BS BULLETIN:

• Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico says his support for universal health care and fighting what he calls a “corrupt system” is rooted in the teachings of Jesus.
• Jim Agresti of Just Facts argues Talarico is confusing voluntary Christian charity with government redistribution.
• Talarico’s campaign says the Presbyterian seminarian will continue using his faith to argue against corruption, greed and what it calls the political misuse of Scripture.

Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico has been making Christianity a central part of his political pitch.

Now one Bible researcher says Talarico is preaching a very different lesson from the one actually found in Scripture.

Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian who is running against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate, drew more than 2 million views this week with a social-media post tying several progressive policy positions directly to the Bible.

“When Jesus healed the sick, he didn’t ask for a deductible,” Talarico wrote, arguing that his support for universal health care therefore rests on “biblical grounds.”

He made similar comparisons involving feeding the hungry and confronting corruption, saying the actions of Jesus and the Hebrew prophets support his political agenda.

Jim Agresti, president and co-founder of the research organization Just Facts, told Fox News Digital that Talarico’s interpretation gets a fundamental distinction wrong.

Agresti said he reviewed more than 50 biblical passages involving assistance to people in need and argued that the examples involve voluntary generosity by individuals rather than government-compelled redistribution.

His central objection is illustrated by the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Agresti noted that the Samaritan personally sacrifices his own time and money to help an injured stranger. From that, he argues, it is a substantial leap to say the passage provides biblical authority for a taxpayer-funded universal health care system.

“He’s offering to take money from others and then give it to other people,” Agresti told Fox.

Agresti went considerably further, accusing Talarico of “butchering the Bible” and promoting what he called a “perverted version” of Christianity while simultaneously opposing Christian nationalism. Those are Agresti’s characterizations, not established theological facts; Christians and theologians have long disagreed over the relationship between biblical commands concerning poverty and the proper role of government.

Talarico has repeatedly incorporated his faith into political arguments.

Fox noted that he previously said “God is non-binary” during a 2021 Texas House debate over transgender athletes, has described Jesus as a “radical feminist,” and called the overturning of Roe v. Wade “unchristian.”

His campaign defended that approach.

Spokesman JT Ennis told Fox that Talarico had “dedicated his life to the teachings of Jesus Christ” and would continue arguing that political leaders should fight corruption and “love their neighbors as themselves.” The campaign also accused Paxton and his allies of using religion to score political points.

The argument comes at an especially combustible moment because religion is not merely background biography in the Texas Senate race.

It has become part of the campaign itself.

MY QUICK TAKE

American politicians quoting the Bible is about as new as politicians kissing babies.

Thomas Jefferson literally took scissors to the New Testament to produce his own version. William Jennings Bryan built political crusades around Christian morality. Both parties have spent generations discovering that Scripture becomes remarkably cooperative once a campaign consultant gets involved.

But there is a real philosophical question underneath Talarico’s line about Jesus and deductibles.

Christian teaching plainly commands generosity toward the poor and sick.

What it does not do quite so conveniently is hand us a 2,000-year-old Senate committee report specifying premiums, tax rates, Medicaid reimbursement formulas and who gets stuck with the deductible.

That leap — from “you should help your neighbor” to “therefore this particular federal program is what Jesus intended” — is where theology quietly puts on a campaign button.

And that is the problem with recruiting the Almighty as your legislative director.

Once you announce that Jesus has endorsed your health care bill, somebody is inevitably going to ask whether He read the CBO score.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

• Fox News — Expert tears apart Talarico’s viral claim his agenda is based on Jesus’s teachings
• Fox News Video — Expert accuses James Talarico of twisting Scripture to justify agenda
• Washington Post — Talarico, Paxton launch dueling ads amid heated Senate race in Texas