Erin Vanderhoof is a writer, broadcaster, and digital strategist based in Brooklyn, N.Y. In her spare time, she is involved in union organizing and teaching Sunday School at a nearby PC(U.S.A.) church.
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Talarico Isn’t Preaching a ‘Blue Jesus’
With his election to the U.S. Senate last week, James Talarico has the potential to become one of the nation’s most influential Christians.
Yet for all the attention to the 37-year-old’s pro-choice beliefs or his comments about God’s gender, there has been surprisingly little curiosity about the mainline institutions that shaped him. While right-wing Christians attacked his respectful comments about transgender kids, even left-leaning commentators dismissed his defenses of inclusivism—the idea that all religions contain some aspect of truth—as wishy-washy.
That Talarico could be faithfully relaying the positions of a small but committed number of American Christians doesn’t seem to translate. It’s the unique challenge facing the nation’s mainline churches: A few generations ago, the majority of Protestants considered themselves members of these denominations, but now, many are unaware of their existence, associating “Christianity” with its white evangelical expression, not its modest liberal cousins.