In this episode of A Reasonable Response, Robert Bosley refutes the claims of self-identified Christian progressive James Talarico and argues that his theology and proposed policies cannot meaningfully be called Christian.

Bosley contends that the central issue is not personal identification or academic affiliation, but authority. When the sufficiency of Scripture is rejected and replaced with personal tradition, cultural ideology, or political theory, the foundation of historic Protestant Christianity is abandoned. A system built on shifting human ideas cannot provide the sure footing that only God’s Word supplies.

This episode calls listeners to examine modern progressive theology in light of Scripture’s authority and to remember that Christian identity is defined not by label, but by submission to the revealed Word of God.

What is this even supposed to accomplish? Welcome to A Reasonable Response. I'm Robert Bosley, and the purpose of this podcast is to give a reasoned response to issues related to the Christian faith from a Reformed Baptist perspective. Each episode contains what we call the breakdown, where I respond to a video related to the topic at hand. And today, that is again, the topic of progressive Christianity and Christian nationalism.

But before we get to the breakdown, we're going to look at some more TikTok videos on the topic of Christian nationalism Magus says real Christians support trump But the bible says those who say they love God but hate their neighbor are lying. You cannot follow Jesus Christ while actively supporting politicians or policies that hurt your neighbor. You know, like cutting their food aid or their healthcare. I wonder if he remembers that Jesus says, by the standard that you judge, you will be judged. What about policies that hurt your neighbor by murdering them before they're born?

What about policies that hurt your neighbor by encouraging lawlessness and a conquering by foreign nations. This man does not know scripture. He does not know God. It seems kind of threatening because he's doing the motion of punching and with gunshot sounds but I'm not terribly worried about violence from this guy. That is a current Texas state senator saying that separation of church and state doesn't exist.

And frankly, I don't know if I should take advice on what does and doesn't exist from a Christian nationalist that not only believes God, a magical guy in the sky, exists, but also believes that our government should be run by a 2000 year old book of mythology about talking snakes and oppressing women, but not the actual constitution made by our founders, which enshrines the separation of church and state. That's Just wrong. The Constitution doesn't enshrine separation of church and state. It enshrines the freedom of the church from the dictates of the state. There's no federal church, but even when the Constitution was ratified, numerous states had recognized state churches.

In many of these states you couldn't even be elected to office without being a Protestant in good standing in your local church. And just labeling the Bible a book of mythology about talking snakes and oppressing women is just dumb. These kinds of people don't even really merit a response. I've already wasted enough time and brain cells on this. Christian nationalists hate leftists so much, but they don't realize I am a leftist because I grew up Christian.

Because I sat there and studied my Bible. Jesus went into the temple and overturned those money tables, fed the hungry for free, performed miracles for the most destitute, spent his time with tax collectors and prostitutes, banned the practice of charging interest when doing business with your fellow neighbor, and openly spoke against the government of that time. If Jesus were to come here today, I can assure you he would be siding with leftists. This is why I'm so sick to death of hearing all the leftist complain about so-called Christian nationalism. You want a Christian nation, you just want your kind of Christianity.

In reality, if you actually took five minutes to read these passages in context, you'll see they don't understand, they don't care. I would bet this woman who supposedly grew up in a Christian home has never even bothered to read the book of Deuteronomy, for instance. She would be utterly clueless if you asked her, where does the Bible talk about love your neighbor as yourself? Because that's actually a citation from the law of God. She's clueless.

They have no argument. It's really pathetic. What is this even supposed to accomplish? A true Christian nation would look something like this. It would have open borders.

And I mean open borders because all land is God's land and all the people are God's people. As seen in Leviticus 19 33 through 34, when a stranger resides with you in your land you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens You shall love him as yourself there's so much more to this issue Than just a contextually pulling a verse up that you think supports open borders and mass migration. It obviously doesn't if you read it in context and you read the rest of the Bible, but these people don't care. They're just grabbing a few verses to justify their own liberal presuppositions.

And this is proven by when you go into the comments, it's all the atheists and unbelievers who are like, yeah, I like this kind of Christianity. Well, of course you do. It's not Christian. Today for the breakdown, we're going to be looking at a video from the Ezra Klein show titled James Tallarico's beautiful answer to Christian nationalism. Yes, this is the second time we've responded to James Tallarico and on the topic, at least related to Christian nationalism.

