Is James Talarico a "Liberal" Christian Nationalist?

Is James Tallerico a liberal Christian nationalist? Since he won his victory over Jasmine Crockett,

there have been people on the left and on the right who claim that Tallerico's faith

makes him nothing more than a Christian nationalist on the left, just as bad as those on the right.

Today, I want to talk about if that's true, if it holds up, and what it means.

Welcome to Straight White American Jesus, I'm Brad Onishi, author of American Caesar,

Hothia Crats and Teclore, it's our turning America into a monarchy, founder of

Axis Mundia, co-host of this show. A couple of weeks ago, James Tallerico won his primary victory over

Jasmine Crockett. He is now the Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, and since his victory,

there have been people who have come out to say that Tallerico, who talks about his faith all the

time, who rose to fame and prominence on TikTok and Instagram, because of the way that he was able

to level his critics and his political opponents using theological language, while that he's nothing

more than a Christian nationalist on the left. Is that true? Let's find out.

Here's a quote from James Tallerico. Three years ago, Christian nationalists stormed the U.S.

Capitol killing police officers while carrying crosses and signs reading Jesus' saves. Two years

ago, Christian nationalists on the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Let me be very clear,

there's nothing Christian about Christian nationalism. It is the worship of power, political power,

social power, and economic power in the name of Christ, and it is a betrayal of Jesus, of Nazareth.

James Tallerico has served in the Texas House of Representatives since 2018. He rose to

prominence through videos where he takes down his fellow Texas legislators about the 10 Commandments

about the idea of allowing chaplains with no training, no master's degree, no vetting to act as

de facto school counselors, and even a conspiracy laden bid to pass a bill to ban furries from

school campuses, even though there was no evidence that there were furries on campuses or that

they were being catered to at all. Now, Tallerico is an avowed Christian who is also a champion of

the separation of church and state. My faith means more to me than anything, but I don't believe

that government should be forcing religion onto any American citizen, especially our children.

He told the Texas Tribune. Tallerico is a former public middle school teacher who now balances

his duties in the Texas legislature with his studies at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

He talks about his faith so often and was such rhetorical brilliance that it is impossible to

ignore this foundational aspect of his political identity. He is the rare Democrat who has branded

himself successfully as a Christian politician. Whereas Pete Buttigieg, Raphael Warnock, Joe Biden,

and many others discussed their faith openly, their opponents and most of the media focus on other

aspects of their public persona to attack. Biden was supposedly the president of open borders.

Warnock, like many black leaders, is denigrated by the white as, quote, woke, and anti-American.

Buttigieg's gay, which is enough in itself for much of Maga to discount anything he does or says.

It's not that Tallerico's religion makes him different. He is not the only Democrat who is a

Christian. He's not the only liberal or progressive politician who's taken on the mantle of faith.

That's just simply not true. But Tallerico has been able to break through something that has been

a kind of faith ceiling for Democrats. This boyish millennial who looks like the second coming

of Jimmy Carter and talks like the son of Mr. Rogers uses Christian theology so effectively

against his opponents that neither the American right nor the media can ignore his religion.

Tallerico is, quote, not the only Christian Democrat in the country, but he's the one who may be

most effectively tells a story about why he believes what he believes, says Luke Warford, a

Democratic strategist. He's unlike anyone else in the Democratic Party. And I think that resonates

at a time when people are hungry for different. Let me put it simply. James Tallerico's brand

is Christianity. That has not been true for a high profile Democrat in decades. Now if Christianity

is his brand, then the brand's motto is simple. There's nothing Christian about Christian

nationalism. Part of what makes Tallerico so alluring to people of faith and people of no faith

is his stout belief that the separation of church and state is the only way for all Americans to

be free. And for religious people to practice their religion apart from government interference

or corruption. Freedom from religion is the only way to find freedom of religion.

That's a long Baptist credo. It's one that finds its antecedents in the American founding.

But it's one that's largely been forgotten. In the half a century of dominance by the religious

right, the moral majority, and Christian nationalists. However, since his primary victory over

Jasmine Crockett, critics from both the right and the left have pushed back on Tallerico's

disdain for Christian nationalism by claiming that he too is a Christian nationalist, just of a

different stripe. Christian ethno nationalist CJ Angle, who wants to see the government deport

100 million people posted this to X. Reminder that the left is also Christian nationalist and seeks

to implement biblical standards into government without caring about the non-existent separation

of church and state. But they are allowed to do this because their framework supports the

interests of the regime. William Wolf is a southern Baptist leader, and he's also one of the 15

leaders invited to the White House in March 2025 to meet and pray with President Trump.

