The Patriot Post® · James Talarico: 'A Christian Who Hates Christianity'

By Joshua Arnold

The enforced inactivity of the COVID lockdown era generated many hot takes, but chances are good that your hottest takes were less controversial than those dreamt up by Texas Rep. James Talarico (D). In a podcast published on March 4, 2021, Talarico told the host, “I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity.” The deliberately provocative statement has now made news because Talarico is asking the citizens of Texas to entrust him with a higher office.

First Question

The most immediate question provoked by this statement is this: why does Talarico hate Christianity? In the immediate context, Talarico does not answer that question. Perhaps he thought the answer was so obvious that it needed no explanation.

The religious context of the statement should have demanded an explanation. Talarico was speaking on the “Activist Theology” podcast, hosted by two progressive theologians, the trans-identifying Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza (later known as Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza) and Rev. Anna Golladay. Neither host asked him to explain why he hated Christianity.

Elsewhere in the podcast, which The Washington Stand reviewed in full, Talarico hinted at what might make one reason for hating Christianity. “As our country becomes more secular,” he began, before breaking off his sentence for a new one, “which — I understand that impulse, given the crimes that our Christian church has perpetrated against people.”

Talarico here is most likely referring to widely reported cases of sexual abuse by Christian teachers, including some that were systematically concealed for decades. These are indeed serious crimes that sully the name of Christ in un-Christian ways, sadly discouraging people from finding the only way of salvation.

However, while church crimes may be a compelling reason to hate Christianity for many Americans, it is less compelling within Talarico’s own worldview. “We follow a crucified criminal,” Talarico declared, “and that criminality, I feel like, was so embodied in the church that I grew up in.” In other words, he implies, not only was Jesus a criminal, but his followers should be criminals too.

At the most basic level, calling Jesus a criminal is so much historical hogwash. When the Roman governor Pilate assembled the Jewish leaders to deliver a verdict after Jesus’s trial, he announced, “After examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him” (Luke 23:14-16).

The tragic truth is that Jesus was executed as a criminal despite being completely innocent — a fact that is utterly necessary for him to provide an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. In other words, affirming that Jesus was not a criminal is a prerequisite for all Christian faith.

But perhaps Talarico was simply confused about the definition of “criminality.” To elaborate the point, he described how in the 1990s his boyhood church, Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian Church outside of Austin, “was going to get kicked out of the Presbyterian conference because of their stance on LGBTQIA+ rights.” Not that anyone used the “QIA+” back then, but that controversy does not entail any actual crime. Based on the context, Talarico seemed to use the word “criminality” to describe a general attitude of rebellion toward authority, or of toleration of sin — neither of which describes Jesus.

One hopes that the state legislator developed a better grasp of the definition of “crime” during the rest of his years in office. Here, the point is simply that a man who endorses his church’s celebration of sexual sin does not have a compelling reason to hate the church universal for the presence of other forms of sexual sin.

In the end, Talarico never explained why he “hates Christianity.” And, without knowing his past reasons, it is impossible to assess whether they still remain relevant.

Second Question

Talarico’s provocative comment also suggests a second question: if the man hates Christianity, why does he think of himself as a Christian? After all, Jesus loved his followers, telling them, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” (John 15:9). By contrast, “the world has hated them because they are not of the world” (John 17:14). Yet Talarico “always” identifies himself with a religion he professes to hate. What could possibly explain this?

This is not an exercise in mockery. Under the right circumstances, perhaps genuine and even mature Christians could make such a statement. Paul lays bare his inward turmoil in Romans 7, and Peter confesses his desperation for the truth after Jesus pronounces a “hard saying” (John 6:60), “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

Talarico’s reasoning may sound similar to Peter’s at first blush, but it is utilitarian to the core. As much as he hates Christianity, “I always get drawn back into it because nowhere else — in no other political philosophy, in no other economic theory — do I find anything as truly radical or revolutionary as the teachings of that barefoot rabbi.”

Jesus’s teachings may “look a lot like, you know, the teachings of the Buddha and from other great mystical traditions,” Talarico suggested, “but I can’t find anything — wherever I look — that really is quite the same inversion of values that I think we need.”

Talarico therefore turns to Jesus not for words of life and truth, but for words of revolution and subversion. Talarico judges his religion by his political agenda, and he simply has not found a religion better suited to his purposes than Christianity. “I always wanted to be a pastor,” he said. “That was kind of my original dream. Obviously, I missed the mark and became a politician, which is, like, just close to pastor.”

