Ep 1315 | James Talarico Is More Demonic Than You Think

That tells you a lot about the danger of his theology, the damage of his politics,

but we're going to take a deep dive into who he is, what he believes and the denomination that shaped him on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends @goeteranters.goeteranters.com. Use code alia check out that's goeteranters.com, code alie. Hey guys, happy Monday.

Welcome to Relatable. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. So James Talleriko won his primary, but the good news is that God's eternal plan of redemption is still going off without a hitch. But nothing surprises him, even Jasmine Crocket losing her election, nothing takes him

back, nothing throws him off.

He always knows exactly what's going to go on.

He has sovereign over everything. R.C. Sproll used to say there are no maverick molecules in all creation. Everything is in accordance to God's perfect will. And even all of a craziness and the wickedness and the evil that goes on in the world, while God doesn't cause any of that, he is still completely in control.

He's not doing nothing about that evil Psalm 37 reminds us that he's coming back. That his anger is kindling, that his wrath is growing and he will avenge his people. He's not doing nothing about the wickedness and the sin and the injustice that goes on in the world. He is going to take care of it once and for all.

He is the God of true justice. He is the source of truth. And when Jesus comes back, he won't arrive again as a meek in my old baby, but he will come as a warrior to make all things right, to make all things new. So whatever angst you feel about things that are disjointed or disordered or wrong in the

world, just trust that God feels much angrier and more incensed about injustice and oppression. And he is going to do something about it.

“And in the meantime, he has pre ordained that you and I believe us, that through our obedience,”

which might seem silly to the world, which might seem even mundane or meaningless to us, that his will is actually accomplished through our words and through our actions. God doesn't need us. He doesn't need our prayer. He doesn't need our evangelism.

He doesn't need our acts of courage to glorify himself or to accomplish his purpose. But in his grace and in his providence, he has chosen these things to be a means by which he does his work. And so just know, this beautiful comfort that nothing in the life of a believer is wasted. There is nothing truly mundane.

There is nothing truly boring or meaningless. Every single thing we do, echoes in eternity, and it won't be until the other side of glory that we see the fullness of the tapestry of our testimonies in how God has woven them together.

“So just remember, doing the next right thing and faith with excellence and for the glory”

of God, which we say every week on this show, it's not just about you doing the right thing. It is also about advancing God's kingdom, which is done through the mostly unseen and unsung acts of faithfulness of believers. And so we get to be a part of this grand narrative.

That is because of God always going off without a hitch.

No matter what happens in an election, no matter what the political climate here is, no matter what's going on with World War III, God is completely in charge. That's what we take comfort in, and we take hope that Jesus will claim ultimate victory once and for all. Part of what we have to do as Christians is be a beacon of clarity and courage in this

world that is constantly rewarding cowardice and is right with confusion and chaos. And when a person rises up who represents that confusion and chaos, but disguises it as a light and truth and goodness, it is the responsibility of Christians, especially Christians with a platform with a microphone like mine or for pastors out there with a pulpit like yours to ensure that we are pushing back against the confusion, because remember Satan disguises

himself as an angel of light, Satan looks good.

“He sounds good, remember that the fruit and the garden of Eden and the tree of the knowledge”

of good and evil, it looked good. It looked like it would taste good and remember when Satan is trying to tempt Jesus in the wilderness. What does he use? He uses scripture.

So Satan knows the Bible. He makes his lies sound scriptural, sound holy, sound good and sound palatable to the world. And slowly but surely, chips away at our conscience, chips away at our wisdom, and leads us down a literally damning path.

And I think the person who is most prominent that represents that best, that evil disguised

James Talereco is a Texas state representative that is now the Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas. So on March 3rd, Talereco defeated Congress, Home and Jasmine Crocket in the Texas Democratic

primary for U.S. Senate, so he defeated her 52.4 percent to 46.2 percent according to

CNN. He is really the fastest growing stars, fastest rising stars I would say, fastest growing really celebrities on the left side. He's got more than 2 million followers on Instagram and 1.6 million on TikTok. And if you look at his opponents on the Republican side, John Kornin can paksed in there

in a runoff right now and so we don't actually know who will be facing him in November on their Republican side. Their social media footprint is much, much smaller than his. That is not necessarily an indicator of who is going to win the election. But obviously that means that Kornin impacts and have some work to do especially when

it comes to the younger demographics.

There is an analysis of social media engagement among Democratic officials in Talereco trailed only Kamaliharis and Barack Obama. Okay, so when it comes to social media influence, Talereco is number three. This guy reminds me a lot of better work. Remember, Betto ran for a lot of things.

He ran primarily at the race that I remember the most was against Ted Cruz.

“And he was literally that like, how do you do fellow kids meme?”

If you know what I'm talking about, especially since his prop was actually a skateboard, we'll play you a video of that. Remember that? That was his way to relate to the kids and to relate to the voters and Talereco kind of has the same air.

He's trying to relate to the young people. But his prop, his way of relating to the youths is following only fans accounts on Instagram. I'm not kidding. That was reported by the New York Post. Several months ago, despite this kind of like choir boy, preacher, Christian, stick that

he has going on. It was reported in November of 2025 that he was following at least 10 accounts on Instagram belonging to only fans models, escorts, things like that, just very weird and creepy.

