James Talarico

It has to be done with freedom.

And to me, that is absolutely consistent with the ministry and life and death of Jesus.

Again, I think that's what we're called to do as Christians.

Almost every debate Jesus is in is with the religious authorities of his time and directly challenging orthodoxy.

So I do think this is, you know, Jesus was a religious reformer.

Paul was a religious reformer.

And so I think when we're at our best as Christians, we are challenging religious dogmas and religious supremacy.

But I also try to come at this with humility.

On the issue of abortion, I've said before, I don't know what Jesus thought about abortion.

The Bible doesn't tell us.

The Bible doesn't mention abortion at all.

And so as with many issues that aren't mentioned in the Bible, we have to take...

scripture, and we've got to try to piece together what we think love demands of us on a particular policy question.

And you're right, for the past 50 years in this country, the religious right, a political movement,

convinced a lot of Christians in America that the two most important issues were abortion and homosexuality, two issues that aren't really discussed in Scripture.

Abortion is never mentioned.

Consensual same-sex relationships are never mentioned.

And so it's remarkable to me that you have an entire political movement using Christianity to prioritize two issues Jesus never talked about.

So I'm not saying they're not important.

I actually think both of those issues are very important.