James Talarico's Church Is a Big, Hot Mess of Woke Nonsense

James Talarico, the Texas Democrat who is vying with Texas's Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton for the Lone Star State's open Senate seat, is trying to pass himself as a moderate. A churchgoing moderate, even. This guy is probably the softest political candidate for statewide office in history, and he's trying to claim to be a moderate. There's just one problem with his claims:

They are utter horse squeeze. A look at his church will tell you a lot about how moderate James Talarico is; you can judge him by the company he keeps, and the company he keeps is... weird.

Talarico has gone to St. Andrew's Presbyterian in North Austin since he was 2 years old, and he's preached there himself while at seminary. St. Andrew's calls itself "Presbyterian & Progressive," which is putting it mildly. Pull up the homepage and there's no scripture, no sin, no salvation, nothing that would've made sense to a Presbyterian fifty years ago. Just a pledge to "affirm the full participation of all ages, sex and gender identities, races, color, and ethnicities in all our endeavors," like an HR seminar broke into the sanctuary and started redecorating.

Well, that's a word salad of woke that makes one have to double-check to make sure it wasn't something uttered by Kamala Harris. I mean, isn't scripture, sin, salvation pretty much what the Christian faith is all about? When do they get past the "all ages sex and gender identities, races, color, and ethnicities," to start talking about, well, religion?

This doesn't appear to be much of a church. It's more like a carnival freak show of woke.

But wait! There's more!

Keep scrolling. It gets worse. St. Andrew's is a "More Light" congregation, the PC(USA) label for churches that fully affirm and ordain LGBTQ clergy, and the church says outright it exists to help congregations "lead LGBTQIA+ service and advocacy." It's partnered with Out Youth Austin, an outfit built around "youth of all sexual orientations and gender identities." So when Talarico told his own congregation in 2022 that "our trans community needs abortion care, too," nobody there should've blinked. He was quoting the mission statement.

St. Andrew's also holds a formal designation as a "Reproductive Freedom Congregation," a badge abortion-rights groups hand out to churches that fall in line. It's stapled right next to the LGBTQ material, same page, same self-satisfied tone, like unrestricted abortion access is just another item on the parish activity calendar.

This is the church chosen by the guy who is trying to convince Texas that he's the reincarnation of Lyndon Johnson. Or, at least, a moderate.

Look, the Constitution recognized and guarantees that James Talarico has the unassailable right to attend the church of his choice. It also recognizes and guarantees that his church can hold to whatever tenets it pleases, as long as it doesn't break any laws. From what we can see here, it doesn't look like St. Andrew's is breaking any laws, with one possible exception; more on that in a moment. They are, though, operating on a level of woke that would make Code Pink jump up and let out shouts of geriatric joy.

As far as the laws go, there is one case where St. Andrew's certainly brushed up against them; James Talarico, none other, in an earlier interview, had bragged about his church hiding a family of illegal aliens, with the church acting as a sanctuary. The law there is fuzzy; proponents of that cite the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but the notion of churches acting as unquestioned sanctuaries for people who have broken the law, like, say, illegal aliens, is far from decided. The Supreme Court has never weighed in. So, in this, James Talarico's church may indeed have broken the law.

But it's the woke hooraw emanating from St. Andrew's that may just sink Talarico's Senatorial hopes. Ken Paxton's campaign should be shouting this weirdness from the rooftops, because it's a safe bet that it won't fly with a majority of Texans.

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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