Paxton v Talarico Commentary on Houston Chronicle article 10/24/26

Two Coalitions and What Scripture Actually Says

Before anything about the Senate race, here is what’s already true. Jesus said eternal life is knowing the Father and the Son (John 17:3). It is not belonging to the right coalition or being vouched for by the right pastors. Everything below gets measured against that, not the other way around.

With early voting underway and Election Day about ten days off, the Houston Chronicle’s Adrian Ashford has a useful report on how Houston pastors are lining up behind Ken Paxton or James Talarico: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/religion/article/talarico-paxton-religious-endorsements-christian-22484490.php

The Chronicle reports that both candidates launched faith coalitions last week. Talarico’s held a virtual kickoff that drew about sixty people, with Bishop James Dixon II, a rabbi and a Muslim chaplain speaking. Paxton’s circulated a list of 52 Houston-area pastors, and some of them laid hands on him at a Conroe rally. Notice who the article doesn’t quote: either candidate. The coalitions speak for them. The piece also gives fragments of what Talarico has said, so I went looking for the fuller statements. I have not read the full interview transcripts, only the reporting and excerpts, so check my read against them.

Start with how each side treats its man. Dixon spoke of Talarico as God’s vessel and God’s voice. Pastor Steve Riggle prayed that Paxton would find favor with voters and that deception would be exposed. Praying for rulers is commanded (1 Timothy 2:1-2), and nobody should mock it. The issue is the claim, not the prayer. Nobody in either room can verify that a candidate speaks for God. Scripture uses the laying on of hands for blessing, healing and commissioning, so there’s no rule against praying over a man. My read, not chapter and verse, is that staging it at a campaign rally trades on sacred weight for political image. The two moves aren’t identical. Dixon’s is a claim about the man, and Riggle’s is a petition about the outcome.

Pastor James Buntrock told the Chronicle that Talarico is operating under an “Antichrist spirit.” His main ground is Talarico’s New York Times interview with Ezra Klein, where Klein asked whether Christianity is more true than other religions and whether they are mutually exclusive. Talarico answered that Christianity points to the truth and that other religions of love point to the same truth, like different languages. As reported, he also said Jesus reveals that reality while other traditions reveal it in their own ways. He was asked about exclusivity, and his answer did not affirm it. Jesus said no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6), and the apostles said the same (Acts 4:12). That is a documented, serious doctrinal problem, and Buntrock’s concern about it is a watchman’s concern.

But the label overreaches. John’s test for the antichrist is confession: denying that Jesus is the Christ, denying the Father and the Son, denying that Christ came in the flesh (1 John 2:22; 4:2-3). Nothing in the Chronicle’s account shows Talarico failing that test. Not affirming exclusivity is a different charge. It’s serious enough to stand without the heaviest word in the book, and the heavy word only hands his defenders an easy way to dismiss the real point.

Buntrock’s second concern is that adultery can be repented of and left behind, while physical and chemical alteration has no natural way back. Read fairly, he is not saying gender transition is unforgivable. He is saying the body doesn’t return. That’s a prudential and medical argument about irreversible interventions, and the mercy of the gospel reaches every sin. He is also drawing a distinction between a man’s private sin and a man’s public advocacy, and that distinction deserves a fair hearing. It cuts both ways. His adultery comparison points at Paxton, whom the Texas Tribune reports has been criticized over two alleged extramarital affairs. Those are allegations, and the Chronicle doesn’t explain the reference. A candidate who runs on Christian identity invites questions about the life he is asking pastors to vouch for.

Now abortion, and the same standard for both men. At an Oct. 14 town hall in Fort Worth, Talarico told a Catholic voter that “the Bible is silent on the issue of abortion,” as National Review reported. Earlier, in an interview Fox reported on, he said Christians must “take scripture as a whole.” That is the right method, and it is where his case fails. The modern word isn’t in the text, but the person in the womb is. God forms him (Psalm 139), knows and calls him (Jeremiah 1:5), and he leaps at the voice of Mary’s greeting (Luke 1:41-44). The Didache, an early Christian instruction manual, forbids killing a child by abortion. Exodus 21:22-25 is genuinely debated, and I won’t pretend otherwise. Read as a whole, though, Scripture is not silent.

Paxton gets the same test. The Chronicle reports he opposes abortion in any circumstance, has sued out-of-state doctors over abortion drugs, and threatened to sue hospitals over a case doctors said threatened a woman’s life and wasn’t viable. I haven’t investigated that case. The Chronicle gives the doctors’ description and Paxton’s actions, but not his reasoning. “Any circumstance” is a policy position, not a verse. Scripture’s affirmation of the unborn doesn’t spell out hospital protocols, and Christian moral tradition has long distinguished between intending a child’s death and treating a mother’s life-threatening condition where the child’s death is foreseen but not intended. Where that line falls in a given case is a question for pastors, ethicists and physicians, not for a slogan from either campaign.

The retired Rev. Kathleene Card said the most important command is to love your neighbor. She has real footing. Jesus said the whole law hangs on loving God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40), and Paul says love fulfills the law (Romans 13:8-10). But Jesus named love of God first, and neighbor-love cut loose from it drifts toward ethics without a Lord. The unborn child and the poor widow are both neighbors. Dixon disagrees with Talarico on abortion and gender but puts the poor, health care and oppression first. Buntrock ranks the other way. Scripture speaks to all of it (Micah 6:8; Matthew 25:31-46; Proverbs 31:8-9). How to weigh those goods on a ballot is a judgment call, not a text, and it is the voter’s burden before God. Card closed with something the church should copy: friends from seminary who disagreed sharply and are still friends.

One more point. Scripture never requires a civil ruler to be a believer. Paul told the church in Rome to honor governing authorities (Romans 13:1-7), and the emperor was no Christian. The church’s recurring mistake is treating the ballot as a baptismal certificate. A voter can weigh policy, competence and character without asking either man to be his pastor, and without letting either one pose as one.

This post isn’t telling you how to vote. It’s telling you what no campaign can do for you. No coalition, list of pastors or convention speech puts you in the vine. Abiding in Christ is John 15, and it comes empty-handed (Matthew 5:3). Every candidate, bishop and commentator arrives that way, and so do I.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Sources: Houston Chronicle (link above). National Review, “Talarico Tells Catholic Voter Bible Is ‘Silent’ on Abortion”: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/talarico-tells-catholic-voter-bible-is-silent-on-abortion/amp/. Fox News on the Jamie Kern Lima interview: https://www.foxnews.com/media/texas-dem-nominee-james-talarico-invokes-faith-defend-abortion-rights-bible-silent-abortion. Texas Tribune: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/13/texas-ken-paxton-james-talarico-religion-campaign-christianity/