I want to give a little bit of a deeper dive into some of these topics and answer a lot of the common claims that come to us from the so-called progressive Christian left. His opposition to Christian nationalism is very shallow and ultimately hypocritical because James is perfectly fine using religion to acquire political power and enforce doctrine. He just wants it to be his doctrines and his misconception of what Christianity means. So with that introduction, let's look at the first clip. Even if you're not formally religious, If you do believe that each person is sacred, that each person is holy, that each person bears the divine image, that should fundamentally change how we engage in politics, how we treat our neighbors, and how we treat our enemies.

To me, incarnational politics would take seriously that idea that every person is God. This is one of the big problems with this whole video and everything that I've seen from Talarico is he throws a lot of adjectives at whatever he's talking about to make it sound pious when in reality what he's saying is meaningless and confused. He conflates several things here, the image of God with people being sacred and then people being holy when scripturally those are distinct things. Being made in the image of God is not the same as having personal holiness And then wraps it all up in an idea of incarnational politics, whatever in the world that's supposed to mean, and then caps it all off with the idea that each person is God. It's a confused mess, which describes progressive Christianity pretty well.

He is denying the foundational claim of the scriptures that there is a God and you're not him. There is a great divide between the creator and the creature. And the creature, he may be made in the image of God, a human creature is, but that doesn't make you a God. That doesn't make you divine. Being made in the image of God means You reflect God's attributes, but it doesn't mean that you are God or a part of God.

There's no way that we can look at what he says in this clip or the rest of them and conclude that James Tallarico is a Christian in any meaningful sense. He's a pagan who has grabbed hold of Christian language to try and make himself more palatable to the people he's supposed to represent in Texas. So I listened to you when you did your Joe Rogan appearance, and you offered there a very, very progressive form of Christianity. What do you think is the biblical evidence to support the opinion of being pro-abortion? Before God comes over Mary and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary's consent.

And she says, if it is God's will, let it be done. Let it be. Let it happen. So to me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that you cannot force someone to create. Creation is one of the most sacred acts that we engage in as human beings.

But that has to be done with consent. It has to be done with freedom. And to me, that is absolutely consistent with the ministry and life and death of Jesus. This is probably one of the most incomprehensibly stupid things I've ever heard someone say. The idea that Mary's statement to the angel Gabriel was her consenting to what God wanted to do with her permission, and somehow that equates to giving moral approbation to the murder of unborn children, is insane on a level that's hard to imagine.

First, even just looking at the passage in Luke chapter one, when the angel appears to Mary, he doesn't give her a statement that she can approve or dissent from. He doesn't say, hey we're thinking about this, what are your thoughts? Rather he says, do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. There's No option here. The angels telling her what will happen.

Now at the end, Mary as a righteous and faithful servant says, behold, the maidservant of the Lord. She's saying, I'm God's servant. Let it be to me according to your word." She's not complaining, she's submitting perfectly in this instance to what God has intended for her to do. But she's not consenting in the sense that she could have said, no, I'd rather not do that. This is a statement of what will happen.

God's not asking for Mary to cooperate. But then to take this and use it as some kind of warped support for the murder of unborn children is simply indefensible. There is nothing here that could possibly be used to support killing children. And this is something that has been Widely recognized throughout the history of the Christian church, there has been many things that Christians have debated about. The number of things that there has been almost unanimous agreement on is fairly small, but actually abortion is one of them.

From the very beginning, even in a book called the Didache, one of the earliest books written by Christians that's not in our New Testament. Chapter 2 includes the statement, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten. So abortion and infanticide, distinguished, both rejected by Christians. And this has been the Christian position from the very beginning. On top of this, the Scriptures recognize that the child in the womb, though not yet born, is truly a human being.

This shouldn't be controversial but for some reason it is. That what is in the womb is a younger human being, a smaller human being, one that's not yet fully formed, but is still a human being made in the image of God. Nowhere in scripture do we see anything that would actually give approval to the idea that what is in the womb is anything less than a unique human being made in the image of God, and therefore there is no scriptural case to support abortion. It simply doesn't exist. And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.

So prayer is an act, And it seems to me that the way you have described your faith to me, your faith is a faith of acts. That you don't, I don't want to say you don't think much of a faith that doesn't, but the question of whether or not you are living in religion is not about what you believe, but about what you do. Well, and that's what we're taught as Christians. Matthew 25 tells us exactly how we're gonna be judged and how we're gonna be saved. By feeding the hungry, by healing the sick, by welcoming the stranger, by visiting the prisoner.