He's been obsessively posting about how Tallerico is a heretic and blasemer for weeks.

March 9th. I've been expecting this. James Tallerico is, quote, judgment day for the anti-Christian

nationalist cottage industry. Every leftist, academic, pundit, pastor, etc., who've been

decrying the dangers of, quote, Christian nationalism is about to get out of it as a total hypocrite and

fraud as they line up to cheer for a man who's running a more, quote, Christian nationalist campaign

than anyone in the country, just on progressive slash woe, so-called, quote, Christian values

that aren't anywhere to be found in the Bible. Both Angle and Wolf are a vowed Christian

nationalist who I argue in my forthcoming book, American Caesar, want to implement a narrow

vision of Christian statehood in law, policy, culture, and economics in order that the United

States would be a white Christian nation. Angle claims that Jews have no real place in American

society. Wolf argues that the Bible demands our leaders deport millions and millions of people

so that real Americans can have their country back. In the wake of Nicole Good's murder,

he said, I don't care how much they scream. I don't care how much they cry. I don't care how

low they protest. I don't care how much it costs. I just want my country back. Whatever it takes,

no matter how much it costs. We should not blink. We should not hesitate to tell people not because

we are so wise, not because we made the rules of the world. We didn't. We humbly submit to how

God made the rules of the world and we say this is how we should order lives, our lives together.

And frankly, yes, we are going to impose it upon you. If you don't like it, I'm sorry, but this

is good and right and just if it lines up with God's standards. And I am going to enforce my

morality on you in as much as our morality is God's morality. And you should always check

yourselves. This is how we're going to run our county. This is how we're going to run our state

and this is how we should run the United States of America by legislating the morality that we

can find in the Bible. What strikes me about their attacks on Talleriko is that they see the need to

address his Christianity. When it comes to Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg or Kamala Harris,

they most often ignore faith and go for tried and true labels like woke, radical and extremist.

With Talleriko, it's he's a Christian nationalist too, just the wrong kind.

Self-eviled Christian nationalists like Wolf and Engel aren't the only ones leveling the charge.

In a recent article at the Atlantic, the Princeton historian and mainline Christian

Heath Carter also categorizes Talleriko as a Christian nationalist.

Quote, Talleriko's critique verges on irony. Given his own campaign for Senate,

one presumes he is not opposed to the pursuit of power by a vowed Christians.

In a way that to me is lazy and strange, Carter suggests that quote,

dreams of a more Christian society are tantamount to Christian nationalism.

So is James Talleriko just a liberal Christian nationalist?

First, we need to do something that Heath Carter never does in his article at the Atlantic and

that's to find Christian nationalism. Now, to me, the most prominent and culturally influential

definition comes from the sociologist Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry in their book,

Taking America Back For God. This is a sociological definition. It's the one that has been drawn upon

and used and has been the inspiration for surveys by people by Pew and PRRI and others.

This is a Christian nationalism that asks people, do you think that the United States government

should declare this country a Christian nation? Should we teach the Bible in schools?

One survey asks, do you think that God should have dominion over all of our country?

Here's how they define it in the book. Christian nationalism is a cultural framework

that blurs the distinctions between Christian identity and American identity.

Viewing the two is closely related and seeking to enhance and preserve their union.

It is undergirded by identification with a conservative political orientation.

Bible belief, pre-millennial visions of moral decay, and divine sanction for conquest.

Finally, its conception of morality centers exclusively on fidelity to religion and fidelity

to the nation. So to me, there's three components to Christian nationalism in this definition

that are really pertinent for answering our question about James Talleriko.

Number one, by merging identities, Christian nationalists maintain that one must be Christian

to be truly American. So Christian nationalists are going to tell you that it's only if your Christian

are you really, truly, absolutely American. Now, we all know, and we've talked about it on this show

for a thousand episodes on this podcast that more often than not, white Christians sneak in

there somehow. The idea that to be a white Christian is to be the real American. If we go to

CJ Angle, somebody I just quoted as criticizing James Talleriko, he claims it only heritage

Americans. Those who have ancestry going back to Anglo-Saxon Protestants are real heritage Americans.