“That would have been an absolute disqualifying scandal, I think, that if you had someone”

who called himself a Christian preacher on the Republican right, it was following those accounts, you would hear cries of hypocrisy and rightly so, but this was just a blip on the radar for this guy. This was kind of just a feature of his multifaceted personality, I guess. He also appeared on Joe Rogan in July of last year and will play some of those clips.

We responded to them at the time, so you can go back and kind of listen to that breakdown, but Rogan told him in that interview that he should run for president Joe Rogan, told James Talleriko. This radical left is that he should run for president, a political noted that Talleriko took a, quote, big, tent approach to his campaign by appealing to voters from both parties

and independence and an example of that is his reply to Greg Abbott just the other day after the Austin shooting last weekend where he said dangerous people should not be allowed into the country. Okay, dangerous people should not be allowed to get guns, Texans understand this, he says to Greg Abbott, you apparently don't, Greg Abbott was responding to James Talleriko saying

that this was some gun show loophole, which, of course, is not true, but that's actually the most moderate I've heard James Talleriko and that is his strategy there, Democrats

always moderate when they're running in these red states, but he is a radical, just

listen to what he actually believes about immigration policy. Southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome map out front.

“One key to his rising prominence has been promoting a big tent version, not just of the”

Democrat party, but also of Christianity, and it's big tent in some sense in that people of all different faiths and all different backgrounds and all different moralitys can be counted as Christian, according to James Talleriko, except for those of us who call ourselves evangelicals and actually believe the Bible to be authoritative. He is a progressive seminary student, he's a former middle school teacher, he publicly

supports abortion homosexuality and transgenderism as we will get into. He often appeals to his progressive Christian morals, even though that's an oxy moron, and beliefs to defend his arguments and his policy positions, even as he criticizes conservative Christians for being Christian nationalist for bringing our convictions into the public square in similar ways, but with opposite views.

And this is a tactic that has made him go viral several times in the past year, and his made him very appealing to a lot of people, even moderate.

Talleriko to the place that he is now and what was the theological upbringing and the influence on his life that made him land on some of the wildest and most unhinged positions that you can think of. Let me pause and tell you about our first sponsor for the day. That is seven weeks coffee, so thankful for seven weeks coffee, not only because they provide

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that's seven weeks coffee.com. In 2021, Tallarico put God into radical transgender ideology and his support for laws that will allow kids to be mutilated on the Texas House floor here, so at one.

“The first two lines of the Bible, the first two lines in Genesis, used two different Hebrew”

words to describe God. One is the masculine Hebrew noun for divinity. The second is

the feminine Hebrew noun for spirit. God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary. So it's actually true that God is not male or female, like we are. He doesn't have a body, like we do. And yet this statement is inaccurate because God consistently refers to himself as father, as king, as Lord in masculine terms. Also, if you go down further into Genesis

1, Genesis 1, 27, it's very clear that regardless of what you think about the masculine features are the feminine features of God, the father, what is clear is that he made us male and female. There are not multiple words there, use for male and female. In fact,

“we read that God made man in his image male and female, he created them. So he didn't”

say male, female and non-binary, that he made multiple forms of chromosome, mole combinations that you can have besides X, X, X, X, Y. He created us male and female. So we see Talariko this name over and over again that he really uses God as a mascot, as it means to advance his political ends. He does not submit to God as the ruler and the authority over the universe. If he actually believed what Genesis 1, 1 says that in the beginning God created

the heavens and the earth, then he would see if he's creator, then he's also the ruler over all of it. Then he's the definer of all things. He's the arbiter of truth, the determinant of morality and he and he alone has the right and responsibility to be the decider of all things, the definer of all things. He and he alone gets to say what's right and what's wrong, what's true and what's false, what a woman is, what she's not, when

life begins, why it matters, to define the parameters of holy sexuality and to decide what marriage is. But of course, he doesn't submit to God as the creator and the ruler of all things. He sees God as a political pun. Also James Talariko decided to turn a sermon at a local church, St. Andrew's Presbyterian church around Austin, around Round Rock, into some kind of political stump speech about transgenderism and abortion,

too. This summer, more than half our population became second-class citizens. Every one of

our neighbors with a uterus became the property of the state and nothing, nothing is more un-Christian than that. I want to acknowledge that our trans community needs abortion care too. Defending trans text is something we have to do every day at the state capital and you better believe I'll be getting sermons on that too. So when I used the word woman, it should not be understood as an exhaustive term, but rather as a lens through which to understand,

of even 10 years ago would not have dared to represent publicly one that is normal and even

“moral to switch sexes that it's possible to actually switch sexes and that it is important,”

that people who do switch sexes, especially people who identify a so-called trans men, are able to have a taxpayer funded right to kill their baby inside the womb and then the other position, that this nexus is so important that it needs to be represented publicly at a church. And also, this cumbersome language of people with uterus is really reduces what a woman is into her just biological capacity into her reproductive organs, which is the exact opposite

of what progressive say that they're doing. So who is James Tolerico? How did this person with all

of these cookie beliefs rise to such prominence? He was first elected as a Texas house representative

in 2018 after he defeated Republicans in the Flores and he rose to prominence a couple of years ago when he went viral for his videos of speeches on the Texas House floor opposing the legislation