Nothing about being a Christian. Nothing about going to church. Nothing about saying the Lord's Prayer. Nothing about reading the Bible. In debates on how someone is justified, you have the Protestants on one side saying justification is by faith alone.

You have Roman Catholics and other groups saying it's a combination in some sense of faith and works, and now we have the progressive saying, no, it's just salvation by works. And that's what he presents here, that somehow Matthew 25, regardless of what the rest of Jesus' message, regardless of what the rest of the New Testament says, he says is teaching that we are saved by our works, taking care of those who are in need and visiting those in prison and caring for the sick and things like that. Of course, that's not what Jesus is teaching at all. He is saying that your works will play a role in the final judgment, but this is in the context of a broader presentation and Jesus' full ministry, as well as just the ministry of the New Covenant as we read in the New Covenant scriptures, the New Testament, that we are saved by faith apart from works, but a faith that saves will be accompanied by works. That is the historic Protestant position.

We distinguish justification, your being declared to be righteous, and sanctification, your own growth in personal holiness. We distinguish these things. We recognize that they're different, but we don't separate them. And so Protestants, like myself, we can say we are justified by faith apart from works, and at the same time agree with the writer of the Hebrews that without holiness, you will not see the Lord. James Tallarico and others like him who believe this progressive false gospel that you are justified by what you do.

You are saved by what your works, you are saved by your works. When in reality, our works will only condemn us if they are done apart from faith. He calls himself a Presbyterian, but he's utterly rejected everything that the Presbyterians and the Presbyterian confession of faith, the Westminster, actually teach on this issue. In no sense is this man a trustworthy Christian teacher in any way. He's simply another wolf in sheep's clothing.

I also try to come out this with humility. On the issue of abortion, I've said before, I don't know what Jesus thought about abortion. The Bible doesn't tell us. The Bible doesn't mention abortion at all. And so as with many issues that aren't mentioned in the Bible, we have to take scripture and We've got to try to piece together what we think is what love demands of us on a particular policy question.

And you're right, for the past 50 years in this country, the religious right, a political movement, convinced a lot of Christians in America that the two most important issues were abortion and homosexuality. Two issues that aren't really discussed in scripture. Abortion is never mentioned, consensual same-sex relationships are never mentioned. And so it's remarkable to me that you have an entire political movement using Christianity to prioritize two issues that Jesus never talked about. This is a very common idea presented from progressives, that Jesus was a reformer, just out there, telling people what he thought was best and trying to fight against the oppressive religious system of his day.

That's his justification for how he can argue against the historic position of the Christian church on basically every doctrine. And so again, he repeats what he said in previous discussions and what we actually responded to last time we looked at one of his videos, that the Bible never talks about abortion and consensual same-sex relationships. Again, if you're looking for the word abortion in your Bible, you won't find it, but the principles that lead to the pro-life abolitionist position that all people are made in the image of God, the baby in the womb is just as human as children who have been born and therefore are in the image of God, and that it's wrong to unjustly kill image bearers of God. All that comes together clearly drawn from the scriptures and leads to the inescapable conclusion that abortion is murder and therefore wrong and impermissible for Christians. In addition to this, he caveats the same-sex relationships as a consensual, loving same-sex relationship.

Of course, the Bible doesn't talk about that because largely it's mythical anyway. When the Bible does talk about homosexuality, without exception, it condemns it. Leviticus 18.22, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. The argument is often used that this is talking about pedophilia or pederasty, the abuse of children.

But if you actually know Hebrew, you see that that's simply not the case. The language is not one of predation or of an adult abusing a child. It is you shall not lie with a male, not a boy. The word in Hebrew is zachar, is talking about the male sex, not na'ar, which would be a young boy or a servant. And that's repeated even more clearly in Leviticus chapter 20.

Leviticus 20, 13, if a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. Again, a man lying with a zakhar, a male. The emphasis is on a man with another male. It's not talking about a young boy or anything like that. It is simply man with man as with a woman.

That is prohibited. And this is not just my opinion. This is the conclusion of most Christian scholars throughout history, but it really exemplified in Dr. Robert Gagnon's book, The Bible and Homosexual Practice. If you want to read a really stellar treatment of this topic, I can't recommend this book highly enough.

