For many conservative Christians, Texas state Rep. James Talarico has become a source of bewilderment.
How can a Christian support LGBTQ rights? How can a Christian speak positively about religious pluralism? How can a Christian criticize Christian nationalism while remaining deeply committed to the faith?
The surprise says less about Talarico than it does about the state of American Christianity.
Talarico, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate and a seminarian at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, represents a tradition of Christianity that is both old and academically rigorous. His theological views emerge from the mainline Protestant world, particularly the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a denomination that places substantial emphasis on biblical scholarship, historical criticism, theology and engagement with modern academic research.
Many Americans assume that liberal Christianity is simply secular politics dressed up in religious language. Yet that assumption collapses under even the most basic examination of the institutions where many mainline clergy are trained.
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, founded in 1902, is an accredited graduate institution that emphasizes critical theological thought, historical research and engagement with a wide range of perspectives. Its mission explicitly includes the promotion of rigorous theological scholarship and research. Talarico’s views did not emerge from social media. They emerged from a century-old tradition of theological education.
Here in Birmingham, a useful comparison can be found in Briarwood Presbyterian Church.
Briarwood is one of the most influential churches in Alabama and a flagship congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America. Founded in 1960, Briarwood played a central role in the creation of the PCA, a denomination that emerged from conservative opposition to developments within the old Southern Presbyterian church. The PCA’s first General Assembly was held at Briarwood in 1973, cementing the church’s place in modern evangelical history.
Both Briarwood and Talarico come from Presbyterian traditions. Both affirm the importance of faith. Both trace their roots to the Reformed tradition.
Yet they often arrive at very different conclusions.
The difference is not that one side believes the Bible and the other does not. The difference is how the Bible is interpreted.
Mainline seminaries such as Austin Presbyterian expose students to archaeology, textual criticism, church history, ancient languages and centuries of theological debate. Students are taught that Scripture emerged within historical contexts and that faithful interpretation requires understanding those contexts. Questions are not viewed as threats. They are viewed as part of the intellectual and spiritual task of faith.
That approach can sound strange to people raised in churches where certainty is prized above inquiry.
Many conservative Christians hear Talarico discuss theology and assume he is inventing a new religion. In reality, most of what he says reflects debates that have existed within Christian scholarship for generations. Theological faculties at major universities and accredited seminaries have been wrestling with these questions for decades.
The irony is that many critics dismiss Talarico’s views as radical without recognizing that they are often rooted in academic traditions far older than the modern evangelical movement itself.
This points to a larger problem in American public life.
Too many Americans know only one version of Christianity. When they encounter another, they assume it must be fake.
Yet Christianity has always contained multiple traditions. Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelicals, Orthodox Christians and countless others have disagreed for centuries about theology, Scripture and doctrine. Disagreement is not evidence that one side is abandoning Christianity. It is evidence that Christianity is a living intellectual tradition.
The distinction becomes especially important in politics.
Politicians such as Sen. Tommy Tuberville and Sen. Katie Britt often speak from a broadly evangelical worldview familiar to many Alabama voters. Talarico speaks from a different Christian tradition entirely. The disagreement is not between Christianity and secularism. It is a disagreement between competing understandings of Christianity itself.
That fact is frequently lost in public debate.
Perhaps the most important difference concerns the nature of faith.
Mainline theologians generally do not argue that religious belief can be proven through scientific methods. Faith, by definition, involves trust, conviction and commitment beyond empirical certainty. It is a response to mystery.
Much of modern evangelical politics, by contrast, often presents theological claims as though they were self-evident facts beyond dispute. The result is a public culture in which religious certainty becomes confused with religious truth.
Talarico’s popularity suggests that many Americans are hungry for something different.
Whether one agrees with his theology or not, he serves as a reminder that Christianity is larger, more diverse and more intellectually complex than the version often presented in American politics.
For Alabama, that may be the most important lesson of all.
The question is not whether James Talarico is a “real Christian.” The question is why so many Americans have never been exposed to the Christian tradition from which he comes.