Fresh off his Senate Democrat primary victory, Texas state representative and self-styled progressive Christian minister James Talarico has been making the rounds with his well-rehearsed critique of American Christianity. Citing Matthew 25, he argues that American Christians have lost sight of Jesus' priorities.
In one widely circulated clip, Talarico declares:
In Matthew 25 Jesus tells us exactly how we will be judged: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, welcoming the stranger … nothing about going to church, nothing about being straigh t… it's all about how you treat other people. And I think American Christians have got to get back to those fundamentals.
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The implication behind Talarico's critique is familiar. American Christians, he suggests, have become obsessed with issues like abortion and sexual morality while neglecting the works of mercy Jesus actually emphasized. In his telling, the church has traded acts of mercy for culture-war politics.
But this framing depends completely on a false choice.
While some Christians who serve in public office speak openly about abortion and sexual ethics in the political arena, millions of believers across the country are simultaneously feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, caring for orphans, and rebuilding communities after disasters. These things are not mutually exclusive.
Before going further, it's important to clarify what this argument is and what it isn't. We're not discussing public policy here, because that isn't the claim Talarico made. His accusation was directed at the Church itself.
This is not about whether the government should expand or limit social welfare programs, or to what degree politicians like Talarico should be allowed to invest other people's money in them.
What we're addressing here is Talarico's belligerent dishonesty about the Church of Jesus Christ. His claims, designed to win applause from secular, political crowds are not merely mistaken.
They are slanderous.
Worse still, Talarico frames his critique as a plea for the Church to recover credibility. If Christians would simply return to caring for the poor, he suggests, their moral authority would be restored.
The problem with that narrative is that American Christians never stopped doing those things in the first place. In fact, Christians remain the largest engine of charity, volunteerism, and humanitarian service in the United States.
Studies consistently show that Christian Americans donate more than twice as much annually to charity than the rest of the general population, and they volunteer roughly twice as often.
And where does much of that generosity go? Into the massive humanitarian network built and sustained by Christian churches and ministries:
Food banks
Homeless shelters
Addiction recovery programs
Foster care ministries
Disaster relief
Schools
Hospitals
Refugee assistance
International aid
Far from abandoning the poor, the Church is one of the primary institutions caring for them.
More than 50 million Americans receive food from charitable food programs, and roughly two-thirds of those programs are run by Christian organizations. Even more striking: nearly half of all Christian congregations operate or support a food distribution ministry.
Every week across the country, church basements, fellowship halls, and parking lots quietly become food banks. Millions of families eat because local churches show up with groceries. That is not rhetoric calculated to win an election. It is reality.
The same pattern appears in foster care and adoption.
Christians adopt children more than twice as often as the general population, and thousands of churches also operate foster-care support ministries that recruit families, provide financial support, and assist struggling parents.
In other words, Christians are not merely advocating for vulnerable children. They are opening their homes to them.
And when it comes to the homeless, the lion's share of America's homeless shelters and rescue missions are run by Christian organizations.
Groups like the Salvation Army alone serve more than 32 million Americans every year through shelters, addiction recovery programs, food distribution, and disaster response.
Speaking of disaster response, the Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse distributes over $1.1 billion dollars in humanitarian aid each year and has deployed massive relief operations following hurricanes, earthquakes, and wars.
The Christian "Children's Hunger Fund" has delivered more than $1 billion in aid to children and families. Meanwhile, the Knights of Columbus recently reported nearly $200 million in charitable giving and tens of millions of volunteer hours in a single year.
Other networks like Catholic Charities, Lutheran Services, and the Southern Baptist Convention's disaster relief teams collectively mobilize thousands of volunteers and billions of dollars in aid annually themselves.
These are not marginal operations.
They are some of the largest humanitarian networks on the planet.
Factor in Christian investment in building, founding, and maintaining hospitals as well as schools, literacy initiatives, and scholarships for underserved communities, and you begin to see the scope of Talarico's insult.
All told, one major economic study found that Christian institutions contribute roughly $1 trillion in social and economic value to American society each year through healthcare, education, charitable work, and community services.
Those are ordinary Christians serving quietly in their communities.
Which brings us back to Representative Talarico, who presents himself as a defender of Christianity's moral credibility. But credibility is not strengthened by misrepresenting the Church. When a public figure declares that American Christians must "get back" to feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and caring for the vulnerable, he is not describing reality - he is erasing the work of millions of believers already doing those things every day. The claim that American Christians have abandoned the works of mercy Christ commanded is not a prophetic rebuke.
It is bearing false testimony.
If Representative Talarico truly cares about the reputation of the Church, he might begin by stopping the slander. Because if the Church has a credibility problem, it may have less to do with neglecting the poor and more to do with the public figures who advance their own reputations by attacking it.
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