Undercover footage has exposed the teachings of a lesbian minister from Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate—and aspiring pastor—James Talarico’s home church. The minister, who reportedly uses “they/them” pronouns, claimed Christ “didn’t die to save our sins,” condemned God as “a vengeful, killing-people kind of God,” and questioned whether Jesus ever existed.
The footage was caught on camera and reported by an undercover journalist for The Daily Wire.
The Rev. Babs Miller, a minister to the parish at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, who reportedly identifies as nonbinary, told the journalist, who was pretending to be a prospective new member, that the Gospel “doesn’t make sense.”
“Jesus was political,” she said. “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. And so they killed Him. He didn’t die to save our sins.
“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.”
She also said the virgin birth stems from “pagan beliefs,” rather than a Biblical reality, and Jesus Christ’s existence has no meaning to her.
“Mary and the Virgin Birth comes out of the pagan belief that the gods came down and impregnated people,” Miller said. “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.”
Miller also condemned God as He has revealed Himself in the Old Testament.
“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.”
Miller, in another video published last week, said St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church is “not a worshipping church” and that she doesn’t “have a need for a God.”
Talarico has attended St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church since childhood. The church’s lead pastor is the Rev. Jim Rigby, whom he considers his spiritual mentor.
A slew of videos has uncovered Rigby as an individual who also denies core Biblical teachings. In the same video that Miller claimed she has no need for God, Rigby bragged that he was a speaker for a Freedom from Religion Foundation event. The nonprofit is an atheist organization that centers on stripping religious expression from public spaces.
Rigby said in the video that “if you love humanity and you love nature, and that’s why you hate religion, then we’re on the same team.” Talarico made a similar comment in 2021 when he called himself “a Christian who hates Christianity.”
Various sermons and posts from Rigby have gone viral on social media recently, sparking discourse.
In one sermon, he questioned whether Jesus’ resurrection happened. Rigby also said he didn’t believe in “an actual devil” and claimed “that sin exists in the abstract” in a Tuesday post. In another post, he denied the need for atonement.
The church, which is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), in 2023 invited a Zen Buddhist priest to preach at an Easter service. During the sermon, he read a section from Thich Nhat Tan’s “Living Buddha, Living Christ.”
Talarico, in a viral video, called Islam and Christianity “equal pathways to truth” and has also credited Islam’s influence on his religious beliefs.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in response to Miller’s recent comments, was among those who shared concerns over her teachings.
“I try never to judge another’s faith—that’s for God to do—but if James Talarico’s pastor says she doesn’t believe that Jesus existed or that Jesus died for our sins, then that ‘pastor’ is not a Christian. She’s just a left-wing activist,” Cruz said.
Jeff Mullen, a longtime evangelical pastor, posted an open letter to Talarico earlier this year. In it, he responded to Talarico’s claim that God is nonbinary and urged Talarico not to “reshape” God according to any cultural preferences.
“God is spirit and transcends human limitations,” Mullen wrote. “Christians agree on that. The question, however, is not how modern culture categorizes God but how God has chosen to reveal Himself. Throughout Scripture, God consistently reveals Himself as Father. Jesus taught His disciples to pray, ‘Our Father in heaven’ (Matthew 6:9). Christ is the Son, and the Church is His Bride. These are not accidental descriptions but part of God’s self-revelation.
“Every generation faces the temptation to reshape God according to its own values. Ancient cultures carved idols from stone. Modern cultures often carve them from ideology. Faithful Christianity begins by allowing God to define Himself rather than redefining Him according to cultural preferences. We do not improve upon divine revelation; we submit to it.”
