A Texas member of the state House of Representatives from a liberal district in Austin catapulted to national fame last week. Why? He beat outspoken Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary as a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
After this victory, James Talarico, said, “We are not just trying to win an election. We are trying to fundamentally change our politics. And it’s working.”
What makes this politician of interest is that in the name of religion, he makes a lot of radical claims. He refers to the Bible as if it supports things that it clearly opposes. One might ask, “What translation is he reading?”
Not that he’s completely unique in this sense. There are liberal denominations, including the one he belongs to – the Presbyterian Church (USA) – that have largely abandoned much of the plain reading of Scripture. Talarico is working toward a Master of Divinity degree at the denomination’s Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Because of his expressed religiosity, he is perceived as possibly winning over professing Christians in the Lone Star State.
But is he really just “the left’s Trojan horse,” to use a phrase from Peter Cordi? Writing in the Washington Examiner, Cordi notes, “State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the Texas Senate race, was sold to voters as an ‘electable’ moderate. Now that his old posts are resurfacing, people are starting to see how extreme his views really are.”
- Talarico promotes open borders. But does he lock his own doors? If so, what hypocrisy.
- He promotes transgender rights and even wants to make sure transgenders can have access to abortion. But we all know biological men cannot get pregnant.
The Bible notes that the Creator has made us in His image, male and female. Throughout the Scriptures, God uses “He,” “Him,” and “His” in His self-revelation. But He’s supposedly some “nonbinary” entity.
Talarico’s views on life and abortion are also quite radical. He said, “The Virgin Mary consenting to the angel Gabriel’s message suggests that the Bible is pro-choice, and that a woman’s consent is an inextricable part of the creation process.”
In 2022, he wrote a letter to President Biden, pleading the cause of abortion. He complained that “an anti-choice minority has taken advantage of the undemocratic loopholes in our political system to impose their radical program on our country. This minority is threatening our most basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
So, in other words, we need to defend the right to life – by destroying life? Abortion is the deliberate taking of a human life in utero.
And on it goes.
Alex McFarland, a prolific author, preacher, and youth specialist, comments, “Talarico’s faith-based bid to flip Texas to the Democratic Party is nothing more than a plot to persuade Texas Christians to give him a vote. The great state of Texas is tragically becoming less Christian by the day, and ultimate opportunist Talarico is capitalizing on this dip in faith by muddying the water and ultimately creating a brand new religion based on this ‘progressive’ Christ. … Talarico’s version is not the real Jesus.”
The founders of America believed in natural law, which the Creator has impressed upon His creation. Sir William Blackstone, one of the sources quoted by the Founding Fathers and by the Supreme Court throughout the ages, wrote about “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” – a phrase found in the Declaration of Independence, whose 250th birthday we celebrate this year.
Blackstone penned: “Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation [‘the holy scriptures’], depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.”
The founders expected us to be self-governed through religious influence (on a voluntary basis). John Adams famously declared, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
But it would seem to me that politicians like Talarico are using religious words to mask a very secular agenda. An undermined Bible is just as meaningless as no Bible. Yet our nation was built on the Bible.
As President Jackson said, the Bible is “the rock upon which our republic rests.”
When President Lincoln received a copy of the Scriptures, he remarked, “All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong.”
Who knew we would have to wait for 21 centuries to find out what the Bible really means after all?
If the likes of Texas State Rep. James Talarico had their way, we would have no clue what is right and what is wrong – even if reading the same book.