“to display the 10 commandments in Texas classroom, so forth. Forcing our religion on to Hindu,”

Buddhist, Sikh, and atheist students is not love. Forcing teachers to put up a poster in their classrooms against their wills is not love. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Okay, I bet he would argue though that Christian teachers could be forced to call a child by the wrong preferred pronouns or could be forced to teach things about the acceptance of LGBTQ ideology even though it opposes their worldview. And he says this is forcing religion

upon people who don't believe in Christianity, but of course that's not true. Displaying the 10 commandments is about American history. You actually cannot understand Western civilization. You can't understand America without understanding Christianity, without knowing the Bible, without understanding the 10 commandments. So even just from a literary or historical

“educational perspective, displaying the 10 commandments I think is really foundational”

in understanding the country that we live in, but also they're just good rules for life. And it's really hard. I think from a moral perspective to argue against them. Talariko is a lifelong professing Christian and he often sights his grandfather as a major influence. His grandfather was a Baptist preacher who taught him Jesus's greatest command. He says is to love God and love your neighbor. So it's my granddad was a Baptist preacher in South

Texas. And when I was little, he told me that Christianity is a simple religion. Not an easy

religion, he would always clarify. But a simple religion because Jesus gave us two commandments.

Love God and love neighbor. And there was no exception to that second commandment. Love that neighbor regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation or immigration status or religious affiliation. And it's why I have fought so hard for the separation of church and state in the state capital in Texas. Obviously, it is true that the greatest commandment are to love God and love your neighbor. How do we obey God? We obey God by keeping his commandments. And we love others

by defining love how God defines love. First John 4 8 God is love. So love isn't affirming sin. Love isn't telling someone they could be born in the wrong body. Love isn't refusing to show people the truth and the 10 commandments or refusing to preach the gospel to people. Love is walking and speaking in agreement with God because we can't out love God. We can't out compassion him. So the most loving thing we can do with our lives with our words is agree with God.

Now, Tyler Rico is still a member of his childhood congregation. It's a very progressive church in Austin, St. Andrew Presbyterian Church. And it shouldn't be surprising at all that in the about

us page of this church. It says we are Christ centered yet. It's never good when you see a church

saying we are Christ centered, but we respect and learn from all religions of love. Well, again, that's just not a Christian position. If God is love and we believe in the triune God, Father Son Holy Spirit that no other religion believes in, then he is actually the only source of love. There aren't other religions of love in addition to Christianity. So it doesn't come as a surprise that he is essentially, Tyler Rico is essentially a universalist who claims to be a Christian

and uses some Christian tenets, but actually doesn't believe in the exclusivity of Christ. We'll get into that in just a second. Let me pause. Tell you about our next sponsor. That is alliance to

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“all religions are true, so that's it. I believe Christianity points to the truth. I also think”

other religions of love point to the same truth. I think of different religious traditions as different languages. So you and I could sit here and debate what to call this cup. And you could call it a cup in English. You'd call it something else in Spanish and French. But we are all talking about the same reality. I believe Jesus Christ reveals that reality to us. But I also think that other traditions reveal that reality in their own ways with their own simple structures.

And I've learned more about my tradition by learning more about Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam and Judaism. And so I see these beautiful faith traditions as circling the same truth about the universe, about the cosmos. Well, there are certainly nothing beautiful about Islam.

“That is for sure. We can see the fruit of Islam throughout the world, which stands for everything”

that Talerego claims to stand against, the oppression of women and children, violence. Certainly there is gross wealth disparities that are actually pushed forward by tyrannical policy in places where Islamic regimes are in charge. And then, I mean, the obvious truth is that you can be someone who believes those things, but you can't be a Christian and believe that all religions kind of point to the same truth. Because in John 146, the Jesus that James Talerego claims

to follow says, I am the way, the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father except through me, except through me. He is affiliated with the fully affirming Presbyterian Church of the United

States of America. So this is PCUSA. There's PCUSA, which is liberal. We'll get into that in a second.

And then there's PCA that is a collection of churches within Presbyterianism that are more theologically conservative or theologically faithful. His Church is also part of what's called the reproductive freedom congregations. This is a Texas movement to remove abortions. Stigma, the Church also celebrates transgenderism. We played you that clip earlier where he's at his church saying trans communities need abortion care. Neighbors with uterus says Talerego has a year of

classwork left before he receives his MDiv from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, obviously a very progressive institution. He's studying to be a pastor, but he says, of course, his studies are on hold because he believes that this is where God has called him. Right now, he said this in a New Yorker article from February. We'll get more into the history of Presbyterianism in a second and how this kind of shaped his ascendance and shaped his theology. First, I want to

dive in a little bit to that New Yorker article. So the New Yorker published a profile of Talerego on February 23. Title James Talerego puts his faith in Texas voters. This isn't excerpt where Talerego was in a room with former Dallas mayor, Mike Rollins, and first Presbyterian Church of Dallas in your pastor, Amist Disasa, Disasa, Az Talerego, what kind of welcome are you getting from

evangelicals? The reason he's asking this is because 90 percent of white evangelicals voted for