Is politician really that similar to being a pastor? Only if, like Dr. Jim Rigby of St. Andrews Presbyterian, one sees Christianity as politics by other means. (In the podcast, Talarico praised his pastor, Dr. Rigby, as the instigator of his “mother’s radicalization” who “is proudly part of the Christian anarchist tradition.”

The implication is that, if he found a religion better suited to his progressivism, Talarico would soon shed his hated Christianity. But that is unlikely to happen in an American context. For one thing, “Christianity in particular can be powerful … in this country … because so many of our political opponents share that tradition.” In other words, Christianity’s utility increases for radicals when the culture largely accepts Christianity.

Ironically, Talarico laments that the Left is worse at communicating its ideas in religious terms. “That’s something that we especially on the Left have to do a better job of. We have ceded moral language to the Right for the past — what, 40, 50 years?” he said. “And that is because they [conservatives] recognize that people can’t ‘live on bread alone’ [Luke 4:4]. We on the Left always try to meet people’s material needs only … but people also need meaning, and they need purpose. … So, I’ve tried my best to kind of bridge that gap as much as I can.”

Talarico deserves credit for this self-reflection, but he misses the true power of Christianity. People do not find added meaning and purpose by appending religious trappings to a pre-determined political agenda. They submit first and finally to Jesus Christ and his word as revealed in Scripture. By the power of the Holy Spirit, that word unravels our sinful dispositions and transforms us into the image of Jesus himself. This — not some temporary social agenda — is where the truly revolutionary power of Christianity must be found.

The gospel of Jesus Christ undermines and outlasts all earthly agendas by preparing a people with hope and holiness for another age. It establishes its own moral law; it is not simply a thematic platform for continual revolution. In many cases, the conservative Christians Talarico wishes to mimic in mirror-image are acting out of theological convictions far deeper than any political allegiance.

Unfortunately, Talarico seems to contort Scripture to his own political worldview, rather than submitting to its transformative teaching. “It’s very strange every time I think about it that the most popular figure in our country, particularly on the conservative right, is this socialist anarchist from ancient Palestine,” Talarico declared.

It takes some liberal use of white-out to reinterpret Jesus as an anarchist. No anarchist would say, “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” (Matthew 22:21). No anarchist would pay a tax he did not owe merely to not “give offense” (Matthew 17:25-27). No anarchist would warn, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law” (Matthew 5:17), and then reinterpret the law more strictly than any previous teacher (Matthew 5:21-48). Only a delusional anarchist would claim, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). Certainly, the modern type of anarchist seeking violent revolution would never say, “Put your sword back into its place” (Matthew 26:52).

Likewise, Jesus can hardly be described as a socialist. While he often endorses generosity and hospitality, Jesus never affirms government redistribution of wealth. Jesus affirms private property by reaffirming the commandment, “do not steal” (Mark 19:19). While socialists are often obsessed with material goods and their just distribution, Jesus taught his followers, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

Finally, Talarico’s attempt to erase Jesus’s Jewish lineage is too tired and pedantic to merit rebuttal.

Conclusion

The outcome of Talarico’s dilemma is that he is trying to sell a version of Christianity too troubled to be winsome. If Talarico-style Christians hate their own religion, why would anyone want to become a Talarico-style Christian? No non-Christian would want to embrace this brand. If they already shared Talarico’s progressivism, they could simply keep that without adding a religion they loathed.

It seems, then, that Talarico’s target audience is conservative Christians, whom he hopes to convert to his liberal, self-hating version. But why would that have any better hope of success? Talarico admitted in the podcast, “My imagination is also just limited by my own background and identity. My whiteness, my masculinity — all those things limit my imagination.” He also expressed doubt “about whether electoral politics” is “up to the task, especially in a time of climate change,” because “we’re running out of time to change our moral foundations.” Who would be convinced by this anxious, self-flagellating brand of Christianity?

On one level, Talarico seems to understand that he is playing a dangerous game. “Some of our politicians have become almost Messianic,” he warned, alluding to cult followings that attach themselves to politicians as to a religious leader. And, “as we become more secular, we lose that [religious] place in those communities to ask these big questions.” Overall, he said, “you’re always going to be disappointed when you” make politics into a spiritual mission “because … you’re putting too much weight on electoral politics, to do something it is not designed to do.”

But Talarico’s own Christianity seems overly contingent on political utility, which never ends well. He should heed his own advice, not put politics in the place of religion, and accept the words of Scripture on their own terms, instead of enlisting them to serve an ideology.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

This article originally appeared here.