Texas Primary

soggy wrote:

I tried, couldn’t find exactly what you’re referring to. Please link. The trans issue is way overblown imo. Its billionaires paying so we have a conversation instead...

I tried, couldn’t find exactly what you’re referring to. Please link. 

The trans issue is way overblown imo. Its billionaires paying so we have a conversation instead of coming to our senses and raising there taxes.  Almost all of it can be tied back to false conspiracies (litter boxes in schools for example). 

truck wrote:

Do you have daughters that play sports or use public restrooms? 

Freddy99 wrote:

do you have designated male/female bathrooms in your house?

Kenny Banyan wrote:

That’s a ridiculous rebuttal. How stupid can someone be. 

truck wrote:

Do you have daughters that play sports or use public restrooms? 

soggy wrote:

There’s a campaign in Maine paid for by a billionaire so this conversation happens. There’s a couple trans athletes in Maine. it’s blown way out of proportion. If...

There’s a campaign in Maine paid for by a billionaire so this conversation happens. There’s a couple trans athletes in Maine. 

it’s blown way out of proportion. 
If I had daughters I’d be more worried about other men(like the one currently in office) then a trans person using there bathroom or competing in high school sports. 

Is it an issue? Yea on some level, is it what should determine who you vote for?  I don’t think so.

Kenny Banyan wrote:

You really are a screwball …….

JustMX wrote:

Isn't she still in the house?

soggy wrote:

I tried, couldn’t find exactly what you’re referring to. Please link. The trans issue is way overblown imo. Its billionaires paying so we have a conversation instead...

I tried, couldn’t find exactly what you’re referring to. Please link. 

The trans issue is way overblown imo. Its billionaires paying so we have a conversation instead of coming to our senses and raising there taxes.  Almost all of it can be tied back to false conspiracies (litter boxes in schools for example). 

truck wrote:

Do you have daughters that play sports or use public restrooms? 

soggy wrote:

There’s a campaign in Maine paid for by a billionaire so this conversation happens. There’s a couple trans athletes in Maine. it’s blown way out of proportion. If...

There’s a campaign in Maine paid for by a billionaire so this conversation happens. There’s a couple trans athletes in Maine. 

it’s blown way out of proportion. 
If I had daughters I’d be more worried about other men(like the one currently in office) then a trans person using there bathroom or competing in high school sports. 

Is it an issue? Yea on some level, is it what should determine who you vote for?  I don’t think so.

soggy wrote:

Can you elaborate ?

Typical retort of someone who knows the facts aren’t on there side. 

APLMAN99 wrote:

Very well written opinion piece on Talarico by David French. https://archive.ph/vJGolDAVID FRENCHJames Talarico Is a Christian X-RayMarch 8, 2026 By David FrenchOpinion...

Very well written opinion piece on Talarico by David French. 

https://archive.ph/vJGol

DAVID FRENCH

James Talarico Is a Christian X-Ray

March 8, 2026

 

By David French

Opinion Columnist

These days, I’m asked more about James Talarico than I’m asked about any politician not named Donald Trump.

Talarico is a 36-year-old Texas state representative and the Democratic Party’s latest and greatest hope for winning its first statewide election there in more than 30 years.

 

He’s also one of the most faith-forward politicians in the United States.

 

Talarico doesn’t just root his policies and ideology in his Christian beliefs, he’s a seminarian willing to dive deep into theology. When he’s arguing with the religious right about, say, Christian nationalism, he makes a specifically Christian argument to counter a poisonous Christian movement.

 

“Jesus liberates,” Talarico said in a sermon in 2023. “Christian nationalism controls. Jesus saves. Christian nationalism kills. Jesus started a universal movement based on mutual love. Christian nationalism is a sectarian movement based on mutual hate.”

 

The same thing applies to his discussions about specific government policies. Just as Christian conservatives often root their arguments about immigration and abortion in Scripture, so does Talarico.

For example, in an interview with my colleague Ezra Klein, Talarico criticized the evangelical focus on abortion and homosexuality in politics. “It’s remarkable to me,” Talarico said, “that you have an entire political movement using Christianity to prioritize two issues that Jesus never talked about.”

 

“And so,” he continued, “I’m not saying they’re not important — I actually think both of those issues are very important. But to focus on those two things instead of feeding the hungry and healing the sick and welcoming the stranger — three things we’re told to do ad nauseam in Scripture — to me, is just mind-blowing.”

When I hear Talarico speak about faith, I alternate between agreement and disagreement. He’s spot on about the dangers of Christian nationalism, and yet I can’t help but respond to his arguments about the relative priority of abortion by asking: “Why can’t we do it all? Provide high-quality health care, welcome immigrants and protect the unborn?”

And that’s hardly the only disagreement — theological or ideological — between us.

But those disagreements are to be expected. Talarico is a political and religious progressive. I am a political and religious conservative. But focusing on those disagreements misses the reason I’m asked about him so much.

 

Talarico isn’t just making arguments. He’s giving people hope, and I think I know why.

Put simply, if the primary American divide is between right and left, then Talarico isn’t that interesting. There’s a long history of progressive religious activism in the United States, just as there is a long history of conservative religious activism. White evangelicals might be overwhelmingly Republican, but American Christians are remarkably diverse politically, and we’ve been arguing with one another for a long time.

 

Yet if the primary American divide is between decent and indecent, then the equation changes. Talarico shines.

Or, to put it another way, Talarico is one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian, and by acting like a Christian he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the MAGA Christian movement that’s dominated American political life for 10 years.

 

For too long we’ve evaluated Christians in politics primarily through their policy positions. Are you pro-life or pro-choice? Do you support same-sex marriage? What’s your position on immigration enforcement? Yet this is exactly backward.

If you were to crack open Scripture today and start reading, one of the first things you should notice is that the Bible contains remarkably few political mandates. You can read it from cover to cover and not know the definitive biblical tax rate, welfare program or foreign policy.

