\n<\/p>\n
The good news: Bible reading is up across every demographic in America in 2025. The bad news: certain politicians and activists are using those hallowed words as partisan narrative building to launder radical ideology into the language of faith.<\/p>\n
They aren\u2019t coming to the Word. They\u2019re mining it.<\/p>\n
James Talarico is the most prominent current offender. The Democrat nominee for Texas Senate \u2014 think \u201cpick me\u201d Pastor Pete \u2014 has made a habit of weaponizing the Lord\u2019s Divine Writ to sanctify progressive politics. On Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast, he even used the Annunciation to justify abortion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI say all of this in the context of abortion. Before God comes over Mary and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary\u2019s consent \u2026 Go back and read this in Luke.\u201d<\/p>\n
Okay \u2014 I did.<\/p>\n
In Luke 1, the angel Gabriel appears to Mary and announces: \u201cYou will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus \u2026 The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.<\/i>\u201d Mary responds: \u201cHere I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
Mary\u2019s humble, faithful acceptance of a unique divine calling \u2014 the Incarnation of God Himself \u2014 is not a theological permission slip for abortion on demand. The exegetical gymnastics required to arrive at this conclusion are impressive, to say the least. But Talarico isn\u2019t doing theology. He\u2019s doing politics.<\/p>\n
And Talarico is not unique in his weaponization of scripture. Progressives have swarmed any comment section touching immigration, social policy, or religious liberty, and you\u2019ll find the same three or four Bible verses deployed like rhetorical grenades (they think they\u2019re so creative). \u201cWhat happened to love thy neighbor?\u201d \u201cJesus was an immigrant.\u201d \u201cThere isn\u2019t a single Christian who\u2019s actually read the whole Bible.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
The angry agnostics thought they had us there! Their words are meant to sting. They\u2019re also increasingly incorrect.<\/p>\n
I am on day 198 of the Bible in a Year<\/i> with Father Mike Schmitz. Every morning, I sit with passages and prophets most material heretics never touch \u2014 astonished at the sheer magnitude of wisdom and meaning within those pages. And I can tell you: what\u2019s being weaponized in op-eds and cable hits is a fraction of a fraction of what\u2019s actually there.<\/p>\n
Today, it was Isaiah that stopped me cold. Isaiah\u2019s taunt against the king of kings of Babylon \u2014 and by extension Lucifer himself \u2014 reads:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow the oppressor has ceased! How his insolence has ceased! The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of rulers, that struck down the peoples in wrath with unceasing blows, that ruled the nations in anger with unrelenting persecution \u2026 Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come \u2026 \u2018You too have become as weak as we! You have become like us!\u2019 Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the sound of your harps; maggots are the bed beneath you, and worms are your covering. How you have fallen from heaven!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
It is visceral, sweeping, and devastating. It is the story of what happens when a being given every gift and capability turns those gifts towards pride and domination; when free will is used for evil.<\/p>\n
There is a reason we don\u2019t hear that passage quoted by the activists cherry-picking Scripture for social media. It doesn\u2019t fit the narrative. It never does.<\/p>\n
What I\u2019ve found, page by page, is that the Bible is far stranger, far harder, and far more demanding than the domesticated version, either Nationalist or Progressive, being peddled by its political appropriators. It doesn\u2019t bend easily to any agenda \u2014 it\u2019s harsh. It can also drastically improve your life if you let it. But it resists those who approach it not as the living Word of God, but as a rhetorical arsenal.<\/p>\n
Reading it completely \u2014 and understanding it \u2014 is its own form of resistance. It\u2019s how you know when you\u2019re being lied to. It\u2019s how you develop the intellectual grounding to defend the faith, not just feel it. And in an era when leaders and loudmouths are increasingly mocking Christianity, that groundedness isn\u2019t optional; to me, it\u2019s essential.<\/p>\n
For myself, reading the Bible has been transformative. Father Mike doesn\u2019t just read the text \u2013 he explains the scripture, makes it digestible, and allows me to apply these teachings to my life in a way that has made each day lighter.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s changed how I think, how I argue, how I deal with shortcomings, and frankly, how I respond when someone online tells me I\u2019ve never opened a Bible.<\/p>\n
I have. I\u2019d recommend you do the same.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n