President Trump in 2024 and Talerego said, you know, we think that we can make headway with Christians. Evangelicals and he shrugged. He's distinguishing here between Christians who he believes are Christians

evangelicals won't vote for him. Um, Talerego said in an interview last year, there are a lot of

“people who feel that the Democratic Party in recent years has been hostile to people of faith”

talking about faith. He added, this creates an opportunity for connection. I don't think it automatically wins you over, but it starts a conversation. So we can see here what his goals are. His goals are to appeal to Christians. Most Christians don't matter your denomination. Do vote Republican. Now, it gets more and more Republican, the deeper you get into Christianity with white evangelicals, being the stronghold for conservatism. They also lead the way in church attendance, read,

lead the way and read their Bible every day, lead the way and making donations that it really does like as a white evangelical. The reason for this, the reason that we have the most conservative, I would say biblical position on issues like marriage, sex, sexuality, even things like immigration, it really does go back to our love for the Bible. And our belief and the importance of

“solid theology, the further you get away from that, the more liberal you're going to become.”

So if we look at Pew Research, for example, evangelical Christians have higher church attendance rates around 60% than other Christian groups with the exception of Mormons, Mormons, 76% but the reason we don't include Mormons, we're talking about denominations of Christianity is because it's not a denomination of Christianity. It's something else. 63% of evangelicals read the Bible outside of religious services, at least weekly, while 30% of Protestants. So those are main line

Protestants, 29% of Orthodox Christians in 25% of Catholics do. And then you look at the fruit of that, evangelicals white evangelicals are far more likely than any other Christian group to believe that abortion should be illegal. So for example, 73% of white evangelicals believe that abortion should be illegal in all our most cases versus white non evangelical Protestants of the James Talarico 33% believe that black Protestant 26% Catholic only 40% and then the religiously unaffiliated

the people who love James Talarico most, only 13% of them believe that abortion should be illegal in all our most cases. So these are the people that aren't going to get on board with Talarico,

that he basically is saying is a lost cause. We evangelicals because we are so staunch in our biblical

beliefs and we are so staunch in our views on abortion and gender and immigration and things like that. So I'm not really worried about our crowd. I am worried about those and the white non evangelical Protestant world who might be conservative if it weren't for this deadly dose of toxic empathy that they are inviting every day. This propaganda that makes them think that loving your neighbor means opening the border or loving your neighbor means affirming someone's so-called gender identity

or that it's loving to women to legalize aborting their children because they might have a hard life otherwise. Those are the people for you and for me that we have to work really hard at channeling their compassion in the right direction and most importantly helping them see factual truth, political truth and biblical truth. Those are the people that we're really going to be fighting over when it comes to James Talarico that will be true in the next presidential

election too. They believe that there is a portion of evangelicals, a portion of Protestants, a portion of Catholics that are up for grabs. They know a portion of Catholics are up for grabs because it's about 60, 40, 60% of Catholics tend to vote Democrat, but this evangelical stronghold they are going to do everything they can to break down using religious sounding language to make it seem like the only Christian perspective is the progressive one. He had a lot to say about his

beliefs about abortion and things like that on Joe Rogan's podcast will play some of that in a second.

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comes over Mary and we have the incarnation God asks for Mary's consent which is remarkable. I mean go back and read this and in Luke. I mean the angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do and she says if it is God's will let it be done. Let it be.

“Let it happen. So to me that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that”

creation has to be done with consent. First of all, his rendering of that story is completely untrue. Gabriel doesn't actually ask for Mary's permission there. Yes, she accepts God's will

and she should be honored for that. What an incredible blessing to be chosen as Jesus' earthly

mother and to have your womb grow the Christ child that is amazing. But she simply ascends to what God has already decided and already chosen. She's not actually consenting to that. It's not like a choice that she is making here. She simply is accepting the present reality what God commands in that moment. And even if it were true that this went the way James Talleriko said that it did that Mary said, "Yeah, sure. You can do that. Go ahead and

“conceive Jesus. That isn't a justification for killing a baby after here. She has been conceived”

to say that this passage about Jesus becoming flesh, becoming man is a justification for poisoning or dismembering babies inside the womb is so absurdly evil. I would love to debate James Talleriko on that passage and on his excuse or justification for abortion." He also makes this very troubling comment about Jesus' crucifixion. He said Jesus was crucified for, quote, "confronting the

powerful." Here he is. The second is crucifixion. That's good Friday. Where Jesus because he

confronts the powerful is executed on across a humiliating death along with other criminals. So this is a very common refrain that you see from a lot of these so-called progressive Christians that Jesus died because he was a revolutionary because he fought against Roman power and he fought against empire because he was a progressive and he fought for women and all of these things. Of course, that's not true. We actually did an episode about specifically

who killed Jesus, who was responsible for that. Why did that happen just a couple weeks ago when we will link that? But here ultimately is the answer, which is so different than what James Talleriko said. So why Christ actually died number one? God willed it. Acts 223. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, definite plan and foreknowledge of God. Also, number two, he died because of the fulfillment of prophecy. First Corinthians 1534,

if I delivered to you as a first importance, what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. So in accordance with the scriptures, this is something that was four or dained. Number three, to save sinners and reconcile us to God, Romans 5/8/10, but God shows His love for us and that while we were still sinners Christ died for us, since therefore

we have now been justified by His blood. Much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of His Son, much more.

