At James Talarico’s Church, Its Offensive To Respect God’s Pronouns — But Abortion’s OK.

Making faith a center point of his Senate campaign, James Talarico says he doesn’t want to “claim” Jesus for the Democratic Party. Yet the woke church that molded him uses Christ to justify support for abortion, transgender procedures on kids, and protesting immigration enforcement.

A review of Talarico’s Texas church and its activist pastor — who Talarico calls a “mentor” — shows how closely his political views have been shaped by a leftist conception of Christianity. These positions, such as the promotion of abortion and acceptance of transgenderism, put Talarico at odds with many of the Texas voters the media have suggested could be amenable to the Democrat’s religious pitch against Republican Ken Paxton. 

Talarico’s church, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian in Austin, has pushed leftist activism for years while undermining traditional Christian beliefs such as the historical resurrection of Jesus. The church’s theological and political positions face scrutiny as Talarico looks to become the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas for decades on a platform of defeating Christian nationalism and removing faith from “partisan politics.” 

“I’ve been the chief opponent of Christian nationalism in the Texas legislature. I believe the separation of church and state is a sacred boundary that doesn’t just protect the state, but also protects the church,” Talarico told religious leaders during a podcast earlier this year. “I’m trying not to claim Jesus for the Democratic Party. I’m trying to wrestle away Jesus from partisan politics.”

From a review of the church’s website, one would hardly guess that Talarico is interested in a non-partisan Jesus. St. Andrew’s, whose webpage features a cross draped in an LGBTQ flag, maintains a “banned books” library filled with sexually explicit material aimed at young people and donates part of its annual budget to abortion giant Planned Parenthood. 

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian

In the name of inclusivity, Talarico’s church avoids referring to God as “Father” as Christians have done for thousands of years. Instead, the church recommends using “non-gendered” language for God. 

“Inclusive language, when used to refer to God, is non-gendered. Therefore, God is not referred to as ‘He’ or ‘Father’, nor as ‘She’ or ‘Mother,’” the church’s website says. 

This contradicts the Bible’s description of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples to refer to God as “our Father” when praying. In the biblical Gospels, Jesus refers to God as “Father” well over 100 times. 

The “Inclusive Bible” used by St. Andrew’s makes awkward gender revisions. The version changes the Lord’s Prayer, one of the most beloved and ancient Christian prayers, from “our Father who art in heaven” to “our Father-Mother in heaven.” 

Talarico appears to have adopted this belief during his time in the legislature, saying that “God is non-binary” while arguing against a Texas law keeping males out of female sports. 

In addition to not calling God “Father,” St. Andrew’s avoids referring to Jesus as “king,” as Christians have done for thousands of years. 

“When referring to God, we do not use the words ‘King’ and ‘Lord,’ because that would make God male,” the church says on its website. “When referring to Jesus, we do not use ‘king’ and ‘lord,’ because it hints at a hierarchy that we believe Jesus repudiated.”

“To say that our divine source is male is perhaps the most sexist comment a person can make,” the inclusive language guide says. “To equate the Almighty with masculinity might or might not hurt a particular victim of abuse, but it will definitely teach a view of life where our little girls will be more likely to be abused in the future.”

Many of the heterodox positions taken at St. Andrew’s come from Jim Rigby, Talarico’s “mentor” and a pastor at the church. In addition to his leftist political positions, he diverts from historic Christian belief that Jesus rose from the dead in a historic event called the resurrection. 

In a Christmas Day Facebook post from 2015, Rigby suggested that resurrection could actually be understood as “a poem about the whole life process.”

“Apparently, because I don’t believe in a literal resurrection, I’m not really Christian. This unfortunately also means I won’t be going to heaven with many of you,” he said, adding that he was told by a Christian that “we have to LITERALLY believe Jesus’ corpse got up. If you believe all the above you will get to be with God in heaven. Let’s just hope God has a handle on that anger problem by now.”

Talarico, who told the New York Times that he believes in a historical resurrection unlike his mentor, said his faith is a “biblical Christianity.” 

Despite this difference of opinion, Talarico greatly credits Rigby for his worldview and closely mirrors his political positions. 

“Our pastor, Dr. Jim Rigby, who I’ve known since I was 2 years old, he married my parents. He baptized me,” Talarico said during a podcast. “He is still my pastor today. And he showed me what it means to act with courage from the pulpit.”

In 2023, Rigby and St. Andrew’s worked to oppose legislation supported by Texas Republicans to shield kids from transgender procedures. 

“Anyone who preaches hate in Jesus’ name and we remain silent, then we are complicit,” Rigby said during the time of his involvement in the campaign against a bill to protect kids from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender surgeries. 

Talarico has taken a similar approach as a state lawmaker. He voted against the 2023 law that protected kids from transgender surgeries and cross-sex hormone procedures.

Talarico also attacked Republicans for passing a bill in October 2021 keeping males out of female sports.

“Texas Republicans have passed their anti-trans bill. Over and over, Christians used scripture to justify bullying trans kids,” he said at the time. “I told them in my faith, God is non-binary.”

Abortion is another issue where Talarico closely follows Rigby. In 2016, Rigby cited the so-called “constitutional right to an abortion” in an op-ed lamenting proposals requiring the dignified burial of fetal remains and ultrasounds before ending the life of their unborn child. 

“It is chilling to witness politicians overriding science and medicine to impose their own beliefs on women,” he wrote. “The real reason politicians are pushing this seems to be the belief that a soul enters the body at conception, therefore making the fertilized human egg the moral equivalent to a fully gestated human being.”

Unlike many Christians, Rigby said he disagreed with that position. 

“Where is the religious freedom for the millions of us who believe that women’s bodies are not community property simply because they get pregnant? Where is the religious freedom for those of us who respect the moral agency of women?” he wrote. 

St. Andrew’s is a “reproductive freedom congregation,” meaning that it affirms that abortion is a “blessing” and a “moral and social good.” 

Talarico, running on a platform of enshrining Roe v. Wade into federal law, argues that Christianity is silent on abortion and actually supports the life-ending procedure. He grounds his support for abortion in the biblical account of an angel visiting the Virgin Mary and telling her that she would miraculously conceive and give birth to Jesus Christ. 

“I say all this in the context of abortion, because before God comes over Mary, and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary’s consent,” he said during an appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast. “You cannot force someone to create … so that’s how I come down on that side of the issue.”

In 2016, St. Andrew’s became part of a movement of woke churches offering to shelter illegal immigrants, and Rigby was arrested for trespassing inside the state capitol in 2017 while protesting a proposed law targeting sanctuary city policies. 

If elected, Talarico says he will go after ICE and ban them from shielding their identity while conducting operations. 

“We have to ban ICE agents from wearing masks, from kidnapping people off our streets without a warrant,” he said on a podcast. “We have to require them to identify themselves like any law enforcement official. And we have to end this policy of mass deportations that again is terrorizing our communities across Texas and across this country.”

Another issue that has plagued the Talarico campaign is the question of veganism. While he once boasted about having a meat-free campaign, he now says he proudly consumes Texas barbecue. His church encourages people to “eat a plant based diet for the planet’s health and yours.”