James Talarico

Why don't they post, turn the other cheek in the halls of the Pentagon?

Or it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

This is the inconsistency I'm trying to call out because they're using my tradition.

They're speaking for me.

And so I think I have a special moral responsibility to combat Christian nationalism wherever I see it.

That's not the gospel.

And I don't think I'm saying this as a Democrat.

I think I'm saying this as a fellow believer.

JD Vance and I are part of the body of Christ together.

And I think this is antithetical to the gospel.

The gospel is all about prioritizing those on the outside, those who are least lovable.

That's what's so revolutionary about it.

There are some strange passages in the New Testament, and one of them is when Jesus tells his followers that they have to hate their mother and father.

I don't think Jesus was speaking literally.

I don't know, but I don't think so, because I think we should love our moms and dads.

I love mine.

The 10 commandments require us to, and Jesus was a devout Jew the day he was born till the day he died.

But I think he's using shocking language

to teach us something, and that is that sometimes our little loves for our parents, for our friends, for our children, for our neighborhood, really important, crucial, beautiful, profound loves, sometimes those smaller loves can get in the way of the big love, the love for the stranger, the love for the outcast, the love for the foreigner.

And I should add,