So the first thing that Christian nationalism is about is saying you can't be really American

unless you're Christian. Number two, Christian nationalists give divine sanction for conquest,

whether of domestic or foreign enemies. They conquer in the name of King Jesus. The goal is somehow

to conquer. It's to colonize. It is to have domination or dominion in the name of God. That's

a second part of Christian nationalism. The third part is that morality becomes a matter of

religious adherence. One cannot be a good person apart from the right kind of faith.

One cannot be a trustworthy leader, school principal, mayor, congressperson, senator,

football coach, unless they profess a certain religion. You can't be good unless you're Christian.

And if you're not Christian, it's hard to trust you. Much less vote for you because you're not a

real American. Now, here's what's not included in this definition. Christians who want to hold

political office are automatically Christian nationalists because of their pursuit of power.

So what's not included here is that if you're a Christian, like Talleriko, who runs for office

and wants to hold power in the sense of being a senator, mayor, congressperson,

county supervisor, whatever, that you are automatically a Christian nationalist because of that.

Number two, any person who brings their religious principles into their political agenda

must be a Christian nationalist or Hindu nationalist or Muslim nationalist. This is also not

what Christian nationalism is defined as. If you're a Christian person who wants to be in politics

and you talk about your faith, say like Talleriko or say like Mamdani, it doesn't mean that you are a

Christian or Muslim nationalist. Number three, any desire to Christianize the U.S.

does not amount to Christian nationalism. Even if the rhetoric of building a Christian nation

may lead some, like Carter, to make this mistake. Now, I think this is the hardest one to understand

and it's going to get the most criticism. But I think if you look at the definition that Perry

and Whitehead provide, when people talk about Christianizing the U.S., I don't like that language.

I wish people wouldn't use that language. I wish Christians would not use that language.

I don't think it's helpful. I think it feels exclusive. I think it feels threatening to those

people who are not Christians and who have lived in the wake of millennia, of violence against

people who are not Christians, suspicion, not trusting those who are agnostic, atheist,

Buddhist, and so on. But just because you want to Christianize the U.S.,

hear me out, does not mean that you want to say that unless you're a Christian, you can't be

American or you want to engage in conquest in the name of God or that you think only Christian

people can be good people. It means you might want to Christianize the U.S. in the sense of

feeding the poor, taking care of the vulnerable, making sure everyone has health care.

In that sense, you might want to, quote, Christianize the U.S. in ways that simply don't fit

the three things we talked about in the definition of Christian nationalism. Again, I don't love

that language. I wish people wouldn't use it. I wish Christians would avoid that. I just think

it feels really exclusive. But I don't think that using that language is tantamount to being a Christian

nationalist. Now, let's examine Talleriko's faith and what he says about it and see if he holds

up to the definition of a Christian nationalist. Christian nationalism is on the rise.

Three years ago, Christian nationalists stormed the U.S. capital, killing police officers

while carrying crosses and signs reading Jesus' saves. Two years ago, Christian nationalists on the

U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing states like ours to outlaw abortion even in cases

of rape and incest. And as we speak, Christian nationalists billionaires are attempting to

dismantle public education in the state of Texas and therefore dismantle democracy. Let me be very

clear. There is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism. It is the worship of power.

Political power, social power, economic power in the name of Christ. And it is a betrayal

of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus never asked us to kill police officers.

Jesus never asked us to ban books, silence teachers, or defund schools. Jesus never asked us to

control women's bodies. Jesus never asked us to establish a Christian theocracy. All he asked

was that we love thy neighbor, not just our Christian neighbors, not just our straight neighbors,

not just our male neighbors, not just our white neighbors, not just our rich neighbors.

