Something strange happens whenever a certain kind of white Christian politician speaks about justice in public.
Suddenly commentators act like they’ve discovered a brand-new species: the Christian who actually sounds like Jesus.
David French wrote that James Talarico is “one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian.”
You can really only write a sentence like that if you have one kind of Christian in mind.
Because if the Black church is in your imagination, that sentence simply doesn’t make sense.
The White Christian Imagination
This episode is not about criticizing James Talarico.
It’s not about accusing David French of racism, and it’s not about questioning anyone’s faith.
This episode is about the white Christian imagination and its blind spots.
It’s about the assumptions many white Christians carry—often unwittingly—about what Christianity looks like in public life.
And it’s about what those assumptions reveal when entire traditions of Christian faith and political engagement never even enter the conversation.
The False Choice
There is a deep irony in this moment.
Many white Christians feel trapped between what seem like only two options: on the one hand, Christian nationalism, and on the other, a form of secular politics that appears disconnected from faith altogether.
Faced with that choice, some conclude that political engagement inevitably means compromising either their theology or their conscience. But that dilemma overlooks a third tradition that has been present in American life all along.
The Black Christian resistance tradition has long shown another way. It is a tradition forged in the struggle against slavery, segregation, and racial terror.
Because of that history, it has developed the spiritual and practical tools to resist authoritarian power, organize communities for democracy, and ground the pursuit of justice squarely in Christian faith.
Must the Messenger Be White?
The problem isn’t that people are finally hearing a Christian politician talk about justice. The problem is that many of them had to hear it from a white man before they recognized it as Christianity.
For generations, the Black church has preached a faith that confronts injustice, resists tyranny, and mobilizes communities for freedom.
In a moment when authoritarianism is rising and democracy is being dismantled, the Black Christian political tradition does more than offer historical insight—it offers the spiritual and political resources we need right now.
The Black church has been speaking the language of justice and liberation for centuries.
Maybe it’s time the rest of American Christianity finally learned how to listen.