But the next thing you’ll notice is that there is an immense amount of guidance describing how Christians should behave. Indeed, in the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul says that the fruit of the spirit is a set of virtues — “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

Absent from that list is a single theological or ideological proposition. That’s not to say that theology or ideology are unimportant. It does really matter whether a politician is pro-life or pro-choice, but there is no spiritual or political scenario where you can abandon Christian virtue for the sake of the alleged greater good, and if a Christian politician abandons Christian virtue, then Christian believers should abandon him or her.

I’m reminded of three related concepts — orthodoxy, orthopraxy and orthocardia. The first two words might be familiar to some of you; certainly the first one will be. Orthodoxy is the term for the traditional beliefs in any given religious tradition. Orthopraxy refers to righteous conduct.

 

The final word, however, is arguably the most important, even if it is easily the most obscure. I first heard of orthocardia in a Sunday school lesson taught by Josh Strahan, a professor of biblical interpretation and the New Testament at Lipscomb University, where I teach.

Orthocardia means what it sounds like — “having a right heart.” In essence, it means that our beliefs and behaviors flow from our heart — and that a right posture toward God and man both makes us eager to learn God’s truth (driving us toward orthodoxy) and eager to love our neighbor (pointing us to orthopraxy).

 

Or, as Jesus said, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

 

For example, when Talarico won his Senate primary, he said, “I am tired of being pitted against my neighbor. I’m tired of being told to hate my neighbor. It’s been more than 10 years of this kind of politics. Politics as blood sport, politics as trolling and owning, politics as total war. It tears families apart. It ends friendships, and it leaves us all feeling terrible all the time.”

I know there are people who register those words deeply. They’ve endured the fractured friendships. They’ve seen their own families fall to pieces. And the idea that a politician might actually run a race without rancor and hatred, can feel intoxicating — even if you have theological or ideological disagreements with him.

 

To be clear, the answer to hate and division isn’t just becoming more mild-mannered and milquetoast. It’s the combination of conviction and compassion that’s imperative for Christian politicians. I also know that Talarico won’t win over many truly conservative voters. He’s far too progressive. But there are legions of weary Americans who aren’t motivated primarily by ideology, and those are exactly the people who talk to me about Talarico.

One reason politics has been so exhausting — and even so frightening — is that we often know that opposing politicians don’t just disagree with us, but that they hate us. And if a politician hates us, then we know they won’t listen to us, they won’t care about us, and they may well actively try to harm us when they’re in office.

 

This is what MAGA Christianity has become. In that world, cruelty in the name of Trumpism is no vice, and kindness in the name of progressivism is no virtue.

There is no better representation of that reality than one of Talarico’s potential general election opponents, Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas.

The man is an admitted adulterer, which is something that used to matter to conservative Christians. His wife, a conservative state senator, has filed for divorce on “biblical grounds.” Paxton tried to help Trump steal the 2020 election, and he’s so corrupt that several of his top aides blew the whistle on him and resigned or were removed from their jobs, with many of them claiming that he provided favors for a donor in exchange for personal benefits, including finding employment for the woman said to be his mistress. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.

 

He was impeached by the Republican-controlled House, only to be acquitted by the Texas Senate. And yet, if Paxton wins, MAGA evangelicals will no doubt claim that he is the only viable candidate for Christians to support — after all, it’s a common sentiment on the right that you can’t be a Christian and vote for Democrats.

 

Fortunately, however, there are signs in Texas that voters of both parties are turning toward virtue. Senator John Cornyn, the incumbent Republican, won a surprising (though narrow) plurality over Paxton in the first round of Texas primary voting.

 

Cornyn ran a campaign centered around character — unusual in today’s Republican Party. As my colleague Michelle Cottle wrote, Cornyn couldn’t be more clear: “Ken Paxton is betting that character doesn’t matter to Texas Republican primary voters. I’m betting the opposite. I’m betting character. Still. Matters.”

At the same time, Cornyn’s ultimate prospects may hinge on whether the lowest-character politician in America endorses him. Trump has stayed out of the race so far, but he’s reportedly set to endorse Cornyn for instrumental reasons — Cornyn has a far better chance of keeping Texas red than Paxton.

 

We know that the Trump era will end. We don’t know how. Political scientists speak of the American electorate as “thermostatic,” often reacting against the party in power.

There are different ways this can work. The public can certainly react against the ruling party’s ideology by swinging right or left in response.

 

But what if the coming thermostatic reaction isn’t about ideology as much as about character and temperament? What if we’re seeing a 21st-century version of the American public’s movement away from the cruelty and corruption of Richard Nixon toward the ethics and integrity of Jimmy Carter — a man who won for all the right reasons in 1976, even if his presidency didn’t live up to his promise?

 

It’s too soon to be that optimistic, but that’s what I see in people’s attitudes toward Talarico. That’s what I see in Cornyn’s surprising plurality over Paxton. This miserable political moment won’t end when the left takes back the government from the right or if the right continues to beat the left. It will end when our politicians — especially Christian politicians — forsake cruelty for compassion and realize that we shall know Christians in politics not by their stridency and ideology, but by their integrity and love, including their love for, as Talarico put it, “all of our neighbors.”

 

That’s the significance of the Talarico moment — not the old news that a Christian can be progressive, but rather that Christian politicians can actually act like Christians. Kindness still has a place in the public square, even if it doesn’t always seem that way.

soggy wrote:

I tried, couldn’t find exactly what you’re referring to. Please link. The trans issue is way overblown imo. Its billionaires paying so we have a conversation instead...

I tried, couldn’t find exactly what you’re referring to. Please link. 

The trans issue is way overblown imo. Its billionaires paying so we have a conversation instead of coming to our senses and raising there taxes.  Almost all of it can be tied back to false conspiracies (litter boxes in schools for example). 

truck wrote:

Do you have daughters that play sports or use public restrooms? 

Freddy99 wrote:

do you have designated male/female bathrooms in your house?