We are called to love all of our neighbors. And that is exactly the opposite of what Christian

nationalism does in the world. Under scrutiny, Tallerigo's approach to his religion and his

politics never reveal a leader who wants to divide the country between first-class citizens

who are Christian and everyone else. There's no sense in his faith that to be a real American one

must be a person of faith, or a particular brand of Protestant or Catholic. He does not see the

American covenant based on a commitment to God, but on a power-sharing agreement rooted in the

consent of the governed. Tallerigo never theologically justifies conquest. CJ Angle, William Wolf,

not to mention Mike Johnson, Doug Wilson, and Pete Hegseth, among many others, share a theological

worldview founded on Christian dominion. Their angle is a country in which Christians use divine

right to conquer and colonize for God. As scholars have shown, there's a direct line from the

doctrine of discovery and the idea of manifest destiny to a Christian nationalism that views

Western Christian civilization as having the authority to colonize Earth.

Finally, Tallerigo refuses to theology collapse morality into religious identity.

In distinction from Angle and Wolf and other Christian nationalists, Tallerigo does not

maintain that in order to be a good person, one must adopt a certain religion. His Christian

identity is universal in scope, motivated by serving, helping, protecting, everyone,

regardless of their heritage, origin, sexual identity, gender identity, racial background,

or religious views. James Tallerigo is not a Christian nationalist, liberal,

Democrat, or otherwise. He's a Christian person who uses theological language to dismantle his

opponent's arguments and to tell his story. But there's a danger in allowing actual Christian

nationalists like Angle and Wolf or historians like Carter in labeling him one. It masks the

anti-democratic nature of Christian nationalism by erecting a false idea that any politician who

is animated by religious values to work for a more equal and just society is simply a religious

nationalist. Here's what Heath Carter asks in his Atlantic article, are the mauga faithful at fault

for using political structures to advance Christian values? Or does the problem lie in the specific

content of their values, some of which contravene a foundational democratic commitment to pluralism?

Let me break that down. Are the mauga faithful at fault for using political structures to

advance Christian values? Is the problem with them, the big bad Christian nationalists that I

talk about on this show all the time and other people cover all over the place? Is the problem that

they use political structures to advance Christian values? Or is the problem that their values

are anti-democratic? Which one is it? Because for Carter, there's a sense here in which

Tallerigo 2 is using political structures to advance Christian values. So shouldn't we just

consider him? A Christian nationalist like we do Doug Wilson and Pete Hegseth and Mike Johnson

and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lorne Boebert and all these other people? The answer to his question

about what the problem is with the mauga faithful, the Christian nationalist, is that both are the

problem? Let me explain. If Christian nationalists use political structures to advance Christian values,

then their goals are not to contribute to a liberal democracy based on the power-sharing agreement

of we the people. Using political structures means that the structures themselves

are merely vessels for creating a certain kind of society. In this case, the structures involved

are free and fair elections, the constitution and the equality of all people under the law.

Time and time again, Christian extremists have shown that when democracy no longer serves their

purpose, they will ditch the democratic vessel in favor of the authoritarian ship.

When religious people view only their vision of society as sanctified by passing the sacred

nature of democracy itself, they are already religious nationalists because they will stop at

nothing to create the society they think is divine. Even if it means abandoning the American experiment

for a monarchy, you can't use political structures for your ends. The political structures themselves

are an end. They are sacred in themselves. They are valuable. They are part of what makes this country

to have the structures of democracy, separation of church and state, the Bill of Rights,

to have the structures of an American experiment based on we the people to be one of the oldest

continuous democracies on the planet. That is sacred in itself. So if you just want to use the

structures and the structures don't work for you, if they don't allow you to get where you want to go,

well, you won't use those structures anymore. You'll find other ones. If the boat you want to

take you from one place to another isn't working, you will find another ship. This is why I've

argued in preparing for war and American Caesar, both of my books, that democracy is often the problem

for Christian nationalists and not the answer because for them, the structures aren't working to

give them power and privilege and domination. So they're like, who cares about democracy? Give me

something else that'll get me to where I want to go. So the answer to Carter's first question

is also the answer to his second one. The content of Christian Trumpism is based on conquest,

conformity, and the threat to punish those who don't abide by the right kind of Christianity.

There's nothing democratic in those values. You cannot sit around a round table with your fellow

citizens believing that each person, regarding of their religious, racial, sexual, gender, any other

part of their identity, is free and equal. If one group claims that everyone must conform to them,

you can't sit around a round table with Americans from Maine to Oregon, Albuquerque to Atlanta,

people who are black and white and Asian and Latino, people who are gay and straight, who are

by, who are trans, people who have a recent immigrant story and a distant immigrant story,

people who are able-bodied and not able-bodied. You can't sit around that table and believe in

democracy in the American experiment. If one group is always going to say to you, we get more.

