The Texas Senate candidates have two radically different visions of Christianity

Now that Ken Paxton, the conservative attorney general of Texas, has defeated incumbent John Cornyn for the Republican Senate nomination, we may see something unusual in modern American elections: a theological throwdown.

In a closely watched and competitive race, Paxton will be facing off against James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian and the Democratic nominee. The race is now set to be a battle between two very different worldviews about the role of Christianity.

That Democrats are even able to hold up their end of such a debate is unusual in a political moment when “Christian” has come to be synonymous with “right-wing.” Talarico has been trying to change that narrative — now he gets to face off against a flawed Republican with a more typical evangelical message.

Key takeaways

• The US Senate race in Texas is set: Republican Ken Paxton will face off against Democrat James Talarico.
• It’s going to be a closely watched race: Talarico isn’t pushing a traditional anti-Donald Trump message, instead talking about his faith, the billionaire class, and corruption. Paxton, meanwhile, is weighed down by personal, political, and legal scandals.
• But the race is also a proxy war for two questions about religion in American politics today: what “Christianity” means, and if personal behavior matters.

Talarico earned significant media attention in his primary for the progressive tilt of his Christian faith — one of forgiveness, love, and righteous anger against the wealthy and powerful. Yet he’s also been ridiculed by the religious right as a false prophet: a Christian in name only who launders left-wing social views through faith, supports abortion, and once argued that God is nonbinary. 

Meanwhile, Paxton’s nomination sets up an interesting foil: He’s a formerly impeached and indicted politician in the middle of a divorce his wife sought “on biblical grounds.” And he has championed a right-wing brand of Christian politics, embracing the “Christian nationalist” movement’s efforts to break down the walls between church and state, while fending off bipartisan attacks on his personal morals. 

This larger cultural struggle over who gets to claim Christian identity and what Christianity should stand for in 21st-century America will be front and center in the race. It will test the limits of persuasion for a liberal Christian trying to win over disaffected Republicans with different political and theological views, and the limits of partisan loyalty for a conservative Christian trying to keep them in his camp despite bipartisan concerns about his ethics. 

Christian authoritarianism versus a Christianity of radical love

A Presbyterian seminarian, Talarico comes from a more politically liberal tradition than Paxton’s Southern Baptist background. His particular branch of mainline Protestantism, the Presbyterian Church (USA), has been derided by critics on the right as “woke” and theologically heretical for its embrace of same-sex marriage, ordination of women, and welcoming stance for transgender congregants. 

Talarico has centered the concept of “radical love” in his political identity and campaign platform: He wants to heal political divisions, welcome Americans who aren’t typically Democrats to his campaign, and move beyond anger toward any one person (like President Donald Trump or Paxton) toward a forward-looking agenda that goes after oligarchs, the political establishment, and the “corrupt” elite.

“In my faith, love is the strongest force in the universe,” he said at a campaign rally in February. And to justify his righteous anger, he argues that “you can’t stand for faith and then warp and weaponize religion to hurt our neighbors.”

Talarico has explicitly contrasted his faith with “Christian nationalism,” arguing that right-wing religious leaders are aligning with Trump in order to institute “theocracy.”

Paxton is solidly in the Christian nationalist camp. Generally, Christian nationalists oppose the separation of church and state; seek to make Christianity the official religion of the state; call for Biblical morality to determine the law; and argue that the United States has God’s unique blessing among other nations.

Paxton has made a name for himself as a proponent of an aggressive form of religious liberty, arguing not just that the state should pull back and cede space to the faithful, but that the state should actively promote a specific version of Christian ethics and morality. He supported efforts to bring Christian prayer and Scripture into public schools, to set aside time for Bible readings and prayers, and to display the Ten Commandments on public property.

“In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up,” Paxton said in a September statement calling on students to recite the Lord’s Prayer in class. “Our nation was founded on the rock of Biblical Truth, and I will not stand by while the far-left attempts to push our country into the sinking sand.”

Talarico has defended secular government, while also trying to turn the theological conversation to economic concerns. “These politicians want a Christian nation, unless it means providing healthcare to the sick or funding food assistance for the hungry or raising the minimum wage for the poor,” he said on The Ezra Klein Show. “And so, it seems like they want to base our laws on the Bible until they read the words of Jesus.”

While marrying progressive politics and Christian themes might win over the Democratic base, Republicans are already challenging him aggressively on social issues — especially abortion and LGBT rights — where they believe their platform is more in touch with their state’s longtime rightward bent.

But Talarico also could try to peel off voters with another argument steeped in religious principles: that Paxton is not living out the Christian values he claims to support.

Paxton creates a test of what Christians should tolerate

The Paxton-Talarico race is partly a referendum on what Christians will tolerate as Christian-like behavior.

Talarico has a squeaky clean image: a former teacher, pastor-in-training, and activist concerned with social justice. Paxton looks more like Trump: accused of adultery by his wife (hence the “biblical grounds” for their divorce), charged with securities fraud (he later settled the case without admitting guilt), and impeached by the Republican-dominated Texas state house over bribery and corruption allegations (then acquitted in his trial).

Sen. Cornyn elevated all these accusations against him. “Ken Paxton has the ethics of a strip club owner,” one of his ads read. “Texas moms: Would you want your daughters to marry a man like Ken Paxton?” And Cornyn proudly highlighted that Paxton’s own pastor had joined his re-election campaign as an adviser before the run-off.

Talarico seems likely to redouble these efforts: He’s called Paxton “morally unfit” for office. “He’ll lie to you with a straight face. He’s failed the character test. He’s the most corrupt Attorney General of our lifetime, and he puts the interests of himself over the laws of Texas,” Talarico said Tuesday night, citing some of the statements made by Republican critics of Paxton.

In this regard, the race is an extension of a long-running argument within the religious right about Trump, whose endorsement of Paxton sealed his primary victory. The president has long been embraced by social conservatives who have argued that, despite his own moral flaws, he can still deliver anti-abortion policies, appoint judges who share their views of religious freedom, and give an evangelical protestant form of Christianity a privileged space in public life.

Even among Paxton’s religious critics on the right, these issues have led to splits. National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar argued Paxton was “odious,” but Talarico was “morally worse” because he espoused ideas that Blehar believed were wrong and immoral under the guise of faith. In doing so, Blehar rebutted the New York Times’ evangelical columnist David French, who praised Talarico as “one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian,” even as he condemned his positions on issues like abortion.

Paxton has relied on testimonials from his family to rebut personal attacks, and he’s likely to try to refocus the race on the greater work he can accomplish for Christian conservatives. In declaring victory Tuesday night, he framed the coming election as the “beginning of the fight to preserve every value we hold dear.”

The two versions of Christianity represented by Talarico and Paxton may be like two ships passing in the night if you’re looking to compare and debate theologies. But the race is one of the most high-profile recent examples of Democrats trying to reclaim the politics of faith — and Republicans rarely have had such a flawed interlocutor to rebut them.

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