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Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico contorts Scripture to support abortion, gender ideology, and a racialised view of sin that departs sharply from orthodox Christianity.

Get ready to hear a lot more about Texas State Rep. James Talarico (D), the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Texas. After his primary victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) this week, the media machine began churning up and spitting out the upstart candidate’s past statements. They did not have to look far.

It comes as no surprise that a man described by his campaign website as “an eighth-generation Texan, former middle school teacher, and Presbyterian seminarian” would express his faith in his politics. What is surprising is the way Talarico contorts Scripture in support of some anti-biblical notions. Here are just three of Talarico’s past remarks.

1. Abortion

On 18 July 2025, Talarico appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast, where he attempted to present a biblical case for abortion:

“Before God comes over Mary, and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary’s consent, which is remarkable. I mean, go back and read this in Luke. I mean, the angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do. And she says, ‘If it is God’s will, let it be done. Let it be, let it happen.’ So to me that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create. Creation is one of the most sacred acts that we engage in as human beings. But that has to be done with consent. It has to be done with freedom.”

That would indeed be remarkable — if it were remotely plausible. On Talarico’s interpretation of Luke 1, God’s entire plan of redemption through Jesus Christ depended upon a teenage peasant girl consenting to an unwed pregnancy. If Mary had refused, would the spurned deity have begged his favour from a different girl? Had he already tried and been rejected before? More to the point, what if Mary only initially agreed because of the angel’s intimidating presence, but then later tried to abort the unborn baby Jesus? How would anyone then be saved?

It seems that Talarico was counting on the sad reality that very few listeners would “go back and read this in Luke.” For those who did so, they would find that the angel was not asking Mary for permission but rather telling her what would happen. “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus” (Luke 1:31).

Even if, for the sake of argument, we granted Talarico that this passage in Luke endorsed consent for procreative activity — a concept the Bible usually describes with the word “marriage” — it would still not justify abortion. When a child is conceived non-consensually, it is not the unborn child’s fault, and the unborn child should not receive a death sentence for the actions of another.

Talarico’s argument is particularly ironic because Luke 1 is often regarded as one of the most pro-life chapters in the Bible. Only a few verses later, a pregnant Mary visits her pregnant cousin Elizabeth, “And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb” (Luke 1:41). That is, an unborn John the Baptist was already beginning his prophetic mission of heralding the unborn Jesus.

“This is not an issue that we have to kind of try to read between the lines,” argued Dr. David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview, on “Washington Watch.” “We have God’s revealed word. We have Psalm 139 that tells us God is actively at work in the development of every single human being. We have Jeremiah chapter one, where it says, God personally knew Jeremiah while he was in the womb. We have Luke chapter one, the story of the unborn John the Baptist, leaping for joy when he’s in the presence of the unborn Jesus.”

2. Gender

On 21 October 2021, Talarico spoke against a girls’ sports bill (HB 25) before the Texas legislature:

“The worst part, for me, was the number of Christians who used Scripture to justify hurting children. Even on the floor today, a member tried to justify a hateful amendment in the name of God’s law. So let’s talk about that. The first two lines of the Bible, the first two lines in Genesis, use two different Hebrew words to describe God. One is the masculine Hebrew noun for divinity. The second is the feminine Hebrew noun for spirit. God is both masculine and feminine and everything in-between. God is non-binary.”

As a self-described seminary student, Talarico should know better than to make such an argument. One of the first realisations English speakers encounter when studying Hebrew or Greek (or many other languages, such as Spanish) is that, in most languages, all nouns have a grammatical gender — even inanimate ones, like the term for wind/breath. In Greek, the word for “spirit” (pneuma) is neuter (neither masculine nor feminine).

“The fact that Hebrew nouns have grammatical gender does not mean the Bible is teaching that God is male, female, or non-binary,” Closson told The Washington Stand (TWS). “That is reading modern gender ideology back into an ancient text where it simply does not belong.”

