Lies, Lies and More Lies; Talarico's church pushes back against right wing extremist's false accusations

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2026/06/lies-lies-and-more-lies-talaricos.html

Whatever there is to be known about the Daily Wire, and it's not really all that much, Ben Shapiro is good at something. He's good at playing on people's prejudices and biases, and if he tries to confirm something, there's a 100% chance it is a misconception or an outright lie. The fact that it depends on social media to spin its misinformation underlines the fact that it isn't credible news or information or commentary.

So when they attacked St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, the church where Texas Democratic nominee for the US Senate James Talarico is a member, the information they put out was clearly innuendo that counted on ignorance of the church, the denomination, and lacked proof or evidence of anything in the accusations. The article, written by Lief LeMahieu, made a list of standard, tired, inaccurate accusations.

The whole idea of Christian redemption, which relies on things like repentance, grace, loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself is the very definition of "woke." In spite of the right wing use of the term as one of derision, what is now defined as "being woke" is exactly the kind of spiritual awakening that is at the very core of being Christian. It is, in fact, not possible to be Christian with any genuine sincerity of repentance that is exactly what being woke means. And when the Daily Wire accuses St. Andrews of being a "woke church," it is stating the very obvious fact that St. Andrews is a genuinely and sincerely Christian church.

So thanks for that.

Jim Rigby, senior pastor at St. Andrews, gave an outstanding summary of exactly what has happened to American Christianity as a result of right wing political extremism when he said, "Now anyone may be called a heretic if they presume to anchor Christianity on the actual teachings of Jesus instead of the rantings of televangelists and political moralizers."

If right wing extremists want to make James Talarico's faith, and the church where he worships, a political issue, then so be it. Look who he's running against. His opponent fits the defintion of "an ungodly person who perverts the grace of our God into a license for immorality" as the Apostle Jude defines in his epistle, verse 4. If that is the issue that is being pushed, and those are the standards that are being used, then no sincere, faithful Christian can cast a vote for Ken Paxton without completely violating the core principles of Christianity.

And I think that's as clear as it gets.

[surfered]

1. I've been searching for a better analogy of the Texas Senate race, but for now it's "A Real Christian vs a Real Crook.

[lees1975]

2. That's excellent, and totally accurate.

From those right wing conservative Evangelicals [I do not consider them Christian by any biblical definition] who now face the facts, that the politicians they support do not reflect the Christian values they claim to believe, the reality is that they are the ones who have put this perspective on this particular election and their candidate falls outside the moral requirements they themselves claim to demand from candidates, when they apply these little fine-tuned nuances of Christian doctrine to Talarico. Paxton doesn't come close, so if they vote for him, they're hypocrites. But the bigger issue is that Talarico is going to draw a lot of marginal fence sitters to his side, because they're going to be attracted to voting for someone they see as a faithful Christian.