Now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. So amazing. Also, Talleriko's description

of the resurrection in this interview as, quote, something where, uh, where something beautiful and new rises from the ashes, it downplays a physical reality of Jesus rising from the dead. He uses the resurrection as an allegory and this is really the prevailing view of people who call

including Him defeating death days after He was crucified. Like everything else about Jesus, Talleriko,

“and others like Him, see Jesus as a moral example. They see Him as an activist. They see Him as”

a revolutionary for progressive causes, like a cheerleader on the sidelines of their political fight.

They see Him as a mascot. There was a man by James Cohen and if you've been listening to relatable since 2018, you know who James Cohen is. We talked a lot about him from 2018 to 2020. He was a 20th century theologian and he popularized something called liberation theology, and specifically for him, black liberation theology. But liberation theology is a school of theological thought to which Talleriko holds that asserts that the Bible, the gospel, the life

death and resurrection of Jesus, the advancement of God's kingdom, the future hope that we have of a new earth and a new heaven is all actually about liberating the so-called oppressed. So fighting white supremacy on behalf of black people, fighting immigration enforcement on behalf of immigrants, fighting capitalism on behalf of the poor, etc. Kona wrote this quote, "This is what Christ's resurrection means, the oppressed are freed for struggle

for battle in the pursuit of humanity." So like James Talleriko, James Cohen believes that every religion that speaks to the same truth, the truth of liberation was a legitimate religion. So for him, the exclusivity of Christ and spiritual salvation from sin was really unimportant. And by the way, I just want to say that Martin Luther King shared the same beliefs about the gospel, about Jesus. He denied the resurrection, and this all reminds me actually of a quote

that just came to mind from C.S. Lewis in the screw-taped letters. Something that he writes in the voice of screw-taped, which is a demon, trying to advise his nephew on how to pull his patient a human being away from heaven, is that we want to demons want to tempt us to use Christianity as a means to our political ends. And so here's a quote from the screw-taped letters. "We do want and want very much to make men treat Christianity as a means."

Preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but failing that as a means to anything, even to social justice for the enemy who is God will not be used as a convenience.

“Of course, that's what Talleriko does, that's what James Cohen did, really just seen God,”

seen Jesus as a means to an end, a mascot, in their version of politics and Christianity. And really, the mascot of their form of Christianityism, because that's what Talleriko represents, is a form of progressive Christianityism, he believes, that his interpretation of the Bible should inform the law of the land. But if I were to say, while Psalm 16 tells me very clearly that God knitted together all people in their mother's womb, that tells me a lot about the

dignity and the sanctity of unborn life, I don't think that it would be good to legalize killing those babies inside the womb just because we can't see or hear them or just because they're younger, dependent, he would say that's fascism. That's Christian nationalism, remember, it is only the conservative Christian that is told that we can't bring the fullness of our worldview into the public sphere and into the voting booth. Talleriko, of course, believes that

“that's perfectly fine, I believe that that is how we actually should inform our policy.”

Talleriko butchers the gospel. First Corinthians, one 18 says, for the word of the cross is

folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. This is why I say that Talleriko is a left wing atheist version of a good Christian because the things that he says totally makes sense to the world. It's not foolishness to the atheist. Everything that Talleriko says sounds really good to the person who rejects God. If everything we are saying as Christians makes sense to the non-believer, sounds good and persuasive at all times to the non-believer,

that's not an indication that we're doing things well, that's an indication that we're going the wrong direction. If you read first Corinthians one, we see that God flips everything on his on its head, that he chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, what is weak, according to worldly standards, to shame the strong. This is a stumbling block to the Jews we

read. It is folly to the Greeks we read and first Corinthians one. But it is the power of Christ,

to those who believe. It is wisdom to those who believe. We sound like a stench of death to those who are not believing, but the fragrance of God to those who are. But Talleriko truly believe

as recline this in his New York Times interview here in Saudi. These politicians want a

“Christian nation unless it means providing health care to the sick or funding food assistance”

for the hungry or raising the minimum wage for the poor. It seems like they want to base our laws on the Bible until they read the words of Jesus. Welcome the stranger, liberate the oppressed, put away your sword, sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor. I'm not exactly sure a Christian nation is really what these people want. Okay, so again, the hypocrisy there is just so obvious. He wants a Christian nation, apparently, and he believes that all of those things in

the Bible should dictate our laws. But if I have a different interpretation of the Bible,

I cannot use that interpretation to inform my belief about public policy because if I do,

it's fascism or Christian nationalism or theocracy. He just wants his version of the ocracy. By the way, Jesus did not say welcome the foreigner and liberate the oppressed. Those are

