'Jesus was a radical': Progressives invoke Christ to sell left-wing agenda on campaign trail

There's something almost nostalgic about watching progressive Senate candidates suddenly discover the Bible after decades of telling religious voters to keep their faith out of politics. Angie Nixon, Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico are out there calling Jesus a radical organizer, basically recasting the Sermon on the Mount as a stump speech for whatever the Democratic platform says this cycle. It's a strange thing to watch happen in real time, this scramble to borrow the language of the Moral Majority after years of mocking the people who actually used it.

The tell is in what gets left out. Jesus talked plenty about sin, repentance, and personal transformation, not just communal justice. He didn't organize a march on Caesar's palace. Reducing him to a proto-activist for a modern welfare agenda flattens the actual text into a campaign prop, which is a little insulting to anyone who's read it seriously rather than skimmed it for a quote that fits a stump speech.

None of this means faith and politics can't mix. They always have, and conservatives have never pretended otherwise. What's different here is the transactional feel of it, invoking Christ specifically because polling says rural and working-class voters respond to it, not because it flows naturally from a worldview these candidates have held all along. Voters tend to notice when religion shows up right on schedule, dressed for the occasion.

If Talarico or El-Sayed genuinely believe what they're saying, fine, let them make the case and take the theological questions that come with it. But dressing up an agenda in scripture doesn't make the agenda more true. It just makes the scripture smaller.