“For decades, conservative evangelicals have controlled the image of the politically active Christian,” said Jia Lynn Yang in The New York Times. The religious right turned tens of millions of Christians who rejected America’s “rapidly liberalizing culture” into a durable voting bloc, enabling Donald Trump’s rise and achieving “once- unthinkable” goals, such as overturning the right to abortion. But as Americans reject the Trump administration’s “litany of moral outrages,” including mass deportation and the withdrawal of food aid and health care, a new coalition may be quietly emerging: the Christian left. The movement’s most prominent spokesman is James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian surging in the polls in his U.S. Senate race in Texas with rhetoric “drawn straight from the Gospels.” At least 12 pastors, seminarians, and former clergy have run for federal office as Democrats this year—a number “ unheard-of in recent memory.” In many red states, these Christian Democrats are gaining ground with voters who see religion as “a moral compass rather than a political agenda.”
Talarico’s progressivism is a “cheap misuse” of Christian teaching, said Rich Lowry in National Review. His rhetoric “waters down the Scriptures” to make it sound like God has endorsed “his version of Medicare for All.” Jesus preached personal charity toward the poor and the sick, but he said nothing about universal health care, food stamps, or government redistribution of wealth. As he tries to win over right- leaning Texans, Talarico has also conveniently backed away from the “extremely woke” views he espoused a few years ago, including his claim that God is “nonbinary.”
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