![\"Rev.](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/AP26253145767145_b2bed3.jpg?fit=6240%2C4160\")
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Alain-Headshot-e1757613075733.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAlain Stephens is an investigative reporter covering gun violence, arms trafficking, and federal law enforcement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWhy do you wanna<\/span> have a pep rally when people are hurting?\u201d<\/p>\n That was the question Rev. Frederick Douglass Haynes III posed at a September food drive<\/a> in South Dallas, where volunteers were collecting groceries for struggling families. Across town, Republicans were holding a midterm convention. Haynes, a longtime Baptist pastor and Democratic congressional nominee, was introducing James Talarico, the party\u2019s candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas.<\/p>\n A month later, speaking<\/a> at a Dallas megachurch, Talarico offered his own interpretation of Christian duty.<\/p>\n \u201cI try to love my neighbor through public policy,\u201d the Presbyterian seminarian told the congregation. \u201cI\u2019m trying to make my neighbor\u2019s life easier, better, less stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n Both men are making a deceptively simple argument in some of the staunchly staunch red-as-hell, Republican territory in America, one that might transcend the conventional wisdom about national campaigns<\/a> and the millions poured into competing campaign war chests: When far-right policy translates into actual pain, at what point does intervening become a spiritual obligation?<\/p>\n Amid the big-ticket ad buys, fundraising appeals, and armies of political consultants, Talarico and Haynes are tapping into a political tradition that has long sustained communities across the South: showing up.<\/em><\/p>\n At Haynes\u2019s Friendship-West Baptist Church<\/a>, the ministry extends to legal services, immigration advocacy, counseling, economic justice, and food policy. It is an example of how churches often form the connective tissue of communities suffering under economic and political strain.<\/p>\n When far-right policy translates into actual pain, at what point does intervening become a spiritual obligation?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n That strain is measurable. Texas is home to four of the nation\u2019s 10 most financially distressed major cities, including Houston, which ranks second nationwide, according to a 2026 analysis<\/a>. Feeding America estimates<\/a> that nearly 1 in 5 Texans experienced food insecurity in 2024. Meanwhile, federal analysts project<\/a> that changes to Medicaid eligibility enacted last year will increase the number of uninsured Americans by 7.5 million by 2034.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Democratic Party leaders publicly debate how to punish Donald Trump politically, allege corruption, or navigate the ideological divide between moderates and democratic socialists<\/a>, a different argument is emerging from Southern pulpits.<\/p>\n From Quaker abolitionists<\/a> to the Social Gospel\u2019s challenge to industrial exploitation<\/a>, progressive religious institutions have helped drive some of America\u2019s most consequential political transformations. Christian farmworker ministries<\/a> supported migrant laborers before joining the United Farm Workers\u2019 California grape boycotts in the 1960s. And while Black churches overwhelmingly led, sustained, and suffered the brunt of violence in the fight for equal civil rights in this country, a handful <\/a>of white<\/a> denominations joined<\/a> them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of course, churches also<\/em> defended slavery, segregation, and exploitation. The blunt reality is that throughout American history, Christianity has always been political and has been used to justify a wide variety of competing political ends.<\/p>\n But Republicans have deftly exploited the perception that they alone speak for American Christians. The Trump administration has readily embraced religious iconography, from evangelical leaders praying over<\/a> the president in the Oval Office to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s frequent invocations<\/a> of the medieval Crusades<\/a>.<\/p>\n There is no way around the fact that Republicans have built a formidable religious coalition, particularly among white evangelicals. Last year, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI, found<\/a> a majority of Republicans qualified as either Christian nationalist<\/a> adherents or sympathizers in 2025, compared with 17 percent of Democrats.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But Republicans don\u2019t have a monopoly on Christian voters. Pew Research Center polling<\/a> this month found 73 percent of white evangelical Protestant registered voters preferred Republican House candidates, while 74 percent of Black Protestants and 59 percent of Hispanic Catholics preferred Democrats. None of that is particularly surprising on the surface.<\/p>\n Nor is this some newly discovered religious awakening. According to PRRI\u2019s Census of American Religion, which was published in April,<\/a> 57 percent of Democrats identified as Christian in 2025, a significant drop from 70 percent in 2013. The white Christian left isn\u2019t necessarily growing, but it\u2019s far from insignificant. Much of it has simply been politically overlooked.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a perception the GOP has routinely capitalized on, often spending a great deal of their election campaigns attacking opponents on religious ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Sunday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott cravenly tarred his Democratic gubernatorial challenger<\/a>, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, as supporting \u201cSharia law<\/a>,\u201d citing an endorsement from a Muslim advocacy group\u2019s political affiliate.<\/p>\n Perhaps ironically, Hinojosa is, and has been on the record, a Catholic<\/a> \u2014 same as Abbott<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cMy faith is my moral compass,\u201d Hinojosa told<\/a> the National Catholic Register in September. \u201cIt grounds me in purpose and gives me the courage to do what is right regardless of obstacles or consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n For those who have spent years watching their faith become synonymous with a politics they don\u2019t recognize, frustration may finally be giving way to something else: a determination to be heard.<\/p>\n There are signs that this long-overlooked religious tradition is finding a more public voice. An August study<\/a> by PRRI documented progressive Christians organizing against Christian nationalism in eight states, including Texas and Louisiana, channeling local meetings, religious discussions, and community networks into political action. Elsewhere, hundreds of members of the clergy have joined protests against immigration enforcement<\/a>, and some have been trained in direct action and civil resistance<\/a>. While the movement may not be growing in numbers, its willingness to challenge political power is increasingly visible.<\/p>\n As retired Texas Rev. Kathleene Card, who has thrown her support behind Talarico, told <\/a>the Houston Chronicle, \u201cfaith should influence how people respond to poverty, human rights, the environment, and the well-being of their community.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether any of this will translate into winning on Tuesday is still an open question. An October Fox News poll<\/a> put Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton at 49 percent apiece among likely voters, but newer polls show<\/a> Talarico with a small lead. Abbott led Hinojosa by 5 percentage points in that Fox poll, and most polls in the race<\/a> show the governor with a slim lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n No matter the result, the Texas campaigns offer a different, more nuanced way of understanding political persuasion. They also challenge a long-standing assumption among national Democrats: that their voters are a monolith, moved by the same issues, values, and appeals.\u00a0<\/p>\n Across rural America and the South, voters may be growing weary of manufactured arguments<\/a> and hypothetical doomsday prophecies<\/a>, with research<\/a> showing that political advertising, as it stands, has little effect on changing minds at all.<\/p>\n\n
The Underground Church<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Faith Without Works Is a Dead End<\/h2>\n