Talarico, With His Left Hand on the Bible

Calling Texas’s Democrat senatorial candidate James Talarico, even derisively, a “bible-banger” is a disservice to bible-bangers. 

Richard Kirk | March 10, 2026

Calling Texas’s Democrat senatorial candidate James Talarico, even derisively, a “bible-banger” is a disservice to bible-bangers. At least the latter take the book seriously, whereas Talarico uses it as a prop to further his far-left Democrat agenda. His Wikipedia page even lists “opposition to Christian Nationalism” first among his political positions -- before the legalization of cannabis, expansion of the Supreme Court, and a two-state Palestinian solution that vilifies Israel for “atrocities” and “war crimes” in Gaza.

These priorities were foreshadowed by his education, which started as a University of Texas government major followed by a Masters of Education at Harvard. Later, while serving in the Texas House of Representatives, he earned a Masters of Divinity degree from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, an institution associated with the Presbyterian Church USA. This “mainline” Protestant group has seen its membership drop from over four million in 1965 to likely under one million this year. It has achieved this “hospice” status, as the author of a recent First Things article notes, “by doing exactly what Talarico now proposes: subordinating the claims of Scripture to the moral intuitions of secular progressivism and calling the result ‘the gospel.’” Following Gavin Newsom’s lead vis-à-vis California, Talarico proposes to do for Texas and America what deconstructive theology has done for the PCUSA.

Talarico’s forays into theology are prime examples of Nietzsche’s atheistic critique, “The text has disappeared under the interpretation.” It takes breathtaking arrogance or ignorance to cite the annunciation to Mary found in Luke 1:26-38 as a scriptural basis for abortion. According to Reverend........

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