“not things that Jesus said. If you're referring to the passage in Exodus that says you should”

welcome the sojourner, we have to read that in context where we also read that there is one law for the foreigner and for the Israelite. There weren't these loopholes in which migrants could take part in all of the privileges and the rights and the protection of Israel without obeying the law. They had to be circumcised. They had to follow all laws regarding sexuality and marriage, cleansing and ceremonies and all of that. And so I just think that if we are going to look at the

old or the new Testament to inform what we believe about policy, which I do think that we should, when we are ex-adgeting and interpreting scripture within context and accurately, in a light of the rest of scripture and light of history and in light most importantly of the gospel, which is not something that he does. And he's actually making the case here that commands for generosity for the Christian and scripture should mean that we support forced wealth redistribution,

that we should support the government forcing money out of the hands of some people and giving to others, but that's not what the Bible is talking about when it commands us to care for the poor. We are to be generous and charitable. That means not under compulsion, but in accordance to our free will, second Corinthians 97 tells us this, each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. We know that taxes are compulsory

“taxes are something that you have to give or else you will go to jail, so taxes don't count”

as following Christ command to be generous and kind to others. Yet, Talleriko says that it's actually the right that is co-opted Christianity, not nine. They convinced a lot of

our fellow Christians that the most important issues were abortion and gay marriage. Two issues

that aren't mentioned in the Bible, two issues that Jesus never talked about. Jesus in Matthew 25 tells us exactly how you and I and every one of our fellow believers, how we're going to be judged and how we're going to be saved by feeding the hungry, by healing the sick, by welcoming the stranger, nothing about going to church, nothing about voting Republican. It was all about how you treat other people.

Okay, Jesus does talk about marriage and sexuality, Matthew 19, 4 through 5, he bakes it. I'm very obvious what the definition of marriage is. He goes all the way back to creation. Also, of course, abortion has talked about. It's actually included in the Big Tin Commandments, Tao, Shal, Not, Murder, Tao, Shal, Not, Murder. And of course, we know that Christ doubles down on all the Tin Commandments by saying it's not just about what you do. It's not just about

following the letter of the law. It's about following the spirit of the law, down to the heart, which by the way, you can't ever do perfectly. And that is why Christ came to pay for your debt and to pay for your sin on the cross into defeat that three days later. But yes, of course, the Bible speaks very clearly about condemning murder and condemning any sexuality outside of one man and one woman in the context of marriage. And so he's just lying to you there.

So Taohariko is attempting to get the mushy metal. He knows he's got all of the Democrats, but he is also attempting to get your friends. He's attempting to get those in your mom group who don't really pay attention to politics and still it until it starts going viral on her Instagram feed. He is appealing to the women that believe in every form of leftwing propaganda who might be instinctively or because of their husbands or because of their parents conservative,

but they believe the stories that are presented to them by the New York Times,

They're going to like how gently he speaks. He is going to say things that sound familiar to them

“and because they sound familiar and sound Christian, they're going to be compelling. They're”

going to be persuasive. Our responsibility is to continue to push back and truth and gentleness and persuasiveness using the word of God. So when you see your friend sharing a James Taohariko post, when you see them misusing scripture to justify the support of abortion, I want you to be fully equipped to be able to push back against them. Nicely, kindly, of course with respect, but completely unapologetically and if you don't know

what to say, just ask a question, give a counterverse, give a counterpoint, send this podcast and say, well, will you listen to this and tell me what you think about it and then we can discuss it later, especially if you have that kind of friendship with them? I really encourage you, like especially if you're in the state of Texas, I really encourage you to re-talk to Timothy and you can get it from your library. I don't care if you buy it. You can borrow it from a friend, but I just really

want you to be equipped with the facts, with the biblical truth to be able to push back against

that. I didn't know who James Taohariko was when I first started writing toxic empathy,

but really my entire book is a response to that kind of completely erroneous form of Christianity, which pushes bad and destructive and deadly policies, but also is a kind of theology that truly dams the soul. It dams the soul because it doesn't present to a true gospel, but a false one. So you shouldn't vote for him, but certainly you shouldn't follow his tea chain either. All right,

“a little bit of a history lesson, which I think gives us context in just a second. Let me pause.”

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“Okay. So the liberation theology and the liberal theology that he espouses, it comes from a lot of”

places, but we can actually look to the history of the Presbyterian Church to see where all of this comes from. So Talariko is actually the fruit of a century long downgrade and mainline Presbyterianism. I Presbyterianism is a denomination that traces its roots to the Protestant reformation and so you can

look to incredible Scottish reformers like John Knox, you can even look to the reformer John Calvin,

but around the turn of the century. So we're talking the 20th century and the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. So that was the denomination. Some began to push for doctrinal updates to match modern science and culture. So for example in 1923, the New York Presbyterian ordained two union seminary grads who denied Christ's virgin births, sparking outrage from other Presbyterians, liberals responded with something called the Auburn affirmation, which claimed to

protect PC USA unity and liberty and labeling a labeling doctrines like virgin birth, a toned mitt, resurrection as non-binding theory. So like secondary or tertiary issues that didn't in fringe upon the faithfulness of the gospel. Over 1200 ministers signed that by 1924 and so this liberalism that we're seeing from people like James Talariko is not new. And the 1970s debates in the Presbyterian Church in the United States, so that's PCUS, increased about biblical authority,

the ordination of women, the church's relationship, to modern culture, and the conservatives opposed ordination of women. They believed in biblical an currency and then in 1973, conservatives left the Presbyterian Church of the United States, which with later merged with PCUS, that other liberal denomination, that is the denomination of Talariko. And then the PCUS has become more and more progressive over time, highlighted and the views that you've seen

from Talariko. They affirm the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people. They have since the 2010s,

immigration reform, opposition to war, economic equity. These are all euphemisms for communism.

