Video Surfaces of Candidate Telling a Church that Muhammad and Fred Rogers are Interchangeable With Jesus

James Talarico is leading Ken Paxton in the race for a Texas Senate seat that hasn't gone blue in decades.

He's up five points on Paxton and wants Christian voters to help seal the win.

A resurfaced sermon shows him telling a congregation that Jesus was just one voice among many prophets.

A Congregation Hears Jesus Is One Option Among Many

The sermon was delivered from the pulpit of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin.

"It could be for you a different prophetic voice from a different faith tradition: Buddha, Muhammad, Moses, Lao Tzu, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama," Talarico told the congregation.

That's not a Sunday school illustration about finding moral courage somewhere in your life.

That's a sitting Texas legislator, now running statewide with a real shot at winning, telling Christians in the pews that the founder of their faith belongs on a list with a children's television host.

The Campaign That Leans on Church Credibility

Talarico is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas this cycle, a former public-school teacher with degrees from UT-Austin and Harvard who first won his Texas House seat in 2018.

He has built a chunk of his political identity around his Christian faith ever since, and it's clearly working – a Texas Public Opinion Research survey of 1,048 likely voters in July found him with his largest lead yet in a state Republicans haven't lost statewide since the 1990s.

He talks about faith constantly in interviews, leans on it with religious voters, and uses it to soften his image with exactly the kind of Texas Democrat who needs Bible-belt credibility to win statewide.

The prophetic-voices sermon guts that pitch.

You can't run as the faithful candidate who takes Scripture seriously while telling a congregation that Jesus and Mr. Rogers occupy the same spiritual category.

The church itself doesn't do much to clean this up, either.

A representative for the congregation has said it doesn't operate as a "beliefs-based" church.

Another minister there has publicly voiced uncertainty about whether Jesus existed as a historical figure at all.

That's the theological environment Talarico chose to deliver this message in.

It's also the one he's now asking Texas voters to trust as evidence of his Christian sincerity.

Not a Gaffe – a Pattern

This isn't an out-of-context clip of a politician fumbling a hard question on the spot.

It's a considered theological statement, delivered from a stage, laying out named figures across multiple religious traditions as spiritually interchangeable.

Talarico didn't stop at other faith traditions, either.

"Or it may be a prophetic voice from history: Black Elk, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Dolores Huerta, Toni Morrison, Mahatma Gandhi, Mr. Rogers," he told the congregation.

Mister Rogers, listed from the pulpit as a spiritual peer to Christ.

Defenders have since claimed Talarico meant "prophetic" loosely, as a synonym for truth-telling rather than spiritual authority.

That reading doesn't survive the sermon itself, where he explicitly frames Muhammad and Buddha as alternatives to Christ for congregants looking for a "prophetic voice" to follow.

Critics circulating the clip have reached for Scripture too, pointing to Matthew 7:15 and its warning about "false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves."

Christ isn't one prophetic voice among many in historic Christian teaching – he's the point of the whole thing.

Talarico's own words say otherwise, and so far, his campaign hasn't said a word to explain them.

https://twitter.com/LoneStar_PAC/status/2104256300678852778

Texas Christians don't need Hoft's take or anyone else's to judge this one.

Talarico put Jesus on a list with Mr. Rogers, on the record, and he's five points from the U.S. Senate.

Let him explain that to their face before November.

Sources:

• James Talarico, sermon at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Austin, Texas, September 2019, resurfaced Sept. 27, 2026, reported in "'Serpent whispering in your ear': Talarico pushes prophetic voices including Muhammad and Mr. Rogers to Christian congregation," OpsLens, Sept. 2026.
• "WTH? Flake James Talarico Tells Christian Congregation to Find a Prophetic Voice to Follow Like 'Muhammad… Toni Morrison or Mr. Rogers'," The Gateway Pundit, Sept. 29, 2026.
• "James Talarico Says When He Takes on This Corrupt System, He's Doing It on Biblical Grounds," Twitchy, Sept. 28, 2026.
• "WTH? James Talarico Urges Christian Congregation to Seek 'Prophetic Voices' Like Muhammad, Toni Morrison and Mr. Rogers," 100PercentFedUp.com, Sept. 2026.
• "'Serpent whispering in your ear': Talarico pushes prophetic voices including Muhammad and Mr. Rogers to Christian congregation," WND, Sept. 2026.
• "Talarico leads Paxton by 5 points in new Texas Senate poll," The Texas Tribune, July 28, 2026.