And I don't agree with everything Dr. Gagnon says. For instance, he holds to some source criticism views of the Old Testament that I don't, but his conclusions regarding this in particular are excellent and really inescapable. That's why this book has been out for something like 30 years and there's not even really been an attempt to answer, let alone rebut it. And regarding Leviticus 18 and 20, Dr.

Gagnon says, the laws in Leviticus 18, 22 and 20, 13 are unqualified and absolute. They neither penalize only oppressive forms of homosexuality, which is often the argument made, back to Dr. Gagnon, nor excuse either party in the act. The general term male, zakar, is used, not your neighbor, re'cha, one of equal status or from the same region or clan, nor boy or youth, na'ar. The question of whether the homosexual relationship is pederastic or not does not enter the picture.

The prohibition applies not only to the Israelite, but also to the non-Israelite who lives among God's people. Also, there is no limitation to cultic prostitution. So right out of the gate, he shows that what is condemned is the action itself because you are going against what God made. You're going against the natural function which is then picked up by the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 1 verse 26. For this reason God gave them, the pagans, up to vile passions for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, receiving in themselves the penalty for their error which was due." And the key here is the phrase, the men burned in their lust for one another.

This isn't oppressive, this isn't pederastic, this is two males attracted to one another. Regardless of the context, a so-called loving same-sex relationship is still sinful because it is contrary to what is nature. It is contrary to the way that God made a man to function. Another passage to look at is 1st Corinthians chapter 6 where The apostle gives us a vice list and he specifically says that these are the kinds of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 6, 9, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals nor sodomites nor thieves nor covetous so on and so on. And he says that these kinds of people will not inherit the kingdom of God. They will not have their sins forgiven. But verse 11 comes in with a glorious message, and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. So when Paul says these people will not inherit the kingdom of God.

He's not saying there's no hope for them, but rather there is judgment resting on them in that state. If you repent and turn to Christ, if you trust in the gospel, you will find Jesus to be a great Savior who will even forgive these sins, idolatry, theft, homosexuality, God will forgive you. But you will be changed. That doesn't mean it's going to be instantaneous. That doesn't mean there won't be struggles.

But the point is the people who live like this, characterized by these sins, that this is their identity, these people will not inherit the Kingdom of God. There is no exception here for a so-called loving, consensual relationship because the activity itself is what God declares to be sinful. There's no real debate about this. And again, I would encourage you to look at Dr. Gagnon's book and see his thorough treatment of this passage as well.

The conclusion is really inescapable. One of my favorite verses in the New Testament is in the Sermon on the Mount. I encourage everyone to go back and read it, especially as Christianity is more and more in our political conversation. Go back and read Christianity 101, which is the Sermon on the Mountain. And it's interesting because Jesus takes his followers not into a church, not into a business, not into a governmental building.

He brings people to a hillside. And he says, look at the birds of the air, look at the lilies of the field, this is how we're supposed to live, this is who we truly are. That is revolutionary. It is radical in the true meaning of that word, going to the root of all of our lives and our problems and our dreams. And to me, that is the spirit of our tradition, of breaking these chains, of breaking out of these systems.

The word church in Greek means to be called out of, to call out of our culture, called out of our economy, called out of our political system. That is what religion, I think, at its best does. Okay. I'm going to be a little pedantic here. And I've heard this many, many times.

I'm sure you have as well. Ekklesia, the Greek word for church that he mentions, the Greek word for church, he didn't actually say it. It does not mean called out ones. It does not mean you're called out from your society, you're called out from your economy. That's just silly.

He is reading his conclusions into the word. Yes, it is a compound word made up of two other Greek words which by themselves mean out and to call, ek-kleo. But to say that those words combined into the word ecclesia, simply that that means called out ones, that's what's called the etymological fallacy. A word does not necessarily mean what its parts mean. And If you look at how the word is used, it means assembly.

It means gathered group. It is a congregation. There is an emphasis not on what you have been called out from, but you're gathering together for. You are gathered together for a common purpose. It is a group united around a common idea, a common belief.

And this word is used to describe the church in the Old Testament. It is the assembly of the Lord, the Greek translation in the Septuagint, the ecclesia of the Lord. It is a gathered people that have come together with one heart, one mind, because they are worshiping the one true God. That is the emphasis, not being called out from these other things that he wants to say are bad and we need to reject, which all happen to be the things that his liberal presuppositions already require him to want to reject. How do you think about the competing claims of different religions?

