Undercover video obtained by Breitbart News shows Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico's pastor and mentor, Rev. Jim Rigby, saying he welcomes atheists to join his church.
The post Exclusive: Undercover Video Shows James Talarico’s Pastor Supporting Atheists, if You ‘Hate Religion We’re on the Same Team’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Undercover video obtained by Breitbart News shows Texas Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico’s pastor and mentor, Rev. Jim Rigby, saying he welcomes atheists to join his church and “if you love humanity and love nature and that’s why you hate religion then we’re on the same team.”
Talarico has attended St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin since he was toddler and Rigby has led the congregation since the 1980s, according to a New York Times profile. “He is my pastor in every sense of the word,” Talarico said of Rigby and added he, along with his grandfather, are “the biggest influences on me as a Christian, as a human being.”
Rigby also baptized Talarico and officiated the wedding of Talarico’s parents.
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The video obtained by Breitbart News shows Rigby as he prepares to speak at an event for the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). The organization says, “Western civilization shows us that most social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from religion.”
FFRF says it is the nation’s largest “freethought association” with nearly 42,000 freethinkers: atheists, agnostics and skeptics of any pedigree.
Rigby continues in the video, saying, “I’ve been on trial within the denomination for LGBT stuff, abortion and non-theist… We had an atheist join the church but that’s not a big deal here.”
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Rigby does not use male pronouns for God, saying it is a kind of “violence” to imply to a girl that her brother is more like God than she is. He also does not use the word “Lord,” because it conjures a wealthy, European, male God, the Times reported. He also said he does not much care for the word “God” but will use the word on occasion, preferring synonyms, because “it’s going to mean something different to everybody.”
Also featured in the undercover video is Rev. Babs Miller, who states, “I don’t have a need for a God” and that she thinks there is “something out there that holds all this together,” but “she doesn’t see it as a God.”
“We are not a worshipping church,” she adds.
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Miller’s official title at St. Andrews is Minister to the Parish and she recently said on video that Talarico is playing a political game and, “I can guarantee you that once he gets elected, he’ll change his tune back to where he was.”
Talarico has attempted to walk back some of his statements, saying he was being “provocative” when he said God was non-binary. “I was being provocative with that statement, I get that. What I was trying to say is that you can’t use human categories to define God,” he said in an interview.
Talarico faces Republican Ken Paxton in the closely watched U.S. Senate contest in November.
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