
Then came the second reaction — curiosity about the other major Democrat in the race, Austin-area state legislator James Talarico.
Crockett’s reputation as a media favorite with a flair for theatrics was already well known. But if Democrats were quietly preparing a backup plan — someone they hoped might actually appeal to Texans outside the Austin–Brooklyn ideological corridor — Talarico seemed like the obvious choice. Young. Telegenic. Seminary student. Fluent in the language of faith.
In other words, exactly the kind of candidate national Democrats might hope could soften the party’s image in a state where religion still matters.
There was just one small problem.
The more one actually listens to Talarico talk about Christianity, the clearer it becomes that his version of the faith looks suspiciously like a progressive policy platform with a cross taped on top of it.
The Progressive Pulpit
Before diving into his record, many voters knew Talarico mainly for a headline-grabbing moment in the Texas House when he declared that “God is nonbinary.” That statement alone suggested his theological approach might not align perfectly with the average churchgoing Texan.
Still, curiosity demanded further research.
A quick trip to YouTube produced a 2023 sermon in which Talarico warned about the dangers of “Christian Nationalism” under the subtitle “God Is Not a Christian.” During the talk he railed against the founding of Christian schools, labeled the Roman emperor Constantine the Great the “first Christian nationalist,” and warned ominously that “We are closer than we think to a Christian theocracy.”
For Texans accustomed to political candidates speaking respectfully about their faith communities, this performance raised a fairly obvious question:
Who exactly is the target audience here?
The speech sounded less like a message crafted for a statewide electorate and more like something designed to get applause in an Austin graduate seminar. Texans — whether Catholic, Baptist, Evangelical, or otherwise — generally know their own religious traditions well enough to recognize when someone is trying to sell them a brand-new one.
And that is precisely the difficulty with Talarico’s political pitch.
When Theology Meets Twitter
After Talarico won the Democratic primary, national Democrats briefly celebrated their rising star. But politics in the digital age has a funny way of resurrecting old material.
Soon enough, past tweets and videos began circulating again.
One resurfaced post read:
“White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus [of racism]. But we spread it wherever we go — through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don’t have to be showing symptoms — like a white hood or a Confederate flag — to be contagious.”
For voters already skeptical of progressive academic jargon, the analogy landed somewhere between preachy and absurd.
Then there was Talarico’s appearance on the The Joe Rogan Experience, where he offered a novel interpretation of the biblical story of the Annunciation involving abortion rights.
“Before God comes over Mary, and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary’s consent,” he said. “So to me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create.”
Biblical scholars might debate many things, but turning the Incarnation into a pro-choice talking point is not typically among them.
And the theological improvisation didn’t stop there.
At another sermon, Talarico attempted a theological bridge between abortion politics and gender ideology, declaring:
“Our trans community needs abortion care too.”
One suspects many congregants were still trying to diagram that sentence long after the service ended.
The Gospel of Thomas…Sort Of
Perhaps the most revealing moment came when Talarico cited the so-called Gospel of Thomas in a sermon to support a progressive point.
He described it as a text “later omitted from the Bible by church officials.”
That framing sounds dramatic — shadowy church authorities suppressing inconvenient truths — but it’s historically misleading.
The Gospel of Thomas is a second-century collection of mystical sayings associated with a Gnostic sect. It was never part of the canonical New Testament, nor widely recognized as authoritative by early Christians. The four canonical Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — had already been accepted across Christendom by the mid-second century.
In other words, Thomas wasn’t secretly removed from the Bible. It simply wasn’t in it to begin with.
For a seminarian, that distinction is not exactly obscure trivia.
Which raises an uncomfortable possibility: either Talarico doesn’t know the difference, or he hopes his audience doesn’t.
Neither option inspires confidence in a would-be moral guide.
Faith as a Political Accessory
The deeper issue isn’t one isolated theological slip. It’s the pattern.
Every time Talarico invokes Christianity publicly, the result seems to align perfectly with whatever progressive policy debate happens to be trending that week.
Strangely absent are the parts of Christianity that might create friction with progressive politics — concepts like moral limits, personal responsibility, or the idea that divine authority exists outside modern activism.
It’s almost as if the Almighty conveniently shares every position already popular among left-leaning Twitter users.
One might reasonably wonder whether this theology is flowing from faith… or from polling data.
The “Decent vs. Indecent” Argument
Over the weekend, David French of The New York Times leapt to Talarico’s defense, arguing:
“If the primary American divide is between right and left then Talarico isn’t that interesting. There’s a long history of progressive religious activism in the United States just as there is a long history of conservative religious activism. Yet if the primary American divide is between decent and indecent then the equation changes. Talarico shines.”
Perhaps.
But that argument rests on the assumption that Talarico’s brand of religious politics reflects moral seriousness rather than political convenience.
That assumption is debatable.
Speaking as many Christians might, there is nothing particularly impressive about a theology that always lands exactly where modern progressive activism already happens to stand.
Christianity, after all, is not merely a set of pleasant social attitudes. It is a moral framework that places demands on believers — sometimes uncomfortable ones.
When faith never contradicts one’s political tribe, the odds increase that something besides faith is in charge.
A Familiar Political Pattern
Ironically, Talarico’s approach may resemble the political behavior he criticizes.
Politicians of all stripes sometimes bend religious language to justify their preferred policies. But voters generally notice when the tailoring becomes too obvious.
In Texas especially, religious voters tend to recognize the difference between a politician guided by faith and a politician using faith as a rhetorical prop.
The former may earn respect even from opponents.
The latter tends to produce eye-rolling.
And that, ultimately, is the challenge facing James Talarico’s Senate campaign.
Democrats may hope they have discovered a candidate who can translate progressive politics into the language of Texas Christianity.
But if the early evidence is any indication, many Texans will conclude that the translation isn’t convincing.
After all, Christianity has survived two thousand years of theological debate. It is unlikely to be reinvented successfully during a campaign season.
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