This week, I watched James Talarico’s speech after his recent political win in Texas. Something about the way he spoke landed with me. Judging by the reactions online and in conversations with friends, it landed with a lot of other people too, especially Christians who still care deeply about their faith but feel increasingly homeless in the American evangelical landscape.
What he articulated wasn’t anger as much as grief. For many people raised in church, the problem isn’t that they suddenly stopped believing in the teachings of Jesus. The problem is that they listened carefully to them.
They remember the lessons.
- Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.
- Love your neighbor as yourself.
- Care for the poor.
- Be a good Samaritan to the wounded traveler on the road.
- Beware of idols.
Many young adults read those passages and tried to take them seriously. They expected the church that raised them to take them seriously, too. Instead, they often watched the church become absorbed in the pursuit of political power. Sermons turned into campaign speeches. Faith became a voting bloc. And in the process, many began to feel that something sacred had been traded for something far smaller.
Some of the most respected Christian voices have wrestled with this publicly. Russell Moore, once a prominent leader within the Southern Baptist Convention, eventually left his role not because he had lost his faith but because he believed the church itself was drifting away from the gospel it claimed to defend. That story resonates with many families.
Parents often say, with sadness, “Our children have abandoned the church.” But in many cases, that diagnosis may be backwards. A generation of young people didn’t reject what they were taught about Jesus. They internalized it. They heard the warnings about idols, hypocrisy, and religious leaders who loved power more than humility. When they saw those same patterns emerging in the modern church, they did exactly what their faith tradition trained them to do: they questioned it.
Some stepped away from organized religion not because they stopped caring about faith and Jesus, but because they felt the church itself had stopped resembling the faith they were taught.
That distinction matters. There is a quiet but growing group of believers who still find themselves deeply moved by the words of Jesus. They still believe in compassion, humility, mercy, and care for the vulnerable. They still believe faith should make people more loving, not more angry.
What they struggle with is a version of Christianity that seems increasingly defined by political allegiance rather than spiritual formation. So when someone like James Talarico speaks openly about faith in a way that emphasizes humility, compassion, and justice rather than domination, people notice. Not because it is radical, but because it sounds familiar. It sounds like the faith many of us grew up hearing about.
There is a sentence I have heard from many thoughtful Christians over the past several years, and it captures this moment well: “I didn’t leave the teachings of Jesus. The church left them first.” And yet the story of faith has always included seasons of wandering and reform. The church has lost its way before. It has rediscovered it before, too.
Perhaps the next renewal of the church will not come from louder political victories, but from quieter acts of courage… people who choose once again to take the words of Jesus seriously. To love their neighbors, to care for the wounded traveler, and to resist the profane orange idol. And to remember that the church was never meant to rule the world. It was meant to serve it.
Dr. Wesley