James Talarico’s grandfather was a “moderate” Baptist pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention, and that’s why his grandson is so liberal, Al Mohler claims.
On the June 2 episode of Mohler’s “The Briefing” podcast, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary dissed both Talarico, a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Texas, and his grandfather.
The headline on the transcript of Mohler’s podcast says, “Talarico’s Grandfather was a ‘Moderate’ SBC Pastor in the 1960s, and It Shows in the Life and Theology of His Grandson.”
Al Mohler speakingt in front of the U.S. Supreme Court buildihng (Screencap)
Talarico is evidence, Mohler says, of a trend where the children and grandchildren of former SBC moderates “have moved even further to the left.”
And Talarico’s theological beliefs — which align with much of the Mainline and progressive Baptist world — are evidence of why the “conservative resurgence” was necessary in the SBC, Mohler said. “The influence of a grandfather on a grandson, lamentably, I think in this case, becomes very clear.”
More recently, Talarico opponents have taken to social media to claim Talarico has misrepresented the life story of his grandfather. Some have claimed Causey was not a real Baptist because he left the SBC.
Some of these posts skew the dates of the “conservative resurgence” and appear to place it in the 1960s. It was, in reality, a series of actions taken from 1979 through the 1990s.
Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, speaks frequently about his grandfather’s influence. And that story has been confirmed by multiple media outlets, including The New York Times. His “paw-paw” also appears in a new campaign ad with him.
Jimmy Causey was the pastor of three Baptist churches in South Texas in the late 1960s, then went on to a career in public service. Causey, now 86, told the Times he found himself on the “moderate” side of the SBC schism even though he no longer was a pastor by then. His longest tenure was at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Corpus Christi.
“The conservatives believed that the Bible was dictated by God to the writers of the Bible and that every word of it was to be taken as the literal word of God,” Causey told the Times. “I just never could swallow that line.”
News Nation reported on a common example of how Talarico speaks about his grandfather: “So, my granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas, and he taught me at a very early age that Christianity is a simple religion, not an easy religion, but a simple religion. Because Jesus gave us two commandments to follow: Love God and love neighbor; that that’s what this whole faith boils down to.”
“Christianity is both spiritual and political, because politics is really just another word for how we treat our neighbors, how we treat each other in a society,” Talarico also has said.
The Senate candidate was born James Dell Collins in Round Rock, Texas, on May 17, 1989, to Tamara Causey, who initially raised him as a single mother. His birth father, Steve Collins, was not present in his life.
Tamara Causey later married Mark Talarico, who adopted James and gave him his surname. Jimmy Causey is James Talarico’s maternal grandfather.
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