Freddy99 wrote:

aw @disbanded why'd you delete all your posts itt?  

disbanded wrote:

To be honest with you Freddy, I couldn't think of a dumber, bigger waste of time than arguing on the internet with a guy that I...

To be honest with you Freddy, I couldn't think of a dumber, bigger waste of time than arguing on the internet with a guy that I would never hang out with in real life.  So why should I waste my precious time thinking about you at all?  Do not reply to me again and I won't be replying to you.  That's why I deleted my fucking posts.  Goodbye, I have work to do.

truck wrote:

Do you have daughters that play sports or use public restrooms? 

Freddy99 wrote:

do you have designated male/female bathrooms in your house?

truck wrote:

No, but I stay out of them when my daughters are using them. It's not a complicated concept. 

APLMAN99 wrote:

Very well written opinion piece on Talarico by David French. https://archive.ph/vJGolDAVID FRENCHJames Talarico Is a Christian X-RayMarch 8, 2026 By David FrenchOpinion...

Very well written opinion piece on Talarico by David French. 

https://archive.ph/vJGol

DAVID FRENCH

James Talarico Is a Christian X-Ray

March 8, 2026

 

By David French

Opinion Columnist

These days, I’m asked more about James Talarico than I’m asked about any politician not named Donald Trump.

Talarico is a 36-year-old Texas state representative and the Democratic Party’s latest and greatest hope for winning its first statewide election there in more than 30 years.

 

He’s also one of the most faith-forward politicians in the United States.

 

Talarico doesn’t just root his policies and ideology in his Christian beliefs, he’s a seminarian willing to dive deep into theology. When he’s arguing with the religious right about, say, Christian nationalism, he makes a specifically Christian argument to counter a poisonous Christian movement.

 

“Jesus liberates,” Talarico said in a sermon in 2023. “Christian nationalism controls. Jesus saves. Christian nationalism kills. Jesus started a universal movement based on mutual love. Christian nationalism is a sectarian movement based on mutual hate.”

 

The same thing applies to his discussions about specific government policies. Just as Christian conservatives often root their arguments about immigration and abortion in Scripture, so does Talarico.

For example, in an interview with my colleague Ezra Klein, Talarico criticized the evangelical focus on abortion and homosexuality in politics. “It’s remarkable to me,” Talarico said, “that you have an entire political movement using Christianity to prioritize two issues that Jesus never talked about.”

 

“And so,” he continued, “I’m not saying they’re not important — I actually think both of those issues are very important. But to focus on those two things instead of feeding the hungry and healing the sick and welcoming the stranger — three things we’re told to do ad nauseam in Scripture — to me, is just mind-blowing.”

When I hear Talarico speak about faith, I alternate between agreement and disagreement. He’s spot on about the dangers of Christian nationalism, and yet I can’t help but respond to his arguments about the relative priority of abortion by asking: “Why can’t we do it all? Provide high-quality health care, welcome immigrants and protect the unborn?”

And that’s hardly the only disagreement — theological or ideological — between us.

But those disagreements are to be expected. Talarico is a political and religious progressive. I am a political and religious conservative. But focusing on those disagreements misses the reason I’m asked about him so much.

 

Talarico isn’t just making arguments. He’s giving people hope, and I think I know why.

Put simply, if the primary American divide is between right and left, then Talarico isn’t that interesting. There’s a long history of progressive religious activism in the United States, just as there is a long history of conservative religious activism. White evangelicals might be overwhelmingly Republican, but American Christians are remarkably diverse politically, and we’ve been arguing with one another for a long time.

 

Yet if the primary American divide is between decent and indecent, then the equation changes. Talarico shines.

Or, to put it another way, Talarico is one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian, and by acting like a Christian he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the MAGA Christian movement that’s dominated American political life for 10 years.

 

For too long we’ve evaluated Christians in politics primarily through their policy positions. Are you pro-life or pro-choice? Do you support same-sex marriage? What’s your position on immigration enforcement? Yet this is exactly backward.

If you were to crack open Scripture today and start reading, one of the first things you should notice is that the Bible contains remarkably few political mandates. You can read it from cover to cover and not know the definitive biblical tax rate, welfare program or foreign policy.

But the next thing you’ll notice is that there is an immense amount of guidance describing how Christians should behave. Indeed, in the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul says that the fruit of the spirit is a set of virtues — “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

Absent from that list is a single theological or ideological proposition. That’s not to say that theology or ideology are unimportant. It does really matter whether a politician is pro-life or pro-choice, but there is no spiritual or political scenario where you can abandon Christian virtue for the sake of the alleged greater good, and if a Christian politician abandons Christian virtue, then Christian believers should abandon him or her.

I’m reminded of three related concepts — orthodoxy, orthopraxy and orthocardia. The first two words might be familiar to some of you; certainly the first one will be. Orthodoxy is the term for the traditional beliefs in any given religious tradition. Orthopraxy refers to righteous conduct.

 

The final word, however, is arguably the most important, even if it is easily the most obscure. I first heard of orthocardia in a Sunday school lesson taught by Josh Strahan, a professor of biblical interpretation and the New Testament at Lipscomb University, where I teach.

Orthocardia means what it sounds like — “having a right heart.” In essence, it means that our beliefs and behaviors flow from our heart — and that a right posture toward God and man both makes us eager to learn God’s truth (driving us toward orthodoxy) and eager to love our neighbor (pointing us to orthopraxy).

 

Or, as Jesus said, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

 

For example, when Talarico won his Senate primary, he said, “I am tired of being pitted against my neighbor. I’m tired of being told to hate my neighbor. It’s been more than 10 years of this kind of politics. Politics as blood sport, politics as trolling and owning, politics as total war. It tears families apart. It ends friendships, and it leaves us all feeling terrible all the time.”

I know there are people who register those words deeply. They’ve endured the fractured friendships. They’ve seen their own families fall to pieces. And the idea that a politician might actually run a race without rancor and hatred, can feel intoxicating — even if you have theological or ideological disagreements with him.

