James Talarico was a child when I was on the pastoral staff of his church for a year. We attended the same seminary, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
I want to look at three of the things he has said that I see going most viral.
“God is nonbinary”
When Moses asks God’s name, God doesn’t say “father” or “king.” God says I AM: existence itself, beyond human definition. The Cappadocian Fathers of the fourth century, hardly progressive revolutionaries, were careful to insist that God transcends human categories, including gender.
Brent Barry
This isn’t liberalism. It’s classical Christian theology.
And Jesus himself? He compared himself to a mother hen longing to gather her chicks. He told a story of a woman searching her whole house for one lost coin as an image of God’s own heart. Isaiah records God saying, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.”
These aren’t modern impositions on Scripture. They’re in the text.
Paul reminds us we see through a glass darkly. Any confident claim to fully contain or define God should give us pause. Acknowledging the limits of human language about God isn’t radical. It’s orthodox humility.
“These aren’t modern impositions on Scripture. They’re in the text.”
He called “white men the greatest domestic terrorist threat”
Since 2019, both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have repeatedly identified white supremacist violence as our most persistent and lethal terrorist threat.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before Congress that white supremacists constitute the largest share of domestic terrorists. Pointing to federal law enforcement’s own findings is not a personal attack. It’s a footnote.
He called our border security a “welcome mat”
What Talarico actually said is that we need both a welcome mat and a lock on the door. That’s not open borders. That’s every home I’ve ever visited — welcoming and responsible.
Care for the stranger runs through Scripture from beginning to end. Wisdom and compassion never have been opposites but exist together side by side in the Christian faith.
At the end of the day, Talarico would not be teaching theology as a U.S. senator. However, he would have a Christian responsibility to love his neighbor.
How does Talarico love his neighbor when it comes to health care, foreign policy, the economy? Love of neighbor.
That’s what I seek in any politician, whether in my political and religious tribe or not.
Brent Barry is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) who now operates. Northeast Texas holistic farming enterprise called Stout Creek Farm.