“Basically, the PCUS is now the largest Presbyterian denomination in the US. So it's much bigger than”

the PCA, which includes churches that are faithful to Scripture. But it's in decline. The denomination

had about 2.7 million members in 1994, but only about 1 million in 2024. So that's a huge decline.

And in contrast, the PCA, which is the second largest US Presbyterian denomination, has seen robust growth outpacing population increases up 1.84% in 2024. And so what's really interesting is that if you look at all of the mainline Protestant denominations, that espouse the kind of progressive beliefs that James Talariko has, they're all into decline. People are realizing that if you're just going to hear from church all of the same things

that you're hearing from social media and your favorite liberal activist, there is no real reason to go to church. You can get community from your friends. You can go to brunch instead of taking communion. You can basically just scroll through TikTok and you can hear what's equivalent to a liberal sermon every day without ever having to leave your house. And so if you're not getting the truth of the gospel, if you're not getting

a faithful exegesis of God's Word, if you're not getting true accountability and confession of sin, that is supposed to occur in the body of Christ, and there's no point in going to church.

“That's why these mainline denominations are declining. What's interesting is that”

the popularity and culture of so-called liberal Christianity is increasing. And that is because again, James Talariko's form of Christianity is the atheist favorite form of Christianity. It is Satan's favorite form of Christianity. Remember Ephesians 2 tells us that Satan is the Prince of the power of the air. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once walked in the passions of our flesh. And so that is what is going on. Of course, the culture,

the sons of disobedience, the Prince of the power of the air, want the popularization of this kind of Christianity because it's not Christianity, because it's not a belief in Christ, it's not a belief in the gospel, and it's sending people to hell. And so again, we as Christians, we've got their responsibility to push back against this with everything we can, both because the policies and in destruction for people's bodies, it ends in economic destruction, it ends in unrest, it ends in

chaos, it ends in borderlessness, which is a form of chaos. It is anti-Christ, anti-bible, anti-order, anti-loving our neighbor in every single way. It just sounds palatable, and that's not enough. It just feels good, and that's not enough. But again, also because it is a false gospel that if people believe it, we'll lead them to hell. And we have to love our neighbor more than allowing them to believe James Tallarico, okay? So this is a spiritual battle that we're in,

far more. And then it is a political battle. The political battle is up here. What we see, the spiritual battle is what we don't see. But we as Christians who have been given this insight in this vision by the Holy Spirit to see the spiritual battle that's waging, as Ephesians 6 tells us, we have a responsibility to speak up against this, even if that means you lose friends, even if that means people unfollow you, even if that makes you unpopular, even if you get pushback,

even if that divides truth divides. Truth divides. And this is not just about politics, this is about what is true. What is eternally true, not just politically true. All right, we're going to shift gears just a little bit. We've got a new segment for you. And I know that we're going to still try to finish under an hour, maybe right over an hour. But the reason that we're going to shift gears

into this lighthearted segment for today is because we have an incredible short little video for you.

So I had a vision a couple weeks ago after Hillary Clinton wrote the hit piece on yours truly in the Atlantic. And she said that some of my work has to do with politics and theology, I guess, but she said the rest of it is just lifestyle, pitter-patter. I still to this day have no idea she's talking about because if you follow me, you know, that I don't really talk about any of that. I mean, I talk about motherhood. Sometimes we do talk about bread and food and things like

“that, I guess that's what lifestyle pitter-patter is. And I said, I want to see Hillary Clinton and me”

cooking and baking together for a lifestyle pitter-patter segment. So that's what we're about.

Today, but before we get into it, before we play you, that just amazing video of your girl

Hillary Clinton and me doing lifestyle pitter-patter things together. I got to tell you about our last sponsor. That's my Patriots Applied. This is America's number one preparedness company with

they're best selling four-week emergency food supply comes with an additional week of food for free. This is the best long-term storeable food that you can find. You're getting at least 2,000 calories a day. Real meals made with real ingredients. No artificial flavors or colors,

“and the shelf life is measured in decades. You don't want to be in a situation where you need”

an emergency food supply and you don't have it. So so much better to be safe than sorry, this is a great way to prepare for an emergency, for your family, to protect your family, to provide for your family, go to preparewithalley.com to get your free week of emergency food today, preparewithalley.com. [Music] Welcome to our new branded segment. Life-style pitter pattern. Maybe one day I can actually have

Hillary Clinton on Secretary of State to, I don't know, do a cooking segment or something like that. I feel like we would have a lot to talk about, but today, unfortunately, she's not here. And so we're going to talk about another form of lifestyle pitter pattern. That is dating. I'm very concerned about not only Genzi, but also Millennial Christian women and men who seem to be unable to find their match. Part of that is because of a mismatch. In values between

Genzi men and women on dating and kids, the interesting thing, this is according to Vox, is that Genzi men want kids and Genzi women have some questions. Vox journalist Anna North found that young men across the political spectrum really want to be dads more than you'd expect. A 2023 pupil showed that 57 percent of men aged 18 to 34 said they want children someday compared to only 45 percent of women, which is a pretty big gap that surprised researchers. This journalist noted

that male Trump voters actually rated having children as number one among life priorities. Well, none of the women, no matter how they voted, ranked at that high. Women, what is going

“on? Genzi men often see fatherhood as a capstone or just a really important part of a full”

life. This article says, "On the other hand, many young women express hesitancy because it's

never been more costly for women to have a child." I just don't think that's true.