Because we love God and because we love country, we get more of the country. God said so. There's

no way to have a democracy under those circumstances. Period.

But James Alarrico doesn't say that. Now, look, he may not win his Senate bid. He is not a perfect

politician or person. There may be disappointment ahead for his supporters. There may be scandals

that erupt. He may end up being a hypocrite, a fraud, power monger. In other words, he may end up

being a run of the mill politician. All of that remains to be seen. But what we know of him now

is that he does not want to use American political structures in order to create a Christian

society that forces everyone to conform to one brand of faith. There's no detection of Christian

supremacy, divine conquest or religious standards for morality in his politics. Not once in the

entire Bible does Jesus ask us to worship him, Tyler Rico says. All he asks is that we follow him,

love like he loved, love the outcast, welcome, the stranger. There's no sense here of elevating

Christians to a different place around that table. There's no sense of wanting to get rid of

the table so Christians can have all the power. There's no sense that to be a good person or a

trustworthy person around that table, you have to be a Christian. There's no sense of wanting to

dominate others, to punish others for not conforming. I think it's lazy to call James Tyler Rico

a Christian nationalist because he has branded himself as a Christian politician. I think it's lazy

to think that Democrats who've had such a hard time winning people of faith now have a candidate

who is somebody who has successfully broken through the faith ceiling is an undeniably Christian

candidate. For others to say, well, yeah, but isn't that just Christian nationalism of the left?

We can talk about the ways that throughout American history. There have been people who have

wanted to create American society in the vision of their leftist or progressive or liberal Christian

vision. We can talk about all kinds of Methodists and Presbyterians. We can talk about the social

gospel. We can talk about Walter Roush and Bush or Frederick Douglass. We can talk about any

array of folks who do not fit the tried and true stereotype version of the Christian nationalist.

But we have to be really careful here because to me, if you read Heath Carter's article or you

read an angle in Wolf's tweets, you're getting at the idea that if someone like Tyler Rico stands

up and talks about Christianity, then they're nothing but a Christian nationalist. And that's going

to force a false binary. Either Democrats, those who are not in MAGA or the American right,

can't talk about faith at all, which we know is a losing proposition. It also is just discriminatory.

You can't limit people and their identity and their story when they run for office based

on a fear that just by talking about religion, you are somehow a religious nationalist.

But as Carter suggests in his article, it's also not good to say, well, let's not just use

Christian nationalists anymore as a kind of jab or attack. Let's just get rid of it. And I would say

whether or not it's useful anymore, I don't know. I mean, I think there's ways it's become so

mainstream that perhaps it's losing some of its power or juice. But I will say that when I say

Christian nationalists, I mean a certain thing that comes right from that sociological definition

of whitehead and parry. I mean, somebody who says, my goal is to make American society conform to

my religious vision. Now, that means reproductive rights and gender. That means sex. And if you don't

abide by it, I'm going to punish you. That means that I want to colonize in the name of God.

If we need to conquer other countries, take their oil. If we need to kidnap their leaders,

take their government and collapse it, bomb them. In the name of Jesus, that's fine.

It also means that you're just not a good person unless you're a Christian like me.

And again, we might need to punish you. We might need to devote you. We might just need to make it

so that yeah, you're fine as long as you stay in line, but you're not going to be allowed to hold

office or be a leader. You can't be a teacher or a coach or a principal. You can't be a congressman

or a mayor. And we're certainly not going to allow you to worship in public. We're going to get rid

of the mofs and the temples and the good warros, the all the places where non-Christians

revere their gods. That's not going to be allowed in public anymore. That's what Doug Wilson says.

When I say Christian nationalists, that's what I mean. I don't mean people who love God in their

country. I don't mean people who are religious and patriotic. I don't mean people who are Christian

and American. I think we have to be really careful with this language. Otherwise,

we get in a place where someone like Talleriko is supposedly the Christian nationalist on the left.

And it's one thing for Angolan wolf to say that. But for others who are coming from what would

one might think as a kind of place of political allyship or at least resonance, I think it's not

actually very helpful. All right, y'all. Thanks for listening. I need you to do a couple things.

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