Texas Senate Candidate James Talarico Picked the Worst Possible Word for Bible Lessons in Kindergarten
Texas approved elementary reading lessons featuring the Good Samaritan in November 2024.
James Talarico, now the Democrat running against Ken Paxton for Senate, picked one word for those lessons on camera.
That word flatly contradicts what he told a Christian voter about the Bible at a CNN town hall.
Talarico Called Bible Lessons Propaganda and Then Told CNN the Bible Is Absolute Truth
The clip comes from a 2025 video for the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the political arm of the left-wing think tank John Podesta founded.
Talarico went after a new Texas reading curriculum that brings Bible stories into elementary classrooms.
His objection was that the lessons presented those stories to five- and six-year-olds as things that really happened.
Then he delivered the line that blew up across Texas.
To "push propaganda, to push indoctrination on those youngest students, is deeply immoral," Talarico said.
Propaganda.
That is the word a man who calls himself a seminarian picked for Bible stories in a kindergarten reading class.
Fast forward to a CNN town hall on October 14.
Sarah Gardner, a Christian small business owner from Texas, sat across from Talarico and asked whether he believes the Bible is the absolute source of truth.
He said yes.
Both answers cannot stand.
If the Bible is the absolute source of truth, then teaching its stories as true is not propaganda – it is teaching the truth.
If teaching those stories as true to a six-year-old is propaganda, then Talarico does not believe what he told Gardner.
Texas voters deserve to know which Talarico is on the ballot.
When the propaganda clip resurfaced in August, Ted Cruz summed up the reaction of millions of Texans in two words.
"Um, wut?" Cruz wrote.
The Curriculum He Attacked Teaches the Golden Rule
The program Talarico was blasting is called Bluebonnet Learning.
The Texas State Board of Education gave it final approval in November 2024.
It is optional.
No school district has to use it, and the state offers districts $60 per student if they do.
Alongside the Good Samaritan, the lessons cover the Golden Rule from the Sermon on the Mount.
Those are the Bible lessons inside the curriculum he warned kindergartners needed protecting from.
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Mary Elizabeth Castle of Texas Values said Talarico was misrepresenting the program and argued the Bible references give children the background to understand famous speeches and common expressions.
Hiram Sasser of First Liberty pointed out that even the ACLU agreed in a court settlement that the Bible can be taught in Texas schools.
The Nonbinary God Remark Talarico Now Calls Provocative
The Bible answer was not the only part of his record Gardner raised at the town hall.
She also pressed him on telling the Texas House that God is nonbinary, and Talarico conceded he had been provocative.
"Maybe in an annoying way, I can admit that," Talarico said.
He made that remark on the House floor in 2021, while fighting a bill to keep boys out of girls' sports.
He once told a Texas House hearing there were six common biological sexes.
By September, he was on Fox News insisting there are two.
The pattern is the same every time.
Say something provocative, then walk it back once Texas voters are paying attention.
The Race Is Tied As Texans Head to the Polls
A Texas Politics Project poll of 861 likely voters taken September 25 through October 5 had Talarico at 50 percent and Paxton at 47 percent.
That gap sits inside the poll's margin of error.
The race is a coin flip.
Paxton's campaign has been hammering Talarico on faith since early September, and the town hall handed it fresh ammunition.
Texas Democrats have run this play before.
In 2018, national Democrats fell in love with Beto O'Rourke, poured money into his campaign and told everyone Texas was about to turn blue.
Cruz beat him by more than two points.
A Seminarian Who Needs Two Answers for One Book
Talarico sells himself as a seminarian who can speak to Texas churchgoers in their language.
Churchgoers in Texas do not need a translator.
They know the Bible their grandparents read to them is not propaganda, and they know the Good Samaritan is not indoctrination.
A Bible story in a reading class does not turn a six-year-old into a zealot.
It teaches that child the book Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King quoted in their greatest speeches.
Talarico wants Texans to remember the yes he gave on CNN.
Texans are going to remember the word he used first.
Sources:
- Catherine Salgado, "In Revealing Clip, Talarico Described Bible Stories for Kids as 'Insidious' 'Indoctrination,'" PJ Media, August 15, 2026.
- Alexander Hall, "Ted Cruz, Conservatives Respond After Talarico Criticizes Bible-Related Education in Schools as 'Propaganda,'" Fox News, August 15, 2026.
- Robert McGreevy, "Talarico Dismisses Past Comments About God and Gender as 'Provocative' While Invoking Charlie Kirk," Fox News, October 15, 2026.
- Steven Ardary, "Texas Senate Race Remains a Dead Heat as Early Voting Approaches," FOX 7 Austin, October 14, 2026.
