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Texas Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico is facing renewed outrage for his comments on God and faith after claiming on a podcast that atheists are “more Christ-like than” some of his Christian colleagues in the Texas House.
“Instead of putting the 10 Commandments in every classroom, instead of forcing school children to read the Bible against their wills, why don’t we, all of us, look inward and figure out how we can be more Christ-like, even when it’s uncomfortable,” Talarico, who currently serves as a Democrat in the Texas House, said on the “Politics War Room” podcast published Friday. The podcast is hosted by journalist Al Hunt and Democratic strategist James Carville.
Al Hunt added: “And that applies to Muslims and Hindus. … They can learn a lot from Jesus.”
“I have met so many Hindus, Buddhists, Sikh Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, who are more like Christ-like than some of the Christians I serve with in the Texas legislature,” Talarico responded. “It is about how you treat other people.”
State Representative James Talarico addresses the crowd during a campaign rally after launching his Senate campaign for the seat currently held by John Cornyn in Round Rock, Texas on Sept. 9, 2025. (Callaghan O’Hare for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The Texas Democrat is running to serve as a U.S. senator and joined the podcast to discuss the race and how it’s expected to be an uphill battle for a progressive Democrat. A Texas Democrat has not been elected to the Senate since 1988, with Talarico looking to unseat Republican Sen. John Cornyn.
“There is a backlash growing in Texas against the extremism and the corruption that we’re seeing at all levels of our government, and I’m seeing it everywhere I go,” Talarico explained of what he’s seeing from the campaign trail to flip the seat blue.
The conversation largely focused on religion, with the former school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian explaining that he leans on his Christianity as he works in the “halls of power” while taking aim at conservatives.
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“Christian nationalism, you see people’s faith growing out of their politics, right?” he said. “They’re baptizing their partisanship, and they’re calling that Christianity, and it’s why it doesn’t resemble the life, death and teachings of Jesus Christ, right? These Christians in Congress, these Christian nationalists, they want a Christian nation, unless it means providing health care to the sick, unless it means funding food assistance for the hungry or raising the minimum wage for the poor.”
The Vatican and St. Peter’s Square seen during the canonization Mass of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati in 2025. (Andrew Medichini/The Associated Press )
His remarks sparked outrage among conservatives on social media, who argued Democrats “love putting Christians down,” and mocked him for previous comments on religion with one user responding: “says the dude who claims the pro-abortion position is Biblical.“
“James Talarico has once again broken out his anti-Christian Christian shtick,” RNC spokesman Zach Kraft said of the comments. “There isn’t a woke cause that he won’t claim to find buried in the Bible. Twisting Christian principles to promote woke talking points might play well with coastal elites in New York and California, but he’s going to learn real quick that won’t fly in Texas.”
Talarico has a long history of sparking controversy for his comments on God and Christianity, including claiming during a 2021 speech in the Texas legislature that “God is nonbinary” in a rebuke of Republican legislation focused on youth sports and transgender kids.
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Talarico joined Joe Rogan’s podcast in September 2025 where he also claimed the Bible permits abortion, citing that the angel Gabriel “asks Mary if this is something she wants to do, and she says, ‘if it is God’s will, let it be done.’”
State Representative James Talarico, a Democrat from Texas and US Senate candidate, during a debate at the 2026 Texas AFL-CIO COPE Convention in Georgetown, Texas, US, on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (Bob Daemmrich/The Texas Tribune/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“To me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create,” Talarico said in 2025, “the idea that there is a set Christian orthodoxy on the issue of abortion is just not rooted in Scripture.”
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In an interview with a New York Times podcast in January, Talarico also claimed that his Christian faith has grown “by learning more about Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism,” adding that “these beautiful faith traditions as circling the same truth about the universe, about the cosmos. And that truth is inherently a mystery.
Fox News Digital reached out to Talarico’s campaign for additional comment Friday.
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