The upshot is that no one can make an argument for what the Bible is trying to teach based upon a grammatical feature of the language that pre-existed the writing of Scripture. Those grammatical rules were created by man and are not inspired by God.

However, when the inspired authors break grammatical rules to make a theological point, then we should take notice (especially in the writings of John, who loves to do this). In John 16:13-14, Jesus promises to send “the Spirit” (a Greek neuter noun), but then twice refers back to this neuter noun with a masculine pronoun. Conclusion: the Spirit of God is a “he.”

“Historically, Christians have affirmed that God is spirit and transcends human biological sex. At the same time, Scripture consistently reveals God using masculine language — Father, King, Lord — and Jesus Himself taught His followers to pray, ‘Our Father in heaven.’ Those categories come from divine revelation, not from contemporary cultural debates,” Closson continued.

On the question of human gender, however, we need not delve into arcane debates about the significance of a word’s grammar when God has provided a much clearer answer. “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). God created us male and female, and not even our most extreme attempts can rewrite his design.

“That distinction is part of the goodness of creation, not something to be erased,” said Closson. “So, when politicians claim that Scripture teaches God is ‘non-binary,’ they are not interpreting the Bible; they are imposing modern ideological categories onto it.”

3. Racism

On 8 May 2020, before George Floyd’s death catalysed the BLM riots of that summer, Talarico responded to the unjust killing of another black man, Ahmaud Arbery, in a series of tweets.

“#AhmaudArbery is the latest American killed by the virus of racism. The virus kills our black neighbours if they’re jogging, playing music, sitting in church, selling CDs, or carrying a bag of Skittles,” he wrote.

In a follow-up tweet, he added, “White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we spread it wherever we go — through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don’t have to be showing symptoms — like a white hood or a Confederate flag — to be contagious.”

The issue here is not in condemning racism, assuming that it can be systemic, or even calling it a “virus” (a notably strong term during the disastrous COVID-19 lockdowns). Rather, the issue lies in Talarico’s contention that white people spread the virus of racism even if they aren’t “showing symptoms,” simply because they are white. A second issue is Talarico’s implicit assumption that people with other skin colours are not similarly guilty of unintentional racism.

Taken together, Talarico’s quotes set forth the racist view of human nature based in critical race theory, that people are not inherently guilty before God because of their descent from Adam, but some people are inherently guilty of racism because of their skin colour.

Against this, Scripture teaches that all people were created like Adam in God’s image for the purpose of spreading His glory through the whole earth, but like Adam “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Therefore, all people need the redemption found only in Christ, who makes His people into a new creation, not based on race or any human factor. “For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:27-28).

Paul says there are no racial distinctions in Christ. Talarico says white people carry a virus of racism.

Just a Democrat?

On multiple points, there is a wide discrepancy between what Christians have long believed and what Rep. Talarico claims the Bible teaches. One possibility is that the whole history of the church got it wrong; the other possibility is that Talarico is the one who has strayed.

“In 1923, J. Gresham Machen wrote his well-known book ‘Christianity and Liberalism’,” said Closson. “And in that book, he explained that theological liberalism is not just a different interpretation of Christianity, but it’s a different religion altogether. … What we’re seeing from the state representative is literally straight from the playbook of theological liberalism.”

While Talarico’s views differ widely from orthodox Christianity, they do not differ from the orthodoxy of the Democratic Party. This suggests the unfortunate conclusion that Talarico may have shaped his religious beliefs to fit his politics.

Perhaps this inference is invalid. Perhaps there are points on which Talarico’s Christian convictions differ from the positions held by the Democratic Party, or perhaps there are points on which Talarico would or has opposed fellow Democrats.

The Washington Stand contacted Talarico’s campaign to inquire whether his Christianity differs from the Democratic Party on any point, but by publishing time, the campaign had not responded.

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Republished with thanks to The Washington Stand. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.