TTwo-thirds of Americans identify as Christian, but with fewer than a third of Americans attending church regularly, many rely on what they learn from media — social or otherwise — to know what religion means.
And until yesterday, this received idea could be summed up as follows: a conservative, dominating and above all anti-homosexual force fiercely committed to the side of the Republican Party.
Today it means something different. Presbyterian seminarian James Talarico won a landslide victory in Texas — despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that he ran on a very different interpretation of Christianity.
According to him, the important commandments are to love one’s neighbor, on a material level: to feed oneself, to clothe oneself, to heal. And he’s quite willing to think about this radically, if by radical you mean getting to the root: “As Christians, we are called to do more than charity,” he said. “We are called to challenge the systems that make charity necessary.”
If you drive 35 miles north from Texas, through the Oklahoma panhandle, you reach the deep red state of Kansas, which hasn’t elected a Democrat since 1932. But Kansans last night chose a pastor, the Rev. Adam Hamilton, to represent them in the Senate. Hamilton founded a thriving church in suburban Kansas City, and while he is clearly a moderate, he is also clearly willing to declare that the gospel is, for lack of a better word, liberal. Read this carefully – it is much more accurate than you might think at first glance:
Well, let’s just talk about what Republicans and Democrats believe, and I like Republicans as well. But… Republicanism – we often hear about fiscal responsibility, limited government, strong defense and personal civil liberties, and say conservative values in some way. And the Democrats – if you think about what they stand for, it’s education, it’s vulnerable people, it’s social safety nets, it’s a progressive spirit that’s trying to lift people up. And I said, if you think about these two, which one is more like Jesus in the gospels?
Kansans answered this question last night. They may have voted more on the price of diesel than on religious interpretation, but they were clearly willing to take the risk on this “progressive spirit”, even though evangelical preachers had told them it was anything but satanic.
Last month, in fact, hundreds of conservative Christian preachers wrote Hamilton a letter calling on him to “repent of what you have taught and withdraw from the Senate race.” He didn’t, and the letter’s claims didn’t matter to voters, nor did JD Vance’s accusation that Hamilton had “insulted your faith and spit on your religion.”
Texas voters also didn’t care when a spiritual advisor to Pete Hegseth and an evangelical pastor attacked Talarico on a podcast as a “wolf” and appeared to call for his crucifixion.
“You can pray for my death, pastor, but I still love you,” Talarico responded – turning the other cheek in a way that muscular evangelical Christianity has mocked.
For both Hamilton and Talarico, homosexuality was supposed to be the problem that would sink them. In Hamilton’s case, twenty years ago he chose to make his congregation “open and affirming” by welcoming homosexual members.
It was not an easy choice in red Kansas, and many other Methodist congregations chose the opposite path. He lost hundreds of members, but he gained many more; indeed, its Church of the Resurrection is today the largest Methodist gathering in the country.
As for Talarico, the attacks on him were even more direct – the entire Republican apparatus essentially boiled down his message to: “You’re gay.” And their testimony, essentially, was that he said God was “non-binary,” which sounded… super gay to them.
But of course, it also sounded a lot like the Bible: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.” » And even though they couldn’t recite Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, Texas voters understood the humaneness of Talarico’s appeal: he was a good guy.
Hamilton and Talarico were not alone – Iowa, for example, elected not one but two progressive pastors, Presbyterian Lindsay James and Lutheran Sarah Trone Garriott (literally half the state’s congressional delegation is now Protestant preachers).
There will, I suspect, be more in the future: among other things, the ICE raids in Minneapolis last winter energized many clergy, with hundreds coming from across the country to take part in civil disobedience.
Most experts who have noted this shift focus on its effects on the Democratic Party, helping the blue camp attract new voters.
But his effect on Christianity could be just as important: Along with Pope Leo, the American pontiff who succeeded the Trump administration on war and immigration, he is offering a whole new vision of the faith to many people who had left it behind. Talarico, Hamilton, Leo – they are all attractive, warm and open. Kind.
These are new features for American Christianity in this century; perhaps they will give Americans a very different idea of what their stated tradition is.
Gn usa
