The Donroe Doctrine And Representative James Talarico As A Theological Critique Of It

A Theological Assessment Of Political Policy: Politics Has A Place In The Church!

Introduction

My last blog post had the most views of any post that I have ever written. It was a “feel good” reflection of how Christmas has kept on giving for me this year; Christmas trees, poinsettias, and the majesty of Creation. It is the middle of winter. We all need to feel good!

This blog post will serve a different purpose. My objective is to help you think about the significant events that have taken place in our nation in the month of January. This post will not leave you feeling good, but it may give you a framework to think about some very sticky issues. I fully recognize that politics is divisive. It was the most challenging matter that I faced as a pastor. I cannot tell you how many times somebody said to me that politics should not be spoken about in the church. I have stripes across my back to prove it. I cannot disagree with those people (beloved members of my church) more vigorously. Politics do belong in the church! If we can’t speak about the polis (Latin: people or city) in the church, then where? If the gospel is not allowed to critique the world, then of what value is the gospel, other than cheap grace? In other words, “I’ll tap you on the fanny every Sunday. Tell you that Jesus loves you, and send you back home.” That is cheap grace. The biblical prophets, Jesus, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, Jr. were all political. It is a challenge to be a prophet (afflict the comfortable) and a priest (comfort the afflicted) when one is a congregational pastor who is called to love and shepherd the flock!

If you will stick with me in this post, perhaps I can offer you a healthy and faithful way of thinking about politics…the gospel…and the Church. This blog post will be the beginning of this matter of politics and the Church. My sermon this Sunday (the manuscript will be posted on my blog this Saturday) will culminate my thoughts.

I wonder if this blog post will have as many views as the last one? I doubt it, but I hope so. Prove me wrong! Stick with me on this one. You might be surprisingly pleased. If not surprised, then at least we’ll have something to converse about. At a minimum, I may give you something to think about because the events in our nation this month cannot pass without sober and serious thought by all of us. As always, I welcome your feedback.

An Anecdote

I want to begin this post with an anecdote so that we are clear on what I mean by politics in the Church. The criticism that I have received over the years leads me to conclude that Christians misunderstand a “political Church.” (During Nazi Germany, the theologian and Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, termed this “The Confessing Church,” those in the minority who did not support the Hitler regime but criticized it as contrary to the gospel.)

About midway through my pastorate in Cincinnati, I noticed that one of the members of the church whom I had been close with had not been attending worship. This was odd because he and his wife were Sunday morning regulars. He served on my call committee and was one of my biggest supporters on a divided committee over whether to call me as their pastor. After a few weeks of seeing his wife in church without him, I questioned her on the way out of church one Sunday morning. I asked her, “Where has Mike been? I haven’t seen him for a while.” She responded, “Oh, he is very unhappy with you and has decided to stop coming to church.” I immediately drove over to their house. He greeted me at the door and I asked, “Mike, Michelle told me that you are not happy with me. What is the matter?” He responded, “I am tired of you preaching anti-Republican sermons. I am not going to church anymore.” I was taken aback! I thought to myself, “What the #@$!%?” I snapped back at him, “Mike, I don’t preach Republican or Democratic sermons. I preach Christian sermons. If you think my sermons side with one party or another, you should think about how that partisan policy lines up with the gospel. If you want to criticize my sermons for not being the gospel, let’s talk, and tell me where I’m wrong. I’m not interested in the Republican or Democratic party. I’m interested in the Kingdom of God. Any policy by either party that lines up with the Kingdom is a policy that I will support. If that feels Republican or Democratic, that is on you.”

The Subject

Our Christian faith – morals, ethics, sense of righteousness, theological statements, teachings of Jesus, Words of the Scripture – are the foundation from which we critique our politics, not the other way around. It is from that perspective that the Church is called to engage in politics. I’ll say more about that below, and in my sermon this Sunday.

Earlier this month, after our nation’s invasion of Venezuela and extraction of President Nicolas Maduro, and the saber rattling over Greenland, I read a quote that grabbed my attention and raised every hair on the back of my neck. This quote became the genesis for this blog post:

Vice President JD Vance offered his answer (about the action in Venezuela) on Saturday: Any nation that crosses the United States and defies its wishes does so at its own peril. President Trump, he said, “was very clear throughout this process: The drug trafficking must stop, and the stolen oil must be returned to the United States.” Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, had a more epigrammatic take on Maduro: “He effed around and he found out.”

