Many years ago, in my pre-PJ Media days — this fall will mark 15 years (!) — I wrote for the late David Horowitz’s now-defunct NewsReal Blog. I didn’t get paid, but it gave me experience and exposure that helped shape me into the writer and editor that I am today.
One of my favorite columns that I wrote during that season was a listicle in October 2010 that chronicled Bible verses that leftists twist to fit their agenda. From Al Gore claiming somehow that Cain’s murder of Abel had something to do with global warming to Jim Wallis trying to say that the prophet Isaiah called for a higher minimum wage to the untold number of leftists who say that Jesus’ command in His extended parable from Matthew 25 to care for “the least of these” is a command to governments and not to individuals, leftists transform scripture into talking points all the time.
My article (here’s an archived link, complete with a hideous profile picture) demonstrated that the left will do it time and time again. And now, one of the left’s darlings in Texas, State Rep. James Talarico (D-50th District), who loves to talk about his progressive Christian faith, has gone on Ezra Klein’s podcast to show how hollow and false liberal Christianity is.
Related: Texas Two-Step: Democrat Slams Big Money As He Dances All the Way to the Bank
That Klein titled his podcast episode “James Talarico’s Beautiful Answer to Christian Nationalism” tells you everything you need to know, which is that “Christian nationalism” is shorthand for non-radical, non-progressive, mainstream Christianity. Of course, that “beautiful answer” is to misconstrue scripture to make it fit a far-left paradigm.
I don’t know how religious Klein is — I could be wrong, but I don’t imagine that he’s all that faithful — but he quotes a rabbi who wrote drivel like “Prayers are a humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return from the mystery by which we live.” Wut?
Then Talarico pulls out the left’s favorite chestnut again: Matthew 25. “Matthew 25 tells us exactly how we're gonna be judged and how we're gonna be saved,” he says. “By feeding the hungry, by healing the sick, by welcoming the stranger, by visiting the prisoner. Nothing about being a Christian. Nothing about going to church, nothing about saying the Lord's Prayer, nothing about reading the Bible” (emphasis added).
Of course, he totally misses the point of the gospel altogether. Yes, we’re supposed to serve others, but there are plenty of people who faithfully serve who will go to hell because they haven’t given their lives over to Jesus, which (sorry, James) is what being a Christian is.
In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus preached, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
Later, Talarico tries to claim that abortion and homosexuality are ambiguous issues because Jesus didn’t specifically mention them. He says, “…it's remarkable to me that you have an entire political movement using Christianity to prioritize two issues that Jesus never talked about.”
This is one of progressive Christianity’s biggest fallacies: making the parts of the Bible that aren’t Jesus’ direct words less important. Every part of scripture, from the Torah to the prophets to the writings of the apostles, whether Jesus spoke those words or not, is the inspired Word of God. But the left wants you to believe that if Jesus didn’t specifically mention an issue, the Bible doesn’t speak to it at all.
Talarico continues to make himself sound silly:
I fought the bill to require the Ten Commandments posted in every classroom. [Of course, he did. Messages like "honor God, don't kill, don't steal, treat your family right" are terrible lessons for kids to learn. —CQ]
And I've often wondered, instead of posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom, why don't they post "Money is the root of all evil" in every boardroom?*
Why don't they post, "Do not judge" in every courtroom? Why don't they post, "Turn the other cheek" in the halls of the Pentagon?
Or "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven" on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange?
*Because it’s “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils,” James.
He even calls Jesus a “radical rabbi.” Because, of course, leftists can’t twist Christianity to fit their narrative without making Jesus radical.
I couldn’t get past about 25 minutes of this garbage. My blood pressure couldn’t handle an hour and a half of this heresy and blasphemy. But if you want to see how progressive Christians ruin the truth of God’s Word to suit a political agenda, look no further than James Talarico.