 

To be clear, the answer to hate and division isn’t just becoming more mild-mannered and milquetoast. It’s the combination of conviction and compassion that’s imperative for Christian politicians. I also know that Talarico won’t win over many truly conservative voters. He’s far too progressive. But there are legions of weary Americans who aren’t motivated primarily by ideology, and those are exactly the people who talk to me about Talarico.

One reason politics has been so exhausting — and even so frightening — is that we often know that opposing politicians don’t just disagree with us, but that they hate us. And if a politician hates us, then we know they won’t listen to us, they won’t care about us, and they may well actively try to harm us when they’re in office.

 

This is what MAGA Christianity has become. In that world, cruelty in the name of Trumpism is no vice, and kindness in the name of progressivism is no virtue.

There is no better representation of that reality than one of Talarico’s potential general election opponents, Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas.

The man is an admitted adulterer, which is something that used to matter to conservative Christians. His wife, a conservative state senator, has filed for divorce on “biblical grounds.” Paxton tried to help Trump steal the 2020 election, and he’s so corrupt that several of his top aides blew the whistle on him and resigned or were removed from their jobs, with many of them claiming that he provided favors for a donor in exchange for personal benefits, including finding employment for the woman said to be his mistress. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.

 

He was impeached by the Republican-controlled House, only to be acquitted by the Texas Senate. And yet, if Paxton wins, MAGA evangelicals will no doubt claim that he is the only viable candidate for Christians to support — after all, it’s a common sentiment on the right that you can’t be a Christian and vote for Democrats.

 

Fortunately, however, there are signs in Texas that voters of both parties are turning toward virtue. Senator John Cornyn, the incumbent Republican, won a surprising (though narrow) plurality over Paxton in the first round of Texas primary voting.

 

Cornyn ran a campaign centered around character — unusual in today’s Republican Party. As my colleague Michelle Cottle wrote, Cornyn couldn’t be more clear: “Ken Paxton is betting that character doesn’t matter to Texas Republican primary voters. I’m betting the opposite. I’m betting character. Still. Matters.”

At the same time, Cornyn’s ultimate prospects may hinge on whether the lowest-character politician in America endorses him. Trump has stayed out of the race so far, but he’s reportedly set to endorse Cornyn for instrumental reasons — Cornyn has a far better chance of keeping Texas red than Paxton.

 

We know that the Trump era will end. We don’t know how. Political scientists speak of the American electorate as “thermostatic,” often reacting against the party in power.

There are different ways this can work. The public can certainly react against the ruling party’s ideology by swinging right or left in response.

 

But what if the coming thermostatic reaction isn’t about ideology as much as about character and temperament? What if we’re seeing a 21st-century version of the American public’s movement away from the cruelty and corruption of Richard Nixon toward the ethics and integrity of Jimmy Carter — a man who won for all the right reasons in 1976, even if his presidency didn’t live up to his promise?

 

It’s too soon to be that optimistic, but that’s what I see in people’s attitudes toward Talarico. That’s what I see in Cornyn’s surprising plurality over Paxton. This miserable political moment won’t end when the left takes back the government from the right or if the right continues to beat the left. It will end when our politicians — especially Christian politicians — forsake cruelty for compassion and realize that we shall know Christians in politics not by their stridency and ideology, but by their integrity and love, including their love for, as Talarico put it, “all of our neighbors.”

 

That’s the significance of the Talarico moment — not the old news that a Christian can be progressive, but rather that Christian politicians can actually act like Christians. Kindness still has a place in the public square, even if it doesn’t always seem that way.

truck wrote:

French loses the plot a little more all the time. He hates Trump and that brand of politics and it's melted his brain. Using his own criteria...

French loses the plot a little more all the time. He hates Trump and that brand of politics and it's melted his brain. 

Using his own criteria of orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and orthocardia, it's not complicated to figure out where the criticism of Talarico comes from. 

French wants you to focus on orthocardia. He wants you to take Talarico at his word and apparently knows his heart and has judged it good. Maybe he's right, but I don't share his confidence that a politician that none of us know has a good and pure heart compared to the rest.

Orthocardia that French is basing his argument on seems pretty difficult to know if you ask me. 

The part French wants you to ignore is the orthodoxy. Talarico is making a mockery of orthodoxy and it's understandable that people who take such things seriously would be bothered by this. If like French the orthodoxy doesn't matter a whole lot to you, of course you'll find the nice language appealing, but if you're into orthodoxy, you've been warned many times what that is when bad orthodoxy is presented in nice ways. Talarico read the screwtape letters and instead of seeing it as a warning he saw it as a political playbook. People aren't bothered by the guy because he's decent and nice, as French wants you to believe. They're bothered by him because he's trying to use a smile and flowery language to sell bad theology. French should be able to see this from a mile away and be a little more skeptical than he is, but pretending not to see it has been very profitable for him. 

APLMAN99 wrote:

Very well written opinion piece on Talarico by David French. https://archive.ph/vJGolDAVID FRENCHJames Talarico Is a Christian X-RayMarch 8, 2026 By David FrenchOpinion...

Very well written opinion piece on Talarico by David French. 

https://archive.ph/vJGol

DAVID FRENCH

James Talarico Is a Christian X-Ray

March 8, 2026

 

By David French

Opinion Columnist

These days, I’m asked more about James Talarico than I’m asked about any politician not named Donald Trump.

Talarico is a 36-year-old Texas state representative and the Democratic Party’s latest and greatest hope for winning its first statewide election there in more than 30 years.

 

He’s also one of the most faith-forward politicians in the United States.

 

Talarico doesn’t just root his policies and ideology in his Christian beliefs, he’s a seminarian willing to dive deep into theology. When he’s arguing with the religious right about, say, Christian nationalism, he makes a specifically Christian argument to counter a poisonous Christian movement.

