A lesbian minister at James Talarico’s longtime church doubts Jesus ever existed, rejects the virgin birth, and believes Christ “didn’t die to save our sins,” according to undercover footage obtained by The Daily Wire.
Rev. Babs Miller, minister to the parish at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, flatly rejected core tenets of the Christian faith, even as fellow congregant James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee, routinely invokes his fringe view of the Gospel to appeal to voters in the Bible Belt’s largest state.
Speaking to an undercover journalist, Miller was caught saying she believes the virgin birth was made up while describing her approach to religion as similar to a 12-step program: “Take what you want and leave the rest.”
“Mary and the Virgin Birth comes out of the pagan belief that the gods came down and impregnated people,” Miller told the undercover journalist. “We have no way of knowing if Jesus really existed any more than we have of knowing that the original Buddha ever existed. And whether or not Jesus existed doesn’t really matter to me.”
But among mainstream historians, there is near-universal agreement that Jesus of Nazareth existed and was a historical figure, regardless of whether those scholars are Christian, Jewish, agnostic, atheist, or otherwise. Within decades of His lifetime, Jewish and Roman historians mentioned Jesus, providing independent evidence for aspects of the New Testament’s account of His life and crucifixion, according to history.com.
“It could have all been made up, for all I know,” Miller said in the footage. “The God in the Old Testament is not a loving God; it’s a vengeful, killing-people kind of God. This is a lot of mythology.”
Historians almost universally agree that Jesus was a real person who walked the earth around 2,000 years ago. Eric Meyers, an archaeologist and emeritus professor of Judaic studies at Duke University, said: “I don’t know any mainstream scholar who doubts the historicity of Jesus.”
“The details have been debated for centuries, but no one who is serious doubts that he’s a historical figure,” Meyers told National Geographic.
Miller’s church bio says she has been part of the St. Andrew’s community since the mid-1990s and was ordained there in 2014 as an “out” lesbian chaplain. She retired shortly before the COVID pandemic but returned in 2022.
Biblical teachings, archaeological evidence, and scholarly accounts aren’t enough for the leftist minister, who cloaks herself in the faith while also dismissing the central New Testament teaching that Jesus died on the cross to save humanity from sin, telling the undercover journalist: “He didn’t die to save our sins.”
“Jesus was political. Jesus was put on that cross not to save us. Jesus was put on that cross because Rome hated him and they thought he was a threat to their domination of that area. So they killed him. He didn’t die to save our sins,” she argued, framing Jesus as a social justice martyr rather than the biblical teaching of Him being the “Savior of the world.”
“That makes a whole lot more sense to me than to say that some God would kill his son for us. That doesn’t make sense. How does that make up for all the things I can do? No, it doesn’t.”
Talarico has been part of the Austin religious community since he was a toddler. The congregation’s longtime pastor, Rev. Jim Rigby, baptized Talarico, who has called Rigby “one of the biggest influences on me as a Christian, as a human being.” In a Christmas Day Facebook post from 2015, Rigby suggested that Jesus’ resurrection could actually be understood as “a poem about the whole life process.”
“Apparently, because I don’t believe in a literal resurrection, I’m not really Christian. This unfortunately also means I won’t be going to heaven with many of you,” he said.
St. Andrew’s is part of the Presbyterian Church (USA), a denomination known for its liberal positions on gender and sexuality. There, the Texas Democrat has delivered controversial sermons, declaring that “God is not a Christian” and that “our trans community needs abortion care too.”
Miller’s comments come as scrutiny grows over the theological views of Talarico’s home church and their potential impact on his campaign in a state where evangelicals, who polls show are most opposed to Talarico, make up the largest religious group. Last week, The Daily Wire revealed Miller saying Talarico’s shift toward the political center was merely for show, predicting the Democrat — who is racing to moderate his positions on transgender issues and walk back his declaration that “God is non-binary” — would return to his previous rhetoric once elected.
“He’s getting some advice that I don’t think he should be following,” Miller said in the viral clip. “I can guarantee you that once he gets elected, he’ll change his tune back to where he was.”
The Daily Wire reached out to Talarico’s campaign and St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
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