Which Jesus Are You Voting For?

Ken Paxton, James Talarico, and the upside-down morality of Christian nationalism

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

To evangelicals who continue to support awful human beings for political office:

Here’s what I don’t get. For people who talk about family values as much as evangelicals do, I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why you keep choosing and defending political candidates who should be poster children for the very kind of people you don’t want running the country. Why do you keep supporting people who should be on evangelical wanted posters, not campaign signs in your yard?

Of course, I’m talking about Ken Paxton, who won the Republican Senate nomination in Texas. He’ll face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in November. Paxton has been impeached, credibly accused of serial infidelity, sued for fraud, and defended by the Christian right at every turn.

So now we get to watch this play out in public. And I’m paying attention to this not merely as a political story, but as a theological one.

I understand how the American church got here. The evangelical movement that rose to power in the 1970s and 80s was built on something that looked, at least to many from the inside, like faithfulness. These were people who believed that Christian values could help shape the moral imagination, and that the church had something to say about how a society orders itself. Their leaders argued that remaining silent in the face of cultural change was a kind of cowardice.

I get the impulse. I’ve argued that same thing myself.

But somewhere along the way, the goal shifted. It stopped being about embodying the values of Jesus and started being about accumulating the power to enforce them. And once that happened, apparently, the church needed a different kind of champion than the wimpy Jesus who died humiliated. Somewhere along the way, they stopped wanting a suffering servant so much as a political strongman.

Ken Paxton is what that theological choice produces.

He’s been impeached by his own party’s legislature on 16 articles, including bribery and abuse of public trust. Hes been credibly accused of serial infidelity in not one but two separate relationships, the second with a woman who built her own platform as a Christian influencer. He’s spent a decade under securities fraud charges. He became a multimillionaire while in public office.

And here’s what I still can’t wrap my head around: the Christian right has backed him at every turn.

I mean, consider this: When his political opponents ran ads about his affairs, Paxton countered with a spot featuring his daughter, who called him a man who “loves God, loves his family, and loves this country.”

Oh, yes, he did.

His wife filed for divorce. She cited adultery. She said it was on “biblical grounds.” Your tradition’s own verdict, spoken by the person with the closest view of the matter.

I know somebody’s going to argue that we’re all sinners, so who am I to judge? They’ll say that God often uses the biggest sinners for God’s purposes (e.g., Moses, David, Cyrus, Peter, etc.). They’ll go on to tell me that what’s most important is that their candidate is saved, and therefore will legislate with God’s values in their hearts, even if God’s values aren’t evident in their investment accounts, their political attitudes about serving the most vulnerable, or in their sexual relationships.

But those arguments feel like pretty thin gruel when you’re choosing that person as the political standard-bearer of God’s values. Because here’s the part that should be making the Christian right deeply uncomfortable. And it would, if they were paying attention to their own tradition.

Here’s the irony: The Democrat in this race is the one with the seminary degree. James Talarico holds a Master of Divinity from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He’s a lifelong Presbyterian who says his politics come directly from Jesus’s two commandments: love God, love your neighbor. For him, that means healthcare for people who can’t afford it, schools that don’t sort children by zip code, and an economy that doesn’t concentrate all its winnings at the top.

Instead of game recognizing game, some of y’all have called him a heretic for it!

So let me ask you something. If you’re a Christian who’s voted for candidates like Paxton:

Does it bother you that the Democrat in this race resembles Jesus and his teachings more than the “family values” Republican you just nominated?

Does it trouble you that the man studying Scripture, attending seminary, and grounding his politics in the Sermon on the Mount is the one your tradition is calling a heretic?

Are you concerned when you find yourself defending a man whose own wife cited “biblical grounds” for divorce?

Any anxious feelings when the Christian right lines up behind a candidate impeached for bribery and credibly accused of two separate affairs, one of them with a woman who was, herself, a Christian influencer?

How about this: When exactly did caring for the poor become heresy, and committing adultery become a family value?

I’m asking all this because, as someone raised in your tradition, I genuinely can’t square this circle.

When a religious tradition consistently chooses Paxtons over Talaricos, choosing the strongman over the servant and the enforcer over the one doing the slow, unglamorous work of loving the neighbor, it’s announcing something very definite to the world about what that tradition actually values. And it’s not Jesus.

Now, if you’re not religious, you might be watching all of this with a kind of exhausted bewilderment. And honestly, that bewilderment is theologically accurate, interestingly enough. The same people who put Ten Commandments displays in courtrooms and made “family values™” a political brand just nominated a man whose own wife left him for adultery. The people calling the seminary student a heretic are the ones backing the guy with the bribery charges.

So, you’re not misreading this, even though religion’s not your thing. The confusion you feel is actually the correct response to a genuinely confounding religious reality.

On the other hand, if you’re a person of faith who’s been quietly wondering whether your tradition has lost its way, you’re not nuts either. What you’re witnessing from some segments of Christianity is real, and you’re certainly allowed to call out for what it is.

I mean, the church doesn’t have to keep choosing this. There is another option. There’s always been another option, but it tends to be less comfortable. It tends to get you called a heretic.

Talarico uttered a biblical truth: “Being a Christian means getting in trouble. It means ruffling feathers, going against the grain.” You know, for things like feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and setting free those who’ve suffered the system’s boot on their necks. It’s certainly not a virtue to ruffle feathers because you’ve been sued for fraud, impeached, and divorced for adultery.

Ruffling feathers and going against the grain for the former reasons rather than the latter sounds like the Jesus I actually find in the text, not the one who got retrofitted to bless the powerful.

November’s still coming.

And so, apparently, is the question the church has been avoiding for a long time: Who exactly is it you’re following?