 

“Jesus liberates,” Talarico said in a sermon in 2023. “Christian nationalism controls. Jesus saves. Christian nationalism kills. Jesus started a universal movement based on mutual love. Christian nationalism is a sectarian movement based on mutual hate.”

 

The same thing applies to his discussions about specific government policies. Just as Christian conservatives often root their arguments about immigration and abortion in Scripture, so does Talarico.

For example, in an interview with my colleague Ezra Klein, Talarico criticized the evangelical focus on abortion and homosexuality in politics. “It’s remarkable to me,” Talarico said, “that you have an entire political movement using Christianity to prioritize two issues that Jesus never talked about.”

 

“And so,” he continued, “I’m not saying they’re not important — I actually think both of those issues are very important. But to focus on those two things instead of feeding the hungry and healing the sick and welcoming the stranger — three things we’re told to do ad nauseam in Scripture — to me, is just mind-blowing.”

When I hear Talarico speak about faith, I alternate between agreement and disagreement. He’s spot on about the dangers of Christian nationalism, and yet I can’t help but respond to his arguments about the relative priority of abortion by asking: “Why can’t we do it all? Provide high-quality health care, welcome immigrants and protect the unborn?”

And that’s hardly the only disagreement — theological or ideological — between us.

But those disagreements are to be expected. Talarico is a political and religious progressive. I am a political and religious conservative. But focusing on those disagreements misses the reason I’m asked about him so much.

 

Talarico isn’t just making arguments. He’s giving people hope, and I think I know why.

Put simply, if the primary American divide is between right and left, then Talarico isn’t that interesting. There’s a long history of progressive religious activism in the United States, just as there is a long history of conservative religious activism. White evangelicals might be overwhelmingly Republican, but American Christians are remarkably diverse politically, and we’ve been arguing with one another for a long time.

 

Yet if the primary American divide is between decent and indecent, then the equation changes. Talarico shines.

Or, to put it another way, Talarico is one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian, and by acting like a Christian he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the MAGA Christian movement that’s dominated American political life for 10 years.

 

For too long we’ve evaluated Christians in politics primarily through their policy positions. Are you pro-life or pro-choice? Do you support same-sex marriage? What’s your position on immigration enforcement? Yet this is exactly backward.

If you were to crack open Scripture today and start reading, one of the first things you should notice is that the Bible contains remarkably few political mandates. You can read it from cover to cover and not know the definitive biblical tax rate, welfare program or foreign policy.

But the next thing you’ll notice is that there is an immense amount of guidance describing how Christians should behave. Indeed, in the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul says that the fruit of the spirit is a set of virtues — “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

Absent from that list is a single theological or ideological proposition. That’s not to say that theology or ideology are unimportant. It does really matter whether a politician is pro-life or pro-choice, but there is no spiritual or political scenario where you can abandon Christian virtue for the sake of the alleged greater good, and if a Christian politician abandons Christian virtue, then Christian believers should abandon him or her.

I’m reminded of three related concepts — orthodoxy, orthopraxy and orthocardia. The first two words might be familiar to some of you; certainly the first one will be. Orthodoxy is the term for the traditional beliefs in any given religious tradition. Orthopraxy refers to righteous conduct.

 

The final word, however, is arguably the most important, even if it is easily the most obscure. I first heard of orthocardia in a Sunday school lesson taught by Josh Strahan, a professor of biblical interpretation and the New Testament at Lipscomb University, where I teach.

Orthocardia means what it sounds like — “having a right heart.” In essence, it means that our beliefs and behaviors flow from our heart — and that a right posture toward God and man both makes us eager to learn God’s truth (driving us toward orthodoxy) and eager to love our neighbor (pointing us to orthopraxy).

 

Or, as Jesus said, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

 

For example, when Talarico won his Senate primary, he said, “I am tired of being pitted against my neighbor. I’m tired of being told to hate my neighbor. It’s been more than 10 years of this kind of politics. Politics as blood sport, politics as trolling and owning, politics as total war. It tears families apart. It ends friendships, and it leaves us all feeling terrible all the time.”

I know there are people who register those words deeply. They’ve endured the fractured friendships. They’ve seen their own families fall to pieces. And the idea that a politician might actually run a race without rancor and hatred, can feel intoxicating — even if you have theological or ideological disagreements with him.

 

To be clear, the answer to hate and division isn’t just becoming more mild-mannered and milquetoast. It’s the combination of conviction and compassion that’s imperative for Christian politicians. I also know that Talarico won’t win over many truly conservative voters. He’s far too progressive. But there are legions of weary Americans who aren’t motivated primarily by ideology, and those are exactly the people who talk to me about Talarico.

One reason politics has been so exhausting — and even so frightening — is that we often know that opposing politicians don’t just disagree with us, but that they hate us. And if a politician hates us, then we know they won’t listen to us, they won’t care about us, and they may well actively try to harm us when they’re in office.

 

This is what MAGA Christianity has become. In that world, cruelty in the name of Trumpism is no vice, and kindness in the name of progressivism is no virtue.

There is no better representation of that reality than one of Talarico’s potential general election opponents, Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas.

The man is an admitted adulterer, which is something that used to matter to conservative Christians. His wife, a conservative state senator, has filed for divorce on “biblical grounds.” Paxton tried to help Trump steal the 2020 election, and he’s so corrupt that several of his top aides blew the whistle on him and resigned or were removed from their jobs, with many of them claiming that he provided favors for a donor in exchange for personal benefits, including finding employment for the woman said to be his mistress. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.

 

He was impeached by the Republican-controlled House, only to be acquitted by the Texas Senate. And yet, if Paxton wins, MAGA evangelicals will no doubt claim that he is the only viable candidate for Christians to support — after all, it’s a common sentiment on the right that you can’t be a Christian and vote for Democrats.

 

Fortunately, however, there are signs in Texas that voters of both parties are turning toward virtue. Senator John Cornyn, the incumbent Republican, won a surprising (though narrow) plurality over Paxton in the first round of Texas primary voting.