Do you believe Christianity to be more true than other religions? Do you believe there to be exclusivity in these beliefs, that they're incompatible with each other? I believe Christianity points to the truth. I also think other religions of love point to the same truth. I think of different religious traditions as different languages.

So you and I could sit here and debate what to call this cup. And you could call it a cup in English, you'd call it something else in Spanish and French, but we are all talking about the same reality. I believe Jesus Christ reveals that reality to us. But I also think that other traditions reveal that reality in their own ways with their own symbol structures. And I've learned more about my tradition by learning more about Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam and Judaism.

And so I see these beautiful faith traditions as circling the same truth. The inclusivism that Talarico presents here, the idea that ultimately all religions or at least most are pointing to the same truth is logically, let alone scripturally, incoherent. You have multiple different religions teaching mutually exclusive ideas and each claiming that they are facts. They could all be wrong, they can't all be right. And the Christian view, born out of the Christian scriptures, is that there is only one true God.

This is seen in the Old Testament in the great confession of the Old Testament scriptures the Shema. Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one or the Lord alone. And this is repeated in the prophets that there are idols that the nations worship, but there's only one true living God, the God who Israel worships. He alone is God. He knows of no other gods, he tells us specifically.

And this does not change when we get to the New Testament. Jesus himself said that he alone is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. He is the infallible revelation of God. The Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 8, he says that we know an idol is nothing in the world and there is no other God but one.

For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as There are many gods and many lords, and the idea is many things that claim to be gods and lords. Yet, for us, there is only one God, the Father from whom are all things, and we for Him, we exist for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we live. You cannot read the Bible and come away, if you're going to be honest with what it says, you cannot come away and say that other religions are equally valid, pointing to the same truth. Now what Tyler Rico says that all religions of love point to the same truth he's actually right but what he doesn't understand is there's only one religion of love in Christianity because it is the only religion that points to the true God who is the true source of love. Every other religion is a false way, leading to a false God with a false gospel, and therefore does not lead to love, but to judgment, sin, and death.

For those unfamiliar with the term, what is Christian nationalism? You can define it a lot of different ways. I define it as the worship of power in the name of Christ. I define it that way because I want us to see it as part of a very long tradition. How do they define it?

They being the people who would self identify with it? I would think they would define it as wanting a Christian nation. But again, these politicians want a Christian nation unless it means providing health care to the sick or funding food assistance for the hungry or raising the minimum wage for the poor. And so it seems like they wanna base our laws on the Bible until they read the words of Jesus. Hopefully the problem is immediately obvious.

He defines Christian nationalism as the worship of power in the name of Jesus. Ezra Klein actually does a good job and asks him, how do they define it? He clearly has no answer. I would bet everything I own that this man has never read any positive presentation by anyone claiming to be a Christian nationalist. He has just grabbed hold of a term that he thinks is scary and is going to import all his own meanings into it in an effort to try and win votes.

And this is the thing. He's not really opposed to Christian nationalism. He's simply opposed to a Christian nationalism that is promoted by conservatives or theological conservatives who actually believe the scriptures. He wants Christian nationalism, just the Christianity that he defines, the Christianity that he approves, as seen by everything he says there, that the state needs to increase the welfare state and do all these things that he thinks the words of Jesus require. This is the great problem.

And James Salarico is a hypocrite. He is continually criticizing, condemning so-called Christian nationalism without being able to even define it, when in reality, he wants a Christian nation but with a Christianity made in his own image, not reflecting the Bible or what God's word actually calls us to. In conclusion, just like the last time that we looked at a video from James, we see that in no meaningful sense is his beliefs or his presentation, his proposed policies, in no sense are these things Christian. He calls himself a Christian. He's apparently a student at a Presbyterian seminary, but he's not a Presbyterian, he's not a Protestant, he's not a Christian.

He has rejected God's Word, he has rejected the authority of God's Word, and has substituted his own traditions, his own beliefs, his own ideas in its place. The progressives like James here have rejected the sufficiency of Scripture. They've set themselves up to be sufficient in themselves, and they do not give a sure foundation because they've rejected the sure foundation of God's Word. Well, that's all the time we have for today. If you would like to connect with me personally, you can do so on X at R.

Bosley, 1689. If you'd like more information about church and family life, you can do so at churchandfamilylife.com. And don't forget, we have our national conference coming up in May in Ridgecrest, North Carolina on the topic of biblical manhood and womanhood. We'd love to see you there. Thanks, see you