The Larger Context of James Talarico's Progressive, Pro-Choice Christian Theology

On Tuesday night, a devout Presbyterian with an M.Div. degree won the Texas Democratic Party’s nomination for US Senate. While no Democrat has represented Texas in the US Senate since 1993, some pundits are hopeful that James Talarico, the fresh-faced young Democrat who frequently talks about his faith on the campaign trail, will break the mold and become the first Texas Democrat in the US Senate since President Bill Clinton’s first year in office.

Devout Christians are rare among young Democrats – and especially among young white Democrats. Fifty-seven percent of the under-35 voters who cast their ballots for Kamala Harris in 2024 were “nones” (that is, people who say they have no religion). Only 20 percent were white Christians.

At age 36, Talarico is that rare white southern devout Christian who is also a Democrat who is thoroughly progressive on all the cultural issues, including abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. The evangelical commentary I’ve seen so far is decidedly against Talarico, but it also suggests to me that many theologically conservative Protestants don’t quite know how to contextualize his progressive faith. What should they make of a scripture-quoting recent seminary grad who is an outspoken supporter of gay, transgender, and abortion rights, as insists that these stances are compatible with following Jesus?

Unlike many pro-choice Democrats from the 1980s and 1990s, he doesn’t even suggest that abortion might be morally problematic, even if it’s a choice that should remain legal. Instead, he has made comments on the campaign trail that suggest that God is pro-choice when it comes to reproductive rights. Because the angel Gabriel asked Mary in the first chapter of Luke for her consent before the Holy Spirit caused her to conceive, scripture teaches that “creation has to be done with consent,” Talarico said last fall. “You cannot force someone to create.”

Evangelicals have pushed back against Talarico’s theology and biblical exegesis, as one would expect, but I haven’t yet seen an analysis that attempts to fit Talarico’s theology into a larger context. I think that’s because most evangelicals haven’t paid attention to what has happened to mainline Protestantism during the past two decades.

Mainline Protestantism is becoming vanishingly rare in many regions of the country – especially when it comes to people of Talarico’s generation. Only 2 percent of Americans under 40 are members of a mainline Protestant church. And even among that group, it may not be the case that very many have the theological acuity that Talarico does and are thoroughly progressive in both their politics and biblical interpretation. So, Talarico is a rarity, but he’s also a good representative of what liberal Protestant theology – the theology that now dominates mainline Protestant seminaries and denominational administrations – has become.

Talarico’s policy positions and theological statements on the campaign trail are fully in sync with the views of his own congregation and the seminary he attended. The homepage for St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin (Talarico’s home church) makes no secret of its progressive cultural leanings. It features a photo of a sign saying “We Support Reproductive Rights” on its homepage, as well as another picture of a rainbow stole draped over a cross, with the text, “We believe that every person is a unique creation and a child of God. We affirm the full participation of all ages, sex and gender identities, races, color, and ethnicities in all our endeavors. We offer an open door to your visit – in person or virtually – and would be pleased to share our vision of God’s love as you travel your path. If you are seeking a home, we invite you to consider joining us in the adventure of serving a challenging world.”

Like many other progressive mainline Protestant churches, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church’s pluralistic motto is openness – “open minds, open hearts, open hands,” as the church’s slogan phrases it. The essence of following Jesus, in their view, is seeking social justice, serving others, and welcoming all people in love.

This is also the perspective of Austin Seminary, the mainline Presbyterian seminary where Talarico earned his M.Div. The titles of some of the seminary’s courses give a clear indication of the seminary’s emphasis on social justice and affirmation of the marginalized as the central tenet of Christianity. The seminary’s Bible course offerings include “Immigration and the Old Testament,” “Activism and Old Testament Scriptures,” and “Womanist and Feminist Readings of the New Testament.” The seminary’s practical ministry course options include “Communication for Ministries of Social Justice,” “Education for Peace and Justice,” and “Theatre of the Oppressed.” The theology course offerings include “Feminist Theologies,” “Theological Ethics of Martin Luther King Jr.,” and “Social Justice.”

While mainline Protestantism’s social justice orientation has roots going back many decades, the extent to which it has embraced feminist theology, LGBTQ+ rights, and reproductive rights reflects a very recent shift, and many evangelicals may not be familiar with it. But to understand Talarico’s perspective, it’s useful to consider the historical and theological context that has shaped his faith.

Talarico’s early life was shaped by a rapid shift to the left in his own denomination and other mainline Protestant churches. When Talarico was born, in 1989, the Presbyterian Church (USA) was very different in some respects from what it is today. As the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States, it was a moderately liberal-leaning coalition of different theological groups, and it attempted to maintain the peace between those different factions. It was still officially opposed to homosexuality (as we were most other mainline Protestant denominations at the time), and it had a vocal minority of pro-life advocates, some of whom were members of the organization Presbyterians Pro-Life.