 

Cornyn ran a campaign centered around character — unusual in today’s Republican Party. As my colleague Michelle Cottle wrote, Cornyn couldn’t be more clear: “Ken Paxton is betting that character doesn’t matter to Texas Republican primary voters. I’m betting the opposite. I’m betting character. Still. Matters.”

At the same time, Cornyn’s ultimate prospects may hinge on whether the lowest-character politician in America endorses him. Trump has stayed out of the race so far, but he’s reportedly set to endorse Cornyn for instrumental reasons — Cornyn has a far better chance of keeping Texas red than Paxton.

 

We know that the Trump era will end. We don’t know how. Political scientists speak of the American electorate as “thermostatic,” often reacting against the party in power.

There are different ways this can work. The public can certainly react against the ruling party’s ideology by swinging right or left in response.

 

But what if the coming thermostatic reaction isn’t about ideology as much as about character and temperament? What if we’re seeing a 21st-century version of the American public’s movement away from the cruelty and corruption of Richard Nixon toward the ethics and integrity of Jimmy Carter — a man who won for all the right reasons in 1976, even if his presidency didn’t live up to his promise?

 

It’s too soon to be that optimistic, but that’s what I see in people’s attitudes toward Talarico. That’s what I see in Cornyn’s surprising plurality over Paxton. This miserable political moment won’t end when the left takes back the government from the right or if the right continues to beat the left. It will end when our politicians — especially Christian politicians — forsake cruelty for compassion and realize that we shall know Christians in politics not by their stridency and ideology, but by their integrity and love, including their love for, as Talarico put it, “all of our neighbors.”

 

That’s the significance of the Talarico moment — not the old news that a Christian can be progressive, but rather that Christian politicians can actually act like Christians. Kindness still has a place in the public square, even if it doesn’t always seem that way.

truck wrote:

French loses the plot a little more all the time. He hates Trump and that brand of politics and it's melted his brain. Using his own criteria...

French loses the plot a little more all the time. He hates Trump and that brand of politics and it's melted his brain. 

Using his own criteria of orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and orthocardia, it's not complicated to figure out where the criticism of Talarico comes from. 

French wants you to focus on orthocardia. He wants you to take Talarico at his word and apparently knows his heart and has judged it good. Maybe he's right, but I don't share his confidence that a politician that none of us know has a good and pure heart compared to the rest.

Orthocardia that French is basing his argument on seems pretty difficult to know if you ask me. 

The part French wants you to ignore is the orthodoxy. Talarico is making a mockery of orthodoxy and it's understandable that people who take such things seriously would be bothered by this. If like French the orthodoxy doesn't matter a whole lot to you, of course you'll find the nice language appealing, but if you're into orthodoxy, you've been warned many times what that is when bad orthodoxy is presented in nice ways. Talarico read the screwtape letters and instead of seeing it as a warning he saw it as a political playbook. People aren't bothered by the guy because he's decent and nice, as French wants you to believe. They're bothered by him because he's trying to use a smile and flowery language to sell bad theology. French should be able to see this from a mile away and be a little more skeptical than he is, but pretending not to see it has been very profitable for him. 

APLMAN99 wrote:

truck,I think you might be misreading French a bit.He doesn’t say orthodoxy doesn’t matter. In fact he explicitly says it does. The point he’s making is...

truck,

I think you might be misreading French a bit.

He doesn’t say orthodoxy doesn’t matter. In fact he explicitly says it does. The point he’s making is that a huge segment of Christian politics has decided that orthodoxy is the only thing that matters, even if the person claiming it behaves in ways that are obviously incompatible with Christian virtue.  

You say orthocardia is hard to judge, and I can sort of see you point.  But Christianity has never relied on mind-reading hearts to evaluate people. It relies on observable behavior, “By their fruits you will know them".  That’s not some progressive reinterpretation of Christianity that’s straight out of the Sermon on the Mount.

So the real question French is raising seems to be this:

Why have so many Christians become willing to ignore things like cruelty, dishonesty, adultery, corruption, and vindictiveness as long as the politician claims to be on the right side of a couple culture-war issues?

You might disagree with Talarico’s theology, and that's totally fair. But pretending the backlash against him is primarily about doctrinal orthodoxy and not about politics seems like a pretty generous, and perhaps skewed, reading of the situation.

JAFO92 wrote:

"But Christianity has never relied on mind-reading hearts to evaluate people. It relies on observable behavior, “By their fruits you will know them"." I respectfully disagree...

"But Christianity has never relied on mind-reading hearts to evaluate people. It relies on observable behavior, “By their fruits you will know them"."
 

I respectfully disagree.    Christianity is about belief in Jesus as your savior.   You can be an axe murderer your entire life, and on your deathbed you sincerely repent, youre good.  Nothing you can do while on Earth, cannot be forgiven by sincere belief.   While behaving yourself during your lifetime certainly is something to aspire to,  its has zero impact on salvation.

Judaism is the one all about behavior.  At least as it has been explained to me by a Rabbi I know personally.

 

Quickie Google info:

In Judaism, action (mitzvot) is generally considered more central than abstract dogma or belief. While belief in God is the foundation, the primary focus is on how a person conducts themselves in this world. 

This concept is often summarized by the phrase Halacha (Jewish law), which literally translates to "the way" or "the walking." Judaism emphasizes a life of deed over a life of creed for several reasons: 

Action over Intention: The Talmud suggests that even if one's heart isn't fully in it, performing a good deed is still transformative.
Tikkun Olam: The focus is on "repairing the world" through ethical behavior and social justice during one's lifetime.

The "Righteous of All Nations": Unlike religions that require specific faith for salvation, Judaism teaches that "the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come," meaning ethical behavior is the universal standard, regardless of one's specific theological beliefs. 

