The man guiding Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico’s spiritual life told his congregation that Christ’s victory over death might just be a nice story someone made up a long time ago.
Rev. Jim Rigby, head of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, delivered an Easter message in 2023 that rejected the very foundation of Christianity. “Maybe Jesus rose from the dead, but maybe not,” Rigby said from the pulpit on the holiest day of the Christian calendar.
The recently unearthed sermon shows Talarico’s pastor and mentor openly questioning whether the resurrection actually happened, even floating the theory that someone simply stole Jesus’s body from the tomb.
“It’s possible the disciples stole it to keep the Romans from getting a hold of it. It’s possible the Romans took it because they’re afraid of a resurrection on the third day,” Rigby told his congregation. He then posed a question that would make any Bible-believing Christian’s blood run cold: “Do you want to live your life based on a maybe?”
Rigby went further, suggesting that the resurrection story might just be humanity’s attempt to make something “too big, too deep, too mysterious” into something “manageable.”
“Do you want to just bet your entire life on what somebody a long time ago told you because somebody told him that?” Rigby asked. “Or is it possible that the symbols are calling you to a deeper understanding of the human condition?”
For Christians, God sending His only Son to live a sinless life and sacrifice Himself to reconcile humanity back to the Father is the entire basis of the Gospel. It’s the hope that defines the faith. But Rigby dismissed it as something believers shouldn’t build their lives on.
Instead, the pastor urged congregants to “see the sacred in every being on the face of the planet,” including animals and plants. He claimed that “if we just love each other, wouldn’t that be good?” and suggested that “living fully” in the present moment is “close to heaven as you need to get.”
In a 2018 post, Rigby addressed critics by stating he affirms the resurrection only as “a positive affirmation of the life recess, not as a historical claim about what happened to Jesus’ physical body.”
The pastor also considers himself on the same team as atheists.
Talarico’s association with Rigby sheds light on the Democrat candidate’s own troubling theological positions. The Texas politician has openly denied that Jesus is the only way to truth, asserting people can reach salvation through pagan gods and other religions. This directly contradicts Christ’s own words in John 14:6, where He declared He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.
The Senate candidate has also embraced positions that clash with both Scripture and science, calling God “non-binary,” claiming there are six biological sexes, and supporting what critics call the genital mutilation of confused children.
For Texas voters of faith weighing their options, the question becomes simple: Can a candidate who sits under teaching that calls the resurrection a “maybe” be trusted to defend the values Christian families hold dear?