There were plenty of theologically liberal mainline Presbyterians whose theology was shaped by the rights-consciousness of the civil rights era and the antiwar protests of the late 1960s, but there were also theological conservatives in the denomination – and as a result, the PCUSA’s resolutions on contentious cultural questions were shaped by compromise. In the 1980s and early 1990s, mainline Protestant denominations like the PCUSA spoke out against nuclear arms buildup and in favor of more aid to the poor, but at the same time, they were increasingly cautious about saying too much in favor of abortion rights. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, most mainline Protestant denominations had officially endorsed abortion legalization, but they began tiptoeing around the issue in the late 1980s, mainly because of the work of theological conservatives in church leadership positions.

Because of the work of Presbyterians Pro-Life (which succeeded in bringing Mother Theresa of Calcutta to the PCUSA’s 1988 General Assembly to discuss abortion), the PCUSA agreed to restudy the issue of abortion, a study that resulted in a 1992 report that acknowledged the moral difficulty of the issue. While still reaffirming the pro-choice stance that the denomination had taken since 1970, the 1992 report nevertheless emphasized that abortion was not necessarily moral. “The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) does not advocate abortion but instead acknowledges circumstances in a sinful world that may make abortion the least objectionable of difficult options,” the PCUSA’s 1992 report concluded. (There’s more on this in my recent book Abortion and America’s Churches).

This stance paralleled the views of other mainline Protestant denominations at the time. In 1988, pro-life Methodists convinced the officially pro-choice United Methodist Church to add a qualifier to its abortion resolution to say that although the UMC endorsed abortion legalization, Methodists “cannot affirm abortion as an acceptable means of birth control.” Similarly, the American Baptist Churches USA, which had been officially pro-choice since the late 1960s, adopted a resolution in 1988 that acknowledged a diversity of opinion among members of the denomination, with some believing that “human life begins at conception” and that “abortion is immoral,” while others thought that in some circumstances it could be a “morally acceptable action,” even if it was a “regrettable reality.”

Because pro-choice mainline Protestant denominations had sizeable minorities of theological conservatives in the late 1980s and early 1990s, hardly any churches of the time were willing to frame abortion as a positive right.

Nor, with the exception of the strongly liberal United Church of Christ, were mainline Protestant denominations willing to accept homosexuality in the 1990s. The PCUSA did not change its policies to allow the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals until 2011, and it did not endorse same-sex marriage until 2015. The United Methodist Church did not officially adopt a similar change in policy until 2024.

Talarico was just entering adulthood at the moment when theological progressives began gaining control of the PCUSA’s leadership and shifting the denomination to the left, and he was shaped by that transition. In 2004 (when Talarico was 15 years old), the PCUSA passed resolutions against the Iraq War and against Christian Zionism, stances that were not directly opposed to the moral concerns of the denomination’s theological conservatives, but which put the denomination on a path toward the culturally progressive side of the nation’s politics. The PCUSA became an early leader among mainline Protestant denominations in advocating for Palestinian rights.

The watershed came in 2010, when the PCUSA passed a resolution repealing its ban on non-celibate gays in the clergy, a measure that took effect in 2011, when Talarico was 22 years old. A rapid shift to the cultural left and identity politics quickly followed in the denomination. By the time Talarico began studying for his theology degree at a mainline Presbyterian seminary, the mainline Presbyterian denomination that had once been moderate on abortion rights and slightly conservative on issues of sexuality had become a full-throated advocate of both abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights in the name of social justice. And social justice itself – whether in the form of racial justice, reproductive justice, or justice for marginalized groups in general – had become the defining feature of liberal Protestant theology to a degree not seen since the 1960s.

Part of the reason for this was that in most mainline Protestant denominations that accepted same-sex unions (including the PCUSA), the change in denominational policy on this issue triggered a conservative walkout. In the Episcopal Church, conservatives left to form the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) in 2009. In the nation’s largest mainline Lutheran denomination, conservatives left to form the North American Lutheran Church in 2010. And in the Presbyterian Church (USA), conservatives left to form ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians in 2012, while a few other conservative Presbyterians decided to join one of the evangelical Presbyterian denominations that already existed, such as the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church in America, or the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

These conservative splits left the mainline Protestant denominations smaller, but also considerably more liberal. No longer did they have a vocal contingent of pro-life, theological conservatives to moderate the demands of the denominations’ theological liberals. In the 1990s, Presbyterians Pro-Life had spoken out not only against abortion but also against homosexuality and in favor of a conservative view of biblical authority. By the mid-2010s, most of the Presbyterians who felt strongly about those issues were no longer in the PCUSA but had instead joined a more conservative denomination.

The theological liberals who were left in the PCUSA were free to push for an unapologetic endorsement of abortion rights, which they soon got. In 2022, the denomination responded to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade with a resolution saying that “women and pregnant people” had the right “to decide whether to continue or end any given pregnancy.” The denomination must “clearly and publicly make known the PC(USA)’s consistent support of access to contraceptive and abortion care and our commitment to respect the moral agency of all God’s people,” the PCUSA’s General Assembly affirmed.

