James Talarico

And so when Gen Z and when millennials were faced with that choice, it was a pretty easy choice for them, right?

They chose their gay friends.

They chose women's rights.

They chose believing in science.

And that, in my opinion, was always a false choice.

And in fact, a lot of those positions that I just mentioned are contrary to biblical values, to the teachings of Jesus.

And so, you know, there's always going to be progressive Christians and conservative Christians.

That's a very healthy debate we should always have.

But in this country, it's become synonymous with right-wing politics, right?

So much so that when people hear I'm a Christian politician, they just assume I'm a Republican.

I mean, it's just I think that has pushed a lot of a lot of people away.

Well, I think broadly we should say that using religion to control the people is a tale as old as time.

I mean, this is powerful stuff.

It's part of why I made the decision to go to seminary because I was like, if I'm going to talk about my faith and my beliefs and my values in a public setting or on this podcast when millions of people are going to listen, I better know what I'm talking about.

I better be thoughtful in how I approach these things because it has real power.

And so I think you've seen that from the beginning of the Christian tradition.

You've seen it across traditions of those in power, whether it's people with political power, social power in terms of homosexuality or economic power.

using that faith to hurt and control other people.

Let's take the issue of homosexuality in particular.

One is something Jesus never talks about, even though gay people existed in the ancient world.