But two of my (New York Times writer, Sam Sifton) colleagues wrote recently about another takeaway that bears watching: the notion that a powerful nation has the right — or at least the ability — to command affairs in nearby, less powerful nations. It is the principle that stands behind the “Donroe Doctrine,” a Trumpian rebooting of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which staked U.S. claims over the Western Hemisphere. On Monday night, Stephen Miller, a top Trump policy adviser, gave the rawest expression of the idea in an interview with Jake Tapper of CNN. “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.”

I think that was the first time that I became acquainted with the term, the “Donroe Doctrine.” The philosophy and politics of JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, and Stephen Miller strike me as reptilian, barbarian, Darwinist, and a transactional profit motive with no soul. But that is merely my political assessment. More importantly, our nation’s action in Venezuela and the threat of action to confiscate Greenland strike me as unbiblical, in opposition to the Ten Commandments, specifically about worshipping other gods – oil and precious minerals, stealing, and coveting what is not ours. Further, these policies are contrary to The Sermon on the Mount – love of enemies, storing up treasures in heaven, serving mammon, and the opposite of The Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do to you).

Just when I thought that our nation was repenting of the Monroe Doctrine – manifest destiny, colonization, the doctrine of discovery, the sin of slavery, and Indigenous boarding schools – and the associated white guilt that comes with that history, we find ourselves with a new iteration of it! The Donroe Doctrine is wrong! It is antithetical to our faith! That is a political statement which is founded on and based in theology. That is a politics that belongs in the Church.

From the perspective of human decency, freedom, democracy and the notion that the Untied States is the “shining city on the hill,” the Donroe Doctrine presumes that might makes right and the Earth’s resources are treated as spoils of war. Our nation is effectively treating other sovereign nations as corporate subsidiaries. This Donroe Doctrine sends a chilling message to all of South America: your sovereignty ends where American corporate greed begins. By treating the territory of a loyal ally – Denmark - as a real estate deal, the White House has signaled that no border is sacred and no alliance is more important than the extraction of critical minerals.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, President of J Street, a Jewish advocacy organization wrote, “The future of our community – and, without exaggeration, the future of the democratic world Jews have helped build and depend upon – hinges on whether we speak out, act courageously, and consistently choose law over force, democracy over domination, and moral clarity over tribal comfort. For Jews, this moment poses an ancient question in modern form: will we live by the sword or by the rule of law?”

In January, we also witnessed the horror of Minneapolis. Call me clairvoyant because I have written about the subject of immigrants and immigration policy as much on this blog as any other matter over the past two-and-a half years. My worse fears have come to fruition in Minneapolis.

Every sensible American believes that immigrants with felonious convictions should be imprisoned or deported. The vast majority of sensible Americans believe that our borders should be controlled and not chaotic. Most of us agree that public protest should exhibit peaceful nonviolence. What we are witnessing in Minneapolis is not a coordinated and surgical effort to detain dangerous people. It is an assault on an American city that is a welcoming home which provides support and community for immigrants. The immigrant community enriches and benefits Minneaopolis. I say that with some amount of pride because the state of Minnesota is what I lovingly refer to as “Lutheran heaven”!

I critique our immigration policy through the lens of theology and Scripture. The Bible – beginning to end – admonishes adherents to welcome the stranger, sojourner, alien, or foreigner among us. The Bible calls us to be kind and merciful as God is merciful. The Bible blesses “the least of these among us,” as does Jesus in Matthew 25.

Our president has said that January 6, 2001 was a “lovefest.” Meanwhile, members of his administration have claimed that Renee Good and and Alex Pretti were “domestic terrorists.” I have spent the last few weeks contemplating the meaning and application of Isaiah 5:20, “Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkenss, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” I have written about these things often and there is no need to reiterate them other than to say that our immigration policy is not consistent with our theology. Our theology shapes our politics, not the other way around.

For decades, I have struggled to understand the intersection of the Church and politics; the application of justice in the world. I have done my best to explain my beliefs that conclude with politics having a place in the Church. I have often failed in that effort.

Just this month, I became aware of Texas state representative James Talarico. He is running for the US Senate this November. He is a Democrat. That should not matter in this conversation. More importantly, he is a Presbyterian seminarian. James Talarico articulates the intersection of faith and politics better than any politician I have heard.

Many Republican politicians speak from a faith perspective. The problem, for me, is that they speak an evangelical theology. In most cases, I totally disagree with their theology. (One recent example: JD Vance said we should care more for our family than for other people. That is not biblical! It is not what Jesus taught!) Democrats rarely speak from a faith perspective. James Talarico is a refreshing exception. He brilliantly and unapologetically articulates a Mainline Christian faith. He is 36 years old. I am 70 years old. He is a seminarian. I have been a pastor for thirty years. I am embarrassed to say that he articulates the intersection of faith and politics far more eloqently than I do!