Talarico’s theology and politics reflect his own denomination’s view of God’s openness and affirmation of the right of individual moral decision-making.

For theologically conservative evangelicals (and especially those in conservative strands of the Reformed tradition), the gospel is fundamentally about the justification of sinners through Christ’s atoning death on the cross. But for liberal mainline Protestants today (including the liberal expression of the Reformed tradition in the PCUSA), the gospel is fundamentally about the proclamation of God’s love to the marginalized, with an affirmation of the identities of oppressed people, including sexual and gender minorities and women (or “pregnant people”) who are seeking abortions.

Twenty-five or thirty years ago, being a member of a liberal mainline Protestant denomination meant being part of a pluralistic Christian community that balanced competing views and a variety of perspectives within the same denomination.

At the time, this was also generally the perspective of the Democratic Party, even on the issue of abortion. That is why the 2000 Democratic Party platform, while still pro-choice, included the statement, “Our goal is to make abortion less necessary and more rare, not more difficult and more dangerous. . . . We also recognize that members of our party have deeply held and sometimes differing views on issues of personal conscience like abortion and capital punishment. We view this diversity of views as a source of strength, not as a sign of weakness, and we welcome into our ranks all Americans who may hold differing positions on these and other issues. Recognizing that tolerance is a virtue, we are committed to resolving our differences in a spirit of civility, hope and mutual respect” – lines that were borrowed in part from the language that Bob Dole (a lifelong mainline Methodist) had tried unsuccessfully to add to the Republican Party platform in 1996.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, this tolerance for a range of views on abortion, coupled with a belief that abortion needed to become “more rare,” characterized both mainline Protestant denominational statements on the issue and the Democratic Party’s views. A similar view characterized mainline Protestants’ views of sexuality; they generally opposed discrimination against gays in employment or housing, but were not ready to affirm homosexuality as morally right.

In other words, they were liberals, not liberationists (to use the language that Matthew Avery Sutton employs in his new book Chosen Land). There were liberationist theologians within mainline Protestantism, but they were not necessarily the dominant voice in most mainline Protestant circles.

But today liberationists rather than liberals have captured much of mainline Protestant seminary education and denominational politics, and they have reoriented mainline Protestant theology around a commitment to social justice and the affirmation of marginalized identities as the essence of the Christian message.

But how will this fare on the campaign trail?

Because many evangelicals are only dimly aware of liberal Protestant theology and lack a theological category for it, I suspect that many of them will simply label Talarico “not a true Christian” and dismiss his views. I suspect that his candidacy will appeal to Democrats in Texas who are non-religious or who hold to a progressive Christian theology, but it will have very limited appeal in conservative evangelical circles. Even Barack Obama, who was less outspoken on LGBTQ+ rights in 2008 than Talarico has been – and who was campaigning at a time when the nation was arguably less politically polarized than it is now – received no more than 27 percent of the white evangelical vote. So, Talarico will have an uphill battle to win more than a small fraction of the white Baptist vote in his state.

But if he somehow wins the race and becomes the first Democratic US senator from Texas in more than 30 years – perhaps by winning exceptionally strong support among young voters, including a minority of young evangelicals – I suspect that Democrats will start considering devout progressive Christian candidates their ticket to victory in red states and will actively start recruiting them to run. After all, in Republican Georgia, the Reverend Raphael Warnock, the progressive pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, won a surprise victory in a US Senate race in 2020-2021. And though Barack Obama was not a pastor or a seminary graduate, his progressive Christian faith was arguably part of his winning formula in 2008.

Though young white Democrats are becoming more secular, I suspect that some of them (as well as older party leaders) are excited to find candidates like Talarico who can combine all of the party’s progressive rights-conscious positions with an authentic progressive Christian faith, because Talarico’s ability to articulate these positions in the language of faith gives them a narrative power and fervor that secular progressivism lacks.

So, even as liberal Protestantism is shrinking demographically, it may be an increasingly secular Democratic Party that saves it from complete oblivion among millennial and Gen-Z progressives, as it popularizes and recruits candidates who hold faith commitments that are compatible with progressive secular ideology. Candidates like Talarico who are thoroughly pluralistic – and who strongly affirm the separation of church and state, even as they simultaneously argue that their commitment to LGBTQ+ rights and abortion rights is an application of their personal Christian faith – are the sort of Christians that most secular Democrats can feel comfortable with.

So, a Talarico political victory in Texas would probably also be a victory for liberal Protestant Christianity.

But if Talarico loses – and especially if he loses because he gets less support than expected among African American Christians and Hispanics, as well as white evangelicals – it will be a sign that liberal Protestant theology is not enough to save the Democratic Party in the Bible belt. If that happens, it may send a signal that liberal Protestantism is too far removed from evangelicalism to appeal to more than a minority of Christians in evangelical-dominated regions of the country.

And that, in turn, may only serve to heighten the exacerbate cultural and religious divisions in this country that Talarico hopes his candidacy can transcend.

Photo credit: James Talarico in 2025 (Wikimedia)