Never been more costly, not even in the great depression. It wasn't more costly then. Of course, I think it's just because women have more career opportunities than they have before, and so if you're calculating it that way, that you're missing out on an amount of income because of a marketing career that you could have, then you could say, "Okay, well, I'm losing out on a million dollars or something and that was more than someone who was losing out." And the great depression,

but it certainly doesn't cost more to have a child. If you're just having a child and focusing on having a child, then it used to. And it certainly doesn't cost more for bodies or for health. So women worry that their partners are not going to pull their way, since even with

“a progress child care is not 50/50. The truth is, is that child care,”

women is not going to be 50/50 because you are the mother and your child wants you. Your child needs you more, especially in those early years than the dad is needed. Now, I think a lot of us millennials have been extremely blessed with present dads and involved dads. Certainly, that is different than generations passed when there were like a baby boomer

men who had never changed a diaper, who had never woken up in the middle of the night. And that

dynamic, I think, for most millennial women has shifted. And so you certainly want to find a man, women who want to step up, who want to step in, who want to be involved, who honor you, and want you to rest, and want to pitch in as much as they can, who want to use their strength to protect you and to provide for you and to be there with your child, who loves being a father, who you know will be compassionate when you're going through birth and postpartum and all of those

things for sure. But don't go into marriage thinking it's going to be this exact 50/50 thing, because they're going to be periods of time in your marriage where it's 100% you and your husband for whatever reason. He's studying for the LSAT or he's going through a really hard time at work. He's not going to be as involved as you want him to be. They're going to be times because

your postpartum, you're going through something that your husband is basically doing 100% of

everything and you're not able to do other things. So don't look for someone who is going to do 50/50. Look for someone who's willing to do 100/0 or 0/100 in either direction and who loves you and cherishes you and wants to lead you and to protect you in that way and no one is perfect and no marriage is perfect and you learn so many things along the way, but this idea that marriage is some kind of contract where you agree to a perfect 50/50% that's just not life. And if you see

marriage not as something just like a goal to attain, but something that got as cold as to as

better. It also was a lot of fun and also provides you with a lot of love and camaraderie

and that's better than seeing it as what it seems like a lot of Gen Z women see it as is some kind of transaction and also just seeing kids in the same way is like something that exists to fulfill you rather than just people made in the image of God that yes, we'll make you better but are also just people that you can channel your love into. It's really hard to explain if you don't have kids just how much joy and love your children bring you and they just make you a

better person not that people without kids aren't good people but just does. It just makes you more

responsible, makes you wiser, it makes you smarter, it makes you a better manager, it makes you more compassionate, it makes you more self-controlled, it makes you more patience because you realize that so much of parenting actually requires self-discipline on your part. Now here's just like one thing that I would say I know that we've got disparate values when it comes to men and women and

“men can get lots of advice but not for me and that's why I target a lot of my advice towards”

women but for the Christian women out there especially who are like I can't find a man and I can't find a guy that I want to marry. This is what I ask all of my single friends like where are you working out? Where are you going on the weekends? Where are you going on the evenings? What church are you going to? Like how involved are you in your church? And yes like God can do anything through anyone and any place but you're probably not going to find your

husband at Peerbar. Like he's probably not at Pilates. He might not be at Hot Yoga. Like you might just need to go where the Christian men are. You might need to change churches if you're not attracted to a guy in skinny jeans and you're going to a church where there's only hipsters.

“Unless it is the only solid church in the area because that's most important you might want to”

consider changing churches. Not to say there's anything inherently wrong with skinny jeans objectively necessarily. I'm just saying put yourself in a position where you are around Christian men that you find attractive. And I've encouraged a lot of women to try to find some sort of like Christian CrossFit gem. That's where I met my husband and worked out very well. We had that shared hobby and shared values right away and so that was a great foundation for us but that is my

piece of advice to you. Women first of all change how you think about marriage, change how you think

about children, nothing in your career is going to give you fulfillment like those things. And then also like go where the Christian men are. Can I tell a story really fast of my friend who went to a golf store the other day? To see if there would be a guy there who would come up and talk to her and ask her on a date it literally worked. She went to a golf store walked around and a guy came up to her and talking to her and they went on a couple of dates. So I'm just saying

maybe stroll the aisles of home depot or golf galaxy or somewhere where you know the men are

“Academy, I don't know where a guy's go honestly. Go somewhere where the men are and just”

I don't know see what happened. So that's my lifestyle pitter pattern for today. We will be back here on Wednesday.