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James Talarico Is Preaching a Gospel of Pluralism

He’s not the only progressive doing it.

“What would Jesus do if he visited the United States Senate?”

It’s a question one Senate hopeful has repeatedly asked on the campaign trail. To anyone who’s followed the last 40 years of American politics, this merging of preaching and politics may not sound particularly novel. But the candidate’s answer—and his party affiliation—marks a surprising departure from the usual partisan scripts.

“I think he would tell the senators on the floor, ‘Depart from me,’” James Talarico has told audiences. “For I was hungry and you cut my food assistance. I was sick and you kicked me off Medicaid. I was a stranger and you deported me and my family.”

Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, is running on a compassionate, liberal Christianity rarely seen since the right gained a stranglehold on faith-forward politics decades ago. But in recent years, Republicans, previously the bastions of good old-fashioned, Focus on the Family traditionalism, have rolled over to the dark underbelly of their movement. Exit: modest family values. Enter: barstool conservatism.

In doing so, they’ve created an opening for Democrats who make their religious convictions central to their politics. And unlike the Moral Majority of years past, these liberal candidates are preaching a faith that’s inclusive, optimistic, and winning support on both sides of the aisle.

Entrenched though it’s been, the “God gap” between Democrats and Republicans is a relatively recent creation. The Republican Party platform from 1972 contains no references to God, and in 1976, evangelicals voted for the Sunday-school teachings of Jimmy Carter.

That all changed in the 1980s with Reagan’s embrace of Jerry Falwell, who urged his fellow evangelical pastors to bring politics to the pulpit and push their congregations toward conservative candidates. The conflation of Republican beliefs and Christian identity had officially begun, and after decades of work from the likes of Pat Robertson, James Dobson—culminating in eight years of President George W. Bush—there was no stopping the merger.

But just when the God gap had reached its peak, Trump slithered........

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