Meet The 5 Woke Clergy Members Running To Bring Far-Left Politics To Congress

Four white clergy members and one white seminarian are running for Congress as Democrats, part of a growing trend of white politicians seeking to court Christian voters while embracing left-wing ideas.

Unlike Democrats of the past, these five candidates represent a party that has shifted drastically, embracing policies ranging from same-sex marriage and unfettered abortion access to feminism and forced diversity.

Sarah Trone Garriott, James Talarico, Robb Ryerse, Anna Golladay, and Lindsay James are attempting to blend the language of “faith, freedom, and family” Christians with the increasingly progressive policies of the modern left.

White clergy members running for Congress as Democrats are a rarity. Since the 1970s, only three have been elected to the federal legislature, while numerous Republican clergy members have served in Congress. Currently, two Democrat members of Congress are clergy: Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and Missouri Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, both of whom are Black. (RELATED: Trump-Backed Challenger Wins State Senate Race Three Months After Election Day)

IA-03 Democrat Candidate Sarah Trone Garriott - a Christian minister - complains that Iowan Representatives are "mostly Christian." pic.twitter.com/c1RvSZpkBv

Rev. Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran minister and current Iowa state senator challenging Republican Rep. Zach Nunn, said that the “Faith perspective” in politics does not reflect her values and the scriptures as she understands them, according to Religion News Service.

During an Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church, Garriott criticized “white patriarchy” and championed the LGBT movement as “very threatening to the idea of the white, male, powerful figure because it muddies the waters and makes things ambiguous and confusing.”

Garriott has also referred to abortion as a “right,” calling those who support a six-week limit on abortions a “small group of extreme, anti-choice Republican politicians.”

The Daily Caller has also reported that Garriott has admitted that her personality shifts between being a senator and being a reverend, adding that it “gets kind of mushy and kind of confusing” and often depends on “who’s paying me.”

James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas who is currently attending a Presbyterian seminary, has spent the last few years criticizing what he calls the “Christofascism” of the Lone Star State, including efforts to place the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

Talarico has also described himself as a “Christian who hates Christianity,” arguing that the political right weaponizes Christianity to advance its political goals. “I have met so many Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics who are more Christ-like than some of the Christians I serve with,” Talarico has said.

The seminarian has also claimed that God is non-binary and has used the story of Mary’s virgin birth of Jesus to argue for abortion.

I'm a proud dad today, this week, this month, and always. #Pride pic.twitter.com/Tm9QQ9eeiL

Robb Ryerse, the Democratic nominee for a House seat in Arkansas, spent more than 10 years as a pastor before founding a “church that welcomes LGBT and folks from all backgrounds, creeds and colors” in the state. (RELATED: Study Blows Hole In Claim Bullying Drives LGBT Mental Health Problems)

Ryerse is also listed as the political organizer for Vote Common Good, which aims to give evangelical and Catholic voters an alternative to voting for the Republican Party’s “white nationalism” and America First policies that it says push “division, racism, selfishness, cruelty, and exclusion.”

The Atlantic reported in 2019 that Ryerse had previously run as a Republican in the state while supporting gay rights, Medicare for all, tax reform, and green energy.

Ryerse also used both his title as pastor and his position as a Republican candidate to write an op-ed intended to sway fellow evangelicals not to vote for Trump in 2020.

“I joke sometimes that the two people who have changed my life more than any others are Jesus and Donald Trump, for very different reasons,” Ryerse said, according to the Guardian. “Donald Trump is absolutely inconsistent with Christian principles of love and compassion, justice, looking out for the poor, meeting the needs of the marginalized.”

Anna Golladay, the Democratic nominee for a House seat in Tennessee, was serving as an associate pastor at a United Methodist church in the state before being dismissed in 2019 after officiating a same-sex wedding.

Although her license had been withdrawn, Golladay continued to look for opportunities to preach at churches about her work in “communities, economic justice, queer solidarity and progressive faith sectors.”

The former pastor’s campaign positions include policies such as full reproductive justice, gender-affirming health care, and the right to live authentically without fear. Other policies include the decriminalization of illegal immigration, health care as a human right, and “environmental justice.”

Iowa state representative and ordained Presbyterian pastor Lindsay James will face Republican candidate Joe Mitchell, who previously served as a representative for Iowa in the House but is not the incumbent.

Iowa State Representative and ordained Presbyterian pastor Lindsay James is running against Republican Joe Mitchell, a former Iowa State Representative, for the open 2nd Congressional District seat. The seat was vacated by Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is running for U.S. Senate in the Hawkeye State.

In a now-archived 2020 version of her campaign site, James wrote a “confession” in which she admits that she is a “white, cis-gender, able-bodied, middle class, college educated woman” who has benefited from her privilege and committed to “use my privilege to advocate for others.”

“We are living in a time when the destructive forces of racism, oppression, and injustice are regularly ignored, glossed over or flatly denied,” the site said.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe V. Wade, James cited her ordination as a pastor to qualify her recognition that “women are morally capable of making a decision about her reproductive health.”

Although the electoral victory of just one candidate would be a step forward for the left’s representation of Christians in Congress, a May poll by Change Research, reported by the Religion News Service, suggests they may have a difficult time swaying Christian voters from their Republican counterparts. (RELATED: The Left’s Fake Conversion To Religious Liberty)

The poll showed that only 25 percent of religious voters view the Democratic Party as being friendly toward Christians, compared with 70 percent who said the same of Republicans. Sixty-one percent of those polled also believed that Democratic candidates are more concerned with promoting their “woke” agenda than solving problems.