Religious-right leaders have been spent decades trying to get more Christians engaged in politics. So are they excited about a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate who is a Christian and a seminarian who speaks fluently about how his faith informs his politics? Hell no.
From the moment that Texas state legislator and former public school teacher James Talarico won the March 3 Democratic primary—and even before—right-wing Christian nationalists have been attacking Talarico. It’s not hard to understand why. Talarico is an effective speaker who is comfortable talking about his faith while promoting LGBTQ equality and reproductive choice and challenging his Republican colleagues. When Talarico appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast last summer, the host who endorsed Trump in 2024 encouraged him to run for president.
Polls show that Talarico is currently running neck-and-neck with either of the two Republicans who are battling each other in a runoff that will be held in May. That means he is drawing support from millions of Christian Democrats and Independents.
That is unacceptable to Christian-right leaders who have tried to make supporting Donald Trump and voting for Republicans an article of faith. To undermine Talarico’s appeal, they are attacking his faith as well as his politics.
In other words, the same people who are quick to cry “religious persecution” when their political goals or tactics are criticized have no problem denouncing the faith of a fellow Christian who disagrees with their political positions.
Indeed, they take it on themselves to decide who counts as a “real Christian” based on whether a person is aligned with their religious and political worldview. And they viciously smear anyone who isn’t part of the conservative wing of the Republican Party.
The attacks on Talarico are adding to the evidence that Christian nationalists’ religious bigotry and intolerance does not only extend to non-Christians.
Here are just some of the examples we’ve seen in the past month:
Brooks Potteiger, pastor of the church that Christian nationalist Doug Wilson planted in DC to take advantage of his relationship with Pete Hegseth and boost his influence among Christians in the Trump administration, and Joshua Haymes made news in March when they called Talarico’s theology demonic and deceitful. They said they hoped that God would “crucify him” in Christ—a metaphor for a spiritual overhaul. But Haynes added that if that wasn’t part of the plan God should “stop him by any means necessary.”
Wilson, whose vision for a Christian republic includes legal discrimination against non-Christians and liberal Christians, denounced Talarico as “a death angel from Texas,” explaining that “A death cult is any manner of life conducted outside Jesus Christ.”
One of the most Talarico-obsessed Christian-right figures is Gary Bauer, who has been pushing toxic right-wing politics since the days when he urged Ronald Reagan not to let any gay people serve on the first AIDS commission because it would insult conservative Christians. Bauer publishes a daily email newsletter that he has used to repeatedly go after Talarico.
In one of his diatribes, Bauer called Talarico the “poster boy” for “the concerted effort by the Democrat Party to steal the Gospel of Jesus to sell Marxism and moral depravity.” Bauer has called Talarico “far-left” and flat-out lied about Talarico’s position on border security, falsely claiming that he wants “open borders.” Bearing false witness, anyone?
There’s more.
Dominionist James Garlow’s Well Versed newsletter urged people to “beware” of the “heretical” Talarico. The Blaze’s far-right Steve Deace declared “James Talarico is going to be Legion” and called him “an object and a vessel of malevolence.” Anti-Islam author Michael Youssef denounced Talarico and progressive Christianity as “false gospels.”
Texas pastor Daniel Hayworth used the platform of the right-wing Human Events to call Talarico a wicked wolf in sheep’s clothing. Heyworth is married to the daughter of the notoriously corrupt GOP attorney general and is promoting his Senate candidacy.
Even Trump himself couldn’t resist getting in on the Talarico-bashing, charging on social media that Talarico was insulting Jesus. Talarico responded, “You want to know what insults Jesus? Kicking the sick off their healthcare while cutting taxes for billionaires. You know what insults Jesus? Deporting the stranger and separating babies from their mothers. You know what insults Jesus? Bombing innocent schoolchildren in Iran and sending our brave men and women off to die in another forever war.”
MAGA podcaster Eric Metaxas declared Talarico “diabolical” and a “fake Christian” during a conversation with right-wing author Megan Basham. Basham declared that Talarico is “not a Christian,” claiming that it wasn’t enough that Talarico affirms the historic Nicene Creed, saying “Satan could affirm the Nicene creed.” She claimed that Talarico is a “rank heretic” who has “antichrist views” and that “scripture commands us” not to treat him as a Christian brother. Metaxas and Masham bashed Christian journalists and publications that have treated Talarico and his Christian witness respectfully, going so far as to question their Christianity. “Any true Christian,” she claimed would denounce Talarico as a non-Christian heretic.
It is surely a disappointment to Metaxas and Basham that they don’t actually speak for all Christians. As polling suggests, Talarico’s message is resonating with plenty of Christians in Texas and elsewhere, including many who are tired of seeing their faith used to prop up Donald Trump and welcome a strong Christian critique of right-wing Christian nationalism.
David French, for example, wrote a New York Times op ed on Talarico’s appeal. Here’s an excerpt:
This miserable political moment won’t end when the left takes back the government from the right or if the right continues to beat the left. It will end when our politicians — especially Christian politicians — forsake cruelty for compassion and realize that we shall know Christians in politics not by their stridency and ideology, but by their integrity and love, including their love for, as Talarico put it, “all of our neighbors.”
That’s the significance of the Talarico moment — not the old news that a Christian can be progressive, but rather that Christian politicians can actually act like Christians. Kindness still has a place in the public square, even if it doesn’t always seem that way.
Among the Christian journalists whose openness to Talarico engrages Metaxas and Basham is Mike Cosper, a writer and producer who said on a Christianity Today podcast, “As evangelicals, there’s something good about seeing certain aspects of Christianity represented in the public square in the way that I think Talarico is doing it. I’m more encouraged by Talarico’s expression of Christianity in the public square than by a lot of what we’ve seen in MAGA world.”