Essentially, while faith provides the "why," the behavior provides the "what," and in Jewish practice, the "what" is the priority.

truck wrote:

French loses the plot a little more all the time. He hates Trump and that brand of politics and it's melted his brain. Using his own criteria...

French loses the plot a little more all the time. He hates Trump and that brand of politics and it's melted his brain. 

Using his own criteria of orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and orthocardia, it's not complicated to figure out where the criticism of Talarico comes from. 

French wants you to focus on orthocardia. He wants you to take Talarico at his word and apparently knows his heart and has judged it good. Maybe he's right, but I don't share his confidence that a politician that none of us know has a good and pure heart compared to the rest.

Orthocardia that French is basing his argument on seems pretty difficult to know if you ask me. 

The part French wants you to ignore is the orthodoxy. Talarico is making a mockery of orthodoxy and it's understandable that people who take such things seriously would be bothered by this. If like French the orthodoxy doesn't matter a whole lot to you, of course you'll find the nice language appealing, but if you're into orthodoxy, you've been warned many times what that is when bad orthodoxy is presented in nice ways. Talarico read the screwtape letters and instead of seeing it as a warning he saw it as a political playbook. People aren't bothered by the guy because he's decent and nice, as French wants you to believe. They're bothered by him because he's trying to use a smile and flowery language to sell bad theology. French should be able to see this from a mile away and be a little more skeptical than he is, but pretending not to see it has been very profitable for him. 

APLMAN99 wrote:

truck,I think you might be misreading French a bit.He doesn’t say orthodoxy doesn’t matter. In fact he explicitly says it does. The point he’s making is...

truck,

I think you might be misreading French a bit.

He doesn’t say orthodoxy doesn’t matter. In fact he explicitly says it does. The point he’s making is that a huge segment of Christian politics has decided that orthodoxy is the only thing that matters, even if the person claiming it behaves in ways that are obviously incompatible with Christian virtue.  

You say orthocardia is hard to judge, and I can sort of see you point.  But Christianity has never relied on mind-reading hearts to evaluate people. It relies on observable behavior, “By their fruits you will know them".  That’s not some progressive reinterpretation of Christianity that’s straight out of the Sermon on the Mount.

So the real question French is raising seems to be this:

Why have so many Christians become willing to ignore things like cruelty, dishonesty, adultery, corruption, and vindictiveness as long as the politician claims to be on the right side of a couple culture-war issues?

You might disagree with Talarico’s theology, and that's totally fair. But pretending the backlash against him is primarily about doctrinal orthodoxy and not about politics seems like a pretty generous, and perhaps skewed, reading of the situation.

truck wrote:

I'm very much on board with the criticism of Christianity and the embrace of modern day right wing politics. It at least made sense a generation...

I'm very much on board with the criticism of Christianity and the embrace of modern day right wing politics. It at least made sense a generation ago when the GOP platform included a lot of traditional values that overlapped with Christian principles, but that hasn't really been the case for a while now and Trump doesn't even pretend unless he's trying to sell a Bible. This mishmash of Christianity and Trump worship that has taken over a lot of the right and way too many churches is not a good thing. 

My issue with Talarico, and this seems to be French's point as well, is that the flaws of the Christian right should somehow makes Talarico an appealing figure for Christians. Why? If one side is better on policy but a bunch of assholes and the other side is nice but terrible on policy, why should one of those appeal to me more than the other? They both suck, just differently. And if left to pick, why pick the one who is better on the area least likely to have a lasting impact?

French saying he doesn't agree with him on everything is literally the line Trump supporters use when critics point out any number of things he deserves criticism for. It's totally dismissing the criticism instead of answering for it so he can pivot back to the things he likes. He can say orthodoxy matters but he sure doesn't want to talk about it when it comes to Talarico. In doing this he's telling you which bad option he prefers. It's fine to prefer that, but I'd take him more seriously if he could admit that they're both bad options. I suspect his unwillingness to address the orthodoxy is because he knows how bad it is. He's holding his nose, ignoring the parts he doesn't like, and is focusing only on the things he likes to justify supporting the guy. Sounds familiar, right? 

I personally don't find Talarico's politics at all interesting or unique or worthy of special attention and at least for me the push back is very much push back against bad theology. Like I said, I don't watch cable news so can't really comment on what's at the root of the broader criticism, but you're probably right that it's mostly just people obediently taking up for the guy on their side. 

APLMAN99 wrote:

truck,I think you might be misreading French a bit.He doesn’t say orthodoxy doesn’t matter. In fact he explicitly says it does. The point he’s making is...

truck,

I think you might be misreading French a bit.

He doesn’t say orthodoxy doesn’t matter. In fact he explicitly says it does. The point he’s making is that a huge segment of Christian politics has decided that orthodoxy is the only thing that matters, even if the person claiming it behaves in ways that are obviously incompatible with Christian virtue.  

You say orthocardia is hard to judge, and I can sort of see you point.  But Christianity has never relied on mind-reading hearts to evaluate people. It relies on observable behavior, “By their fruits you will know them".  That’s not some progressive reinterpretation of Christianity that’s straight out of the Sermon on the Mount.

So the real question French is raising seems to be this:

Why have so many Christians become willing to ignore things like cruelty, dishonesty, adultery, corruption, and vindictiveness as long as the politician claims to be on the right side of a couple culture-war issues?

You might disagree with Talarico’s theology, and that's totally fair. But pretending the backlash against him is primarily about doctrinal orthodoxy and not about politics seems like a pretty generous, and perhaps skewed, reading of the situation.

truck wrote:

I'm very much on board with the criticism of Christianity and the embrace of modern day right wing politics. It at least made sense a generation...

I'm very much on board with the criticism of Christianity and the embrace of modern day right wing politics. It at least made sense a generation ago when the GOP platform included a lot of traditional values that overlapped with Christian principles, but that hasn't really been the case for a while now and Trump doesn't even pretend unless he's trying to sell a Bible. This mishmash of Christianity and Trump worship that has taken over a lot of the right and way too many churches is not a good thing. 