A couple weeks ago, I read one of his quotes that was an absolute epiphany, “lightbulb turning on moment for me.” I’m paraphrasing. He said that we must stop doing our politics from left and right and start doing them from top and bottom. I will roll this thought out in detail in my sermon this Sunday. Essentially, as I understand him, we must stop coming at political positions from Democrat v. Republican, liberal v. conservative, progressive v. regressive. Rather, we should come at politics from top (wealth, power, privilege) and bottom (poor, oppressed, marginalized, powerless). The gospel afflicts the comfortable at the top and comforts the afflicted at the bottom. When we advocate for the bottom, we are faithful to Scripture. It is there that Republicans and Democrats can try to meet and work together. That politic/theology convicts the Donroe Doctrine!

James Talarico’s policy on immigration is consistent with what I have written for years, but he expresses it far more eloquently in an interview with Ezra Klein:

You (Ezra Klein) said this (immigration) was a hard issue. Here’s my other hot take: I actually don’t think this is that hard, because I think most Texans are in the same place here. They are pro-immigrant, and they are pro-public safety — both righteous moral positions to hold, and both consistent with our traditions.

So here’s the simple analogy that I’ve used: I think our southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front and a lock on the door, because I’m hospitable. Texas is the friendly state. If you look up our state motto, it’s “Friendship.” The word “Texas” comes from a Native American word for “friend.”

In a version of that analogy, Thomas Friedman said, “the right border policy is a high wall with a big gate.” Either analogy works for me. Welcome immigrants in a big way. Do it in an orderly fashion.

I commend James Talarico to you; not that you can vote for him or that I would even attempt to sway your vote, but because he speaks faith to politics for Mainline Christians. You can Google him and find some interviews and videos. I commend to you a 90-minute interview with Ezra Klein but I know that is asking a lot from you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-james-talarico.html?campaign_id=336&emc=edit_blv_20260118&instance_id=169498&nl=believing&regi_id=205205091&segment_id=213882&user_id=72b9a70f75db646373b59b0cdc33a55f

Alternatively, I would like to offer you some of James Talarico’s quotations (his theology). I trust that you will find comfort in his words and support his thoughts. His campaign platform is, “It is time to start flipping tables.” (Based on the story of Jesus and the moneychangers in the Temple.)

A sample of James Talarico’s quotations on theology and politics:

*And so those two Commandments (love God and love neighbor) have really guided my life at its best moments, and it’s why I’m in public service. I was a public-school teacher, and now I’m a public official. That’s “loving my neighbor.” And it’s why I’m a seminary student studying to become a minister one day — that’s the “loving God” part. And both of them sustain each other, challenge each other, reinforce each other on a daily basis.

*When religion gets too cozy with power, we lose our prophetic voice, our ability to see beyond the current systems, the current era.

*I’ve fought the bill to require the Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom. And I’ve often wondered, instead of posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom, why don’t they post “Money is the root of all evil” in every boardroom? Why don’t they post “Do not judge” in every courtroom? Why don’t they post “Turn the other cheek” in the halls of the Pentagon? Or “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven” on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange?

*You read “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine, you read Lincoln’s speeches, you listen to Fannie Lou Hamer, you read Martin Luther King Jr. — I mean, they infused their politics with a moral foundation, oftentimes explicitly rooted in faith. That changes the game, because your politics should grow out of that morality. There’s a sequence here. And I feel like what we’re suffering from now is that people start with their politics and then try to figure out the morality on top of that. When should it be reversed? Who are we as human beings? Where do we come from? Why are we here? How should we live? The politics should grow out of that. I mean, that’s why I’m in politics.

I really do feel like this is a way that I can love my neighbor at scale: through good public policy, reducing the cost of prescription drugs, reducing the cost of child care, the cost of housing. All the things I’ve worked on in the legislature, it was to love my neighbor, make their lives easier and better, help them become who they’re supposed to be to give the gift that they’re supposed to give.

*If we can infuse our politics with more of this spirituality, I think we could treat politics like a sacrament. We could have an incarnational politics because, like I said - if you take it seriously - and again, you don’t have to be a Christian, you don’t even have to be part of an organized religion. I do think that everyone is religious.

Friends, let’s flip the tables! Not from left and right because that only makes us enemies of each other. But from top and bottom because that makes us the Beloved Community envisioned by Jesus and the prophets, the Kingdom of God.