Jesus of the Gospels
c. 4 BCE–c. 30 CE

Five Gospel passages anchor the test: Matthew 25:31-46 (care for the hungry, sick, and stranger), Matthew 6:1-18 (refusal of piety practiced for public display), Luke 12:13-21 (warning against wealth-hoarding), Luke 1:39-45 (the traditional reading on the moral status of unborn life), and Mark 12:13-17 (a clean line between church and state). Cornyn outscores Paxton on personal conduct, has consistently voted against the most aggressive anti-immigrant family-separation policies, and his Respect for Marriage Act vote can be read as the kind of measured pluralism Jesus modeled with the Samaritan woman and the centurion. But his ACA repeal votes in the state with the highest uninsured rate, his opposition to the enhanced premium tax credits, and his block-grant Medicaid framework cut directly against the Matthew 25:36 standard, 'I was sick and you took care of me.' Talarico is a Presbyterian seminarian whose platform tracks Matthew 25 almost directly — healthcare for the sick, refuge for the stranger, defense of the poor against the wealthy — and his anti-Ten-Commandments-mandate posture lines up with both Matthew 6 and Mark 12. He drops two points on Luke 1: Jesus was unambiguously protective of unborn life by most traditional Christian readings, and Talarico's full abortion/IVF stance is to the left of most Christian traditions.