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). Paxton's record runs against four of the five: refusing Medicaid expansion in the state with the highest uninsured rate (Matt 25:36), leading DACA litigation against the stranger (Matt 25:35), mandating Ten Commandments posters while facing securities-fraud and adultery allegations (Matt 6:5-6), and investigating Catholic migrant shelter Annunciation House (Matt 25 and Mark 12 at once). He earns two points on the Luke 1 vector and for his personal profession of faith. 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.
Sources
- Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate, official campaign issues page, accessed May 2026. (full list)
- Talarico for Texas, official campaign issues pages (taxes, education, healthcare, immigration, social media/AI, freedom-family-faith, public-safety-justice, corruption-democracy, labor-business), accessed May 2026. (full list)
- Patrick Svitek, 'Ken Paxton emerges victorious from yet another career scandal,' Texas Tribune, Sept. 17, 2023. (full list)
- Gospel of Matthew 25:31-46 (NRSV-UE), the Judgment of the Nations: 'I was hungry and you gave me food, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me' — the most cited Jesus passage on social ethics. (full list)
- Gospel of Matthew 6:1-18 (NRSV-UE), the Sermon on the Mount: 'Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them' — Jesus's direct warning against religious display for public effect. (full list)
- Gospel of Luke 12:13-21 (NRSV-UE), the Parable of the Rich Fool: 'one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions' — Jesus's sharpest teaching against wealth-hoarding. (full list)
- Gospel of Luke 1:39-45 (NRSV-UE), the Visitation: 'the child in my womb leaped for joy' — the traditional Christian proof text for the moral status of unborn life. (full list)
- Gospel of Mark 12:13-17 (NRSV-UE), the Tribute to Caesar: 'Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's' — the foundational Gospel text for church-state distinction. (full list)