Laura Hollis

Now that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has roundly defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican runoff primary for Cornyn’s U.S. Senate seat (Paxton won by 25 percentage points), the real battle begins.

Paxton’s opponent on the Democrat Party ticket is James Talarico, a former teacher and member of the Texas House of Representatives who holds a master of divinity from the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Politicians routinely ignore the extent to which their religious faith is inconsistent with their personal behavior or their policy prescriptions. But Talarico is running around the country giving interviews in which he declares his views on government policy to be the truly “Christian” ones.

On Joe Rogan’s podcast, for example, Talarico objected to posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms, saying, “I think my concern is for the Muslim kid and the Jewish kid, the Hindu kid, the atheist kid who’s sitting in a classroom who now has a poster on the wall forced by the government that says, you know, your religion is inferior or you’re not welcome here.”

What’s vital to understand is that Paxton must start by challenging Talarico’s deeply flawed biblical exegesis. This is perhaps counter to the advice of the typical campaign consultant, which is to steer clear of attacking an opponent’s religious views. But we’re no longer in the realm of typical political campaigns.

Talarico is holding himself out as a deep thinker and a moderate Democrat, clothing himself in misstated teachings of Jesus Christ in such a way as to render his policy preferences impervious to political attacks because they are – by his lights grounded in Christian theology. To leave those distorted interpretations unaddressed is to play by Talarico’s rules and concede territory with constituents that Paxton cannot afford to lose.

Paxton doesn’t have to attempt to be holier than thou or a theological expert to challenge Talarico’s misstatements about Jesus Christ and Christianity.

Paxton will not only have the public’s attention about Talarico’s political positions; he will have undermined the moral authority Talarico is confecting to prevent any legitimate scrutiny of those positions.

Mr. Paxton, have at it.