My issue with Talarico, and this seems to be French's point as well, is that the flaws of the Christian right should somehow makes Talarico an appealing figure for Christians. Why? If one side is better on policy but a bunch of assholes and the other side is nice but terrible on policy, why should one of those appeal to me more than the other? They both suck, just differently. And if left to pick, why pick the one who is better on the area least likely to have a lasting impact?

French saying he doesn't agree with him on everything is literally the line Trump supporters use when critics point out any number of things he deserves criticism for. It's totally dismissing the criticism instead of answering for it so he can pivot back to the things he likes. He can say orthodoxy matters but he sure doesn't want to talk about it when it comes to Talarico. In doing this he's telling you which bad option he prefers. It's fine to prefer that, but I'd take him more seriously if he could admit that they're both bad options. I suspect his unwillingness to address the orthodoxy is because he knows how bad it is. He's holding his nose, ignoring the parts he doesn't like, and is focusing only on the things he likes to justify supporting the guy. Sounds familiar, right? 

I personally don't find Talarico's politics at all interesting or unique or worthy of special attention and at least for me the push back is very much push back against bad theology. Like I said, I don't watch cable news so can't really comment on what's at the root of the broader criticism, but you're probably right that it's mostly just people obediently taking up for the guy on their side. 

APLMAN99 wrote:

truck,I think we’re actually closer on part of this than it might seem. I agree that the Christianity/Trump fusion that’s developed in a lot of places...

truck,

I think we’re actually closer on part of this than it might seem. I agree that the Christianity/Trump fusion that’s developed in a lot of places isn’t healthy.

Where I think we’re still sort of talking past each other is on what French is arguing. He’s not saying Christians should support Talarico. He says directly that he disagrees with him on theology and policy.

His point seems narrower than that. It seems like it’s that Talarico highlights a contrast that’s become hard to ignore: a lot of Christian political discourse today seems much more focused on winning political fights than demonstrating the virtues Christianity has historically emphasized, and that many still claim makes a difference when choosing political candidates.

If the objection is bad theology, I suppose that’s a fair discussion to have. But I’m still not seeing what specific theological claim you think is the problem. Most of what I’ve seen from him is quoting pretty standard New Testament themes about humility, caring for the poor, and welcoming strangers.

If the argument is that he’s applying those passages incorrectly, that’s at least a potentially real theological debate. But a lot of the reaction seems less about doctrine and more about the fact that he’s applying Christian language to policy positions many conservatives disagree with politically.

 

truck wrote:

Do you have daughters that play sports or use public restrooms? 

soggy wrote:

There’s a campaign in Maine paid for by a billionaire so this conversation happens. There’s a couple trans athletes in Maine. it’s blown way out of proportion. If...

There’s a campaign in Maine paid for by a billionaire so this conversation happens. There’s a couple trans athletes in Maine. 

it’s blown way out of proportion. 
If I had daughters I’d be more worried about other men(like the one currently in office) then a trans person using there bathroom or competing in high school sports. 

Is it an issue? Yea on some level, is it what should determine who you vote for?  I don’t think so.

truck wrote:

If you want to believe this is an issue fabricated by billionaires and blown out of proportion, go ahead, but I know which one of us...

If you want to believe this is an issue fabricated by billionaires and blown out of proportion, go ahead, but I know which one of us is repeating a line they heard on the news and which one of us has real world experience with the issue that is driving their views. I literally never watch cable news. 

I worry plenty about creeps of all kinds, we don't have to pick just one, but there is only one kind where it's written into a party platform to vigorously enable them at the expense of my daughters. 

The argument that it's only a handful of people so it shouldn't matter cuts both ways. If it's only a few people, why have dems made this a platform issue that they're willing to fight so vigorously on? If it's only a few athletes, why not tell them to do the obvious thing that is overwhelmingly supported and play sports and use bathrooms that align with their biological sex? If it's only a few people, why do they pick this fight? 

Your numbers on this are wrong, but even if they were right, let's play it out. If one guy wins a state championship in a girls event at a track meet, what's your number for the number of girls impacted by this? What message does that send to girls when they can work their ass off and be the best among their actual peers but then be told to step aside because the mediocre guy with a personality disorder gets to take all of the glory while liberals tell them how brave they are? That's what you support when you dismiss this issue. 

This is the absolute peak of misogyny and as a dad of girls I'd be happy to be a single issue voter over this. Thankfully liberals get nearly all issues I actually care about wrong though so it makes voting pretty easy. 

Joey Bridges wrote:

Since this thread has morphed into a religious one, I'd like to offer up the ultimate photographic definition of the word, blasphemy...

Since this thread has morphed into a religious one, I'd like to offer up the ultimate photographic definition of the word, blasphemy...

Joey Bridges wrote:

Since this thread has morphed into a religious one, I'd like to offer up the ultimate photographic definition of the word, blasphemy...

Since this thread has morphed into a religious one, I'd like to offer up the ultimate photographic definition of the word, blasphemy...

LoudLove wrote:

Sir, there are children present!  

Joey Bridges wrote:

Since this thread has morphed into a religious one, I'd like to offer up the ultimate photographic definition of the word, blasphemy...

Since this thread has morphed into a religious one, I'd like to offer up the ultimate photographic definition of the word, blasphemy...

LoudLove wrote:

Sir, there are children present!  

SEEMEFIRST wrote:

Here's an interesting Talarico quote. He sounds like a reasonable man to me.“Modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes; in...

Here's an interesting Talarico quote. He sounds like a reasonable man to me.

“Modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes; in fact, there are six.” ~ Mike Talarico

SEEMEFIRST wrote:

Here's an interesting Talarico quote. He sounds like a reasonable man to me.“Modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes; in...

Here's an interesting Talarico quote. He sounds like a reasonable man to me.

“Modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes; in fact, there are six.” ~ Mike Talarico