A 2023 sermon delivered by Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, a Democrat, has resurfaced and is drawing attention for comments he made about Christianity and other religious traditions.
According to reporting by Joshua Arnold of The Washington Stand, Talarico told the congregation at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian, his home church, on Oct. 22, 2023, that “God is not a Christian.” The sermon, as quoted by Arnold, includes this passage from Talarico:
“Do we really think God would make all these beautiful people with all their beautiful traditions for no reason at all? There are so many pathways to the sacred. The Islamic mystic Rumi said, ‘Every religion has love, but love has no religion.’ God is so much bigger than our human categories. God is not a Presbyterian. God is not a Christian. God is not a noun at all. God is a verb. God is not a being. God is being itself. God is love, and that’s why Jesus is against anything that gets in the way of that love between neighbors, including religion.”
Arnold’s report also quotes Talarico saying he has “learned as much about my faith” from the Islamic tradition of Salman Bhojani and from poets like Rumi “as I have from Christian authors and Christian writers.”
Elsewhere in the sermon, according to the same report, Talarico said: “Religious Supremacy is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus didn’t come to establish a Christian Nation. He came to reveal ultimate reality.”
Arnold also reported that Talarico read a text message during the sermon that he said came from the church’s senior pastor, listing “top reasons beer is better than religion,” including lines such as “When you have beer, you don’t knock on people’s doors trying to give it away,” “There are laws against forcing beer on minors who can’t think for themselves,” and “You don’t have to wait more than 2,000 years for a second beer.”
In his analysis, Arnold argued that Talarico’s remarks favor religious pluralism over traditional Christian teaching, citing biblical passages including Acts 17:26–30, Matthew 22:37, Matthew 28:19 and Matthew 24:42. He also pointed to a remark he attributed to Talarico from a March 2021 podcast appearance: “I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity.”
The comments come as Talarico campaigns for a U.S. Senate seat from Texas. This account is based on reporting published by The Washington Stand, a conservative commentary outlet; no independent recording or transcript of the sermon has been separately reviewed here.
