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“The Office” star Rainn Wilson insisted Thursday that Texas’ Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico was “achingly close” to Jesus’ “brand of Christianity” compared to his conservative opponents.
On his “Soul Boom” podcast, Wilson and New York Times journalist Ezra Klein called out what they believed was hypocrisy from Texas GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton and his supporters repeatedly attacking Talarico despite their “aggressively professed Christianity.”
“Whenever I watch these attacks, I think, ‘You all would have hated Jesus Christ,’” Klein said. “You would have found him to be the most annoying, weepy, worrying about the wrong people — the outsiders, the outcasts…”
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Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico has been criticized for pushing progressive politics under a Christian banner. (Danielle Villasana/Getty Images)
“‘Grow a pair, Jesus,'” Wilson joked.
Klein, who is Jewish, and Wilson, who subscribes to the Bahá’í Faith, added that they were not against Christians as a whole, with Wilson describing many of them as the most “caring” and “compassionate” people he’s met.
“Well, that’s why I frame this around Talarico, because Talarico is Christian. That’s the point, that it is his Christianity they hate,” Klein said.
“His brand of Christianity, which is so, so achingly close to Jesus’ brand of Christianity,” Wilson responded.
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“That’s the point I’m at,” Klein said.
Klein and Wilson also criticized “contemporary Christianity” for not focusing enough on “greed” in society while fixating on sexuality.
“The Office” star Rainn Wilson defended James Talarico’s faith as “achingly close” to Jesus. (Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It is harder for a rich man to get — harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. And then you’re cutting taxes on the rich and obsessed with who’s f—ing whom,” Klein said.
“Yeah. Jesus didn’t talk about who’s f—ing whom. He really didn’t. The hypocrisy of contemporary Christianity is astonishing,” Wilson said.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Talarico’s campaign and Paxton’s campaign for comment.
Talarico has frequently touted his religious background. He has been attacked for pushing progressive views that many see as being at odds with Christianity, such as support for abortion and transgender ideology.
Earlier this month, a 2025 clip of Talarico resurfaced in which he attacked a Texas bill that required schools to teach Bible stories as historical fact. He argued that this amounted to pushing “propaganda” on children and was not just bad for state schools, but for society overall.
Frank Turek pushed back on the idea that James Talarico’s faith was close to Jesus Christ. (Getty Images)
“It was a new state curriculum that would teach Christian Bible stories as historical fact, as the only truth to our youngest students, and, I mean, kindergarten, first-graders,” he said.
“These are kids who aren’t able to think for themselves yet. They haven’t formed their own worldviews,” Talarico continued.
He further warned that the alleged effort to “push propaganda, to push indoctrination on those youngest students is deeply immoral and should trouble all of us.”
In a comment to Fox News Digital, Christian author Frank Turek pushed back on the claim, calling it a “war” on the reality of Jesus.
“Calling James Talarico’s brand of Christianity ‘achingly close’ to Jesus’s reveals a social-justice lens so thick that people no longer care to interpret Jesus on his own terms, but would rather reimagine him on theirs,” Turek said. “Talarico defends the murder of the unborn, the sexualization of children at drag queen story hour events, and has described teaching Bible stories in public schools as immoral. To describe such a person’s position as being ‘achingly close’ to Jesus is a war on the reality of who Jesus is, what He taught, and what it means to follow Him.”
Fox News’ Alexander Hall contributed to this report.
