Now that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has roundly defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican runoff primary for Cornyn’s U.S. Senate seat (Paxton won by 25 percentage points), the real battle begins.

Paxton’s opponent on the Democrat Party ticket is James Talarico, a former teacher and member of the Texas House of Representatives who holds a master of divinity from the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Right on cue, leftists who ordinarily despise Republicans and Christians are singing the praises of Cornyn and Talarico.

We shouldn’t be surprised. Democrats wax rhapsodic about Republicans when they defect to the Democrat Party, lose an election or die. As for Talarico, he is the Left’s idea of a perfect Christian: one who assures them that their every political and personal impulse is A-OK with the Big Guy Upstairs.

Politicians routinely ignore the extent to which their religious faith (such as it is) is inconsistent with their personal behavior or their policy prescriptions. But Talarico is running around the country giving interviews in which he declares his views on government policy to be the truly “Christian” ones.

On Joe Rogan’s podcast, for example, Talarico objected to posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms, saying, “I think my concern is for the Muslim kid and the Jewish kid, the Hindu kid, the atheist kid who’s sitting in a classroom who now has a poster on the wall forced by the government that says, you know, your religion is inferior or you’re not welcome here.”

We’ll leave aside the question about why Jewish students would be offended by the Torah; Talarico is misstating the purpose of posting the Ten Commandments, using the hypothetical feelings of imaginary children. The Ten Commandments are not posted to shame nonbelievers; they are posted to affirm that the United States was founded upon Judeo-Christian principles, which it was, and that those principles — including the Ten Commandments — are a vital part of our history and culture. It is precisely those principles that enable a “Muslim kid” or “Hindu kid” to be respected and safe here — unlike a Christian kid or a Hindu kid in a Muslim nation.

Talarico has also stated that neither the Bible nor Jesus say anything about abortion. He doesn’t mention the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote that God said of him, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). Or what about, “Thou shalt not kill”? (There are those pesky Ten Commandments again.) Neither of those statements were Christ’s, but He was an observant Jew who followed the Torah, and He did say, “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).

Talarico claims that the only people Christ condemned were hypocritical religious leaders. He conveniently ignores Christ’s admonitions against fornication and adultery (Matthew 5:27-30), as well as His warnings that if someone leads others into sin, “It would be better if a millstone were hung about his neck and he were drowned in the sea” (Matthew 18:6).

There are plenty more, and they’re easy to find — and to refute.

What’s vital to understand is that Paxton must start by challenging Talarico’s deeply flawed biblical exegesis. This is perhaps counter to the advice of the typical campaign consultant, which is to steer clear of attacking an opponent’s religious views. But we’re no longer in the realm of typical political campaigns. Talarico’s butchered Christianity is his campaign. If Paxton avoids addressing Talarico’s biblical views, he’ll lose, and badly.

Talarico is holding himself out as a deep thinker and a moderate Democrat, deliberately clothing himself in misstated teachings of Jesus Christ in such a way as to render his policy preferences impervious to political attacks because they are — by his lights — grounded in Christian theology. To leave those distorted interpretations unaddressed is to play by Talarico’s rules and concede territory with constituents that Paxton cannot afford to lose. There are plenty of people — even in Texas — too ill-informed or too swayed by appeals to emotion, sympathy and “compassion” to question Talarico’s theological claims.

In Paxton’s favor, this is a good time to challenge the Left’s exploitation of words like “compassion” (under the guise of religion or anything else), as the public is finally waking up to the ways they’ve been manipulated by it. Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt has garnered enormous support in his campaign for mayor of Los Angeles by exposing the destruction wrought in that city by policies proclaimed to be “compassionate.” And just two weeks ago, Canadian professor, author and popular X personality Gad Saad released his book “Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind,” which has already rocketed to the top of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly and Audible bestseller lists. That suggests the purchasing public already recognizes the truth of what Saad has written. (Saad is moving to the United States to take a faculty position at the University of Mississippi. Hotty Toddy!)

A groundswell of opposition to weaponized compassion is happening around the world as well. In England, the brand-new political party Restore Britain, launched by Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe, is making waves with its stated positions to deport illegal migrants, reject the Islamification of Great Britain and strengthen traditional British culture. In a recent Norfolk county council election, candidates sponsored by Restore Britain swept all nine available seats. A parliamentary by-election is coming up next month in the UK constituency of Makerfield. Conventional wisdom says that Restore Britain candidate Rebecca Shepherd can’t win. But they said that about Norfolk.

Paxton doesn’t have to attempt to be holier than thou or a theological expert to challenge Talarico’s misstatements about Jesus Christ and Christianity. In fact, the best approach would be for Paxton to say something like, “I’m not standing here telling you that I’m a man without flaws. The Lord knows better than anyone my shortcomings. But neither will I stand before the people of Texas and tell them that Jesus had nothing to say about killing babies in the womb, or that He would agree that a man can become a woman or vice versa, or that He would say it’s ‘love’ to chemically castrate and surgically mutilate children who are suffering from various emotional and psychological disorders and are far too young to fully comprehend the future implications of what’s being done to them. Or that allowing hundreds and thousands of criminals to pour into America from other countries is ‘Christian.’ If James Talarico  cannot be trusted to tell you the truth about what the Bible says, he cannot be trusted to tell you the truth about the policies he supports. But I will tell you that. And here’s what they are …”

At that point, Paxton will not only have the public’s attention about Talarico’s political positions; he will have undermined the moral authority Talarico is confecting to prevent any legitimate scrutiny of those positions.

Mr. Paxton, have at it.

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