James Talarico wants voters to see his political program as an extension of Jesus’ ministry.

The trouble is that his sales pitch asks Scripture to bless a government agenda—and the applause line falls apart the moment anyone separates voluntary Christian charity from political coercion.

In a video posted Sunday, the Texas Democrat argued that universal health care, feeding children and fighting political corruption all rest on “biblical grounds.”

The language is polished. It is also doing a lot of work that Talarico never stops to defend.

Jesus healed the sick and fed the hungry through acts of divine power and personal mercy. He did not send Caesar a proposal for a new bureaucracy, demand another tax, or tell his followers that compassion becomes legitimate only after the state compels everyone to finance it.

ADVERTISEMENT

That distinction matters because Christianity treats generosity as a moral duty of the believer. A government program may be wise or foolish on its own merits, but calling it “biblical” does not settle questions about cost, control, rationing, incentives or whether Washington should hold the power in the first place.

RedState highlighted the video and the immediate backlash, including the obvious problem with turning the Gospel into a campaign prop.

That response goes straight to the political sleight of hand.

Talarico is not merely asking Christians to care for their neighbors. He is asking voters to accept his preferred policies and then presenting disagreement with those policies as a disagreement with Jesus.

That is not humility. It is a way to put a halo over a campaign platform while avoiding the hard work of proving that the platform would actually help the people it claims to serve.

There is also a revealing inconsistency in the message. Talarico condemns profit as though earning money is inherently corrupt, yet every government health system still depends on doctors, nurses, hospitals, drug makers, taxpayers and administrators making real tradeoffs with finite resources.

Erasing the price at the point of service does not erase the cost. It moves the bill, expands political control and lets politicians decide who pays, who qualifies and what care will be available.

Christians can disagree in good faith about health policy, taxes and the proper reach of government. What they should reject is the claim that one politician owns the biblical position simply because he stitched the name of Jesus onto a stump speech.

If Talarico wants to make the case for government-run health care, he should make it with numbers, outcomes and an honest account of the tradeoffs.

ADVERTISEMENT

Jesus is not a campaign surrogate, and Scripture is not a permission slip for bigger government.

That may be the most important lesson in Talarico’s video—and it is not the lesson he intended to teach.

 

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.