Rev. Jim Rigby, the man James Talarico calls "my pastor in every sense of the word," was preparing to address the Freedom From Religion Foundation — an organization of nearly 42,000 self-described "freethinkers" — when the undercover camera caught him explaining his church's open-door policy for atheists. "If you love humanity and love nature and that's why you hate religion," Rigby said, "then we're on the same team."
Talarico is running for the U.S. Senate in Texas. Against Ken Paxton. As a Christian.
Rigby has led St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin since the 1980s. He baptized Talarico. He officiated Talarico's parents' wedding. The candidate has attended the church since he was a toddler. So when Rigby tells an undercover journalist that he's "been on trial within the denomination for LGBT stuff, abortion and non-theist," and that "we had an atheist join the church but that's not a big deal here," this isn't some fringe association. This is the man who shaped Talarico's faith — or whatever version of it survives at St. Andrews.
Rev. Babs Miller, the church's Minister to the Parish, went further. "I don't have a need for a God," Miller said. She described believing in "something out there that holds all this together" but specified that St. Andrews is "not a worshipping church." A minister. At a Presbyterian church. Who doesn't need God and doesn't worship.
Rigby himself objects to the term "Lord" — too much imagery of a wealthy European male, apparently — and dislikes even the word "God," preferring synonyms. He avoids male pronouns for the deity whose existence his own minister says she doesn't require.
Talarico has tried this dance before. He once publicly declared that God is non-binary. When the blowback arrived, he retreated: "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." Provocative is one word for it. Calculated is another.
Miller, for her part, seemed less interested in spin. Asked about Talarico's campaign positioning, she offered the most useful quote in the entire video: "I can guarantee you that once he gets elected, he'll change his tune back to where he was."
That's not an opponent saying it. That's not a Republican attack ad. That's his own church's minister, on camera, confirming that the moderate Christian routine is a costume he puts on for Texas voters and takes off after Election Day.
Talarico's campaign will frame this as an attack on his faith. But the video doesn't show political opponents mocking his beliefs. It shows his own spiritual leaders describing what those beliefs actually are — atheist-welcoming, worship-rejecting, denomination-defying — in their own words, in their own voices, without any apparent concern that a camera might be rolling.
A church whose minister doesn't need God, whose pastor has been tried by the denomination over abortion and LGBT advocacy, and whose most prominent congregant told the public God is non-binary. Miller guaranteed he'd "change his tune" after the election.
She said it like someone who'd watched it happen before.