The Ten Commandments in Classrooms: A Christian Lawmaker's Concern for Children's Faith

Texas State Representative James Talarico made assertions as a seminary student on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast about the Ten Commandments. The claims that he made were guided by his firm belief in the power of Jesus' love and his command to love our neighbor as ourself. In particular, Talarico opposed the mandatory display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms from not just a political but also a religious reasoning: “If we have to force people to put up a poster, to me, that means that we have a dead religion, a religion that no longer moves people, a religion that no longer speaks to people's hearts." 

From this perspective, Talarico took not only a stance of the importance of the separation of church and state but called mandating a poster of the Ten Commandments as “Unchristian”. This is because of Jesus' teachings about loving the outsider and foreigner, which includes those of different faiths. Talarico stated that the poster would signal to children of other beliefs that their faiths are inferior and that they are not welcomed to which he added “if Jesus saw that, he would weep for those students and would demand that we love them as ourselves.”

In addition, Talarico claimed that forcing the Ten Commandments and Christianity upon children would be counter productive towards bringing people to Christ. Talarico used his experience as a former middle school teacher to suggest that children won’t just accept Christianity because it's in the classroom: “I was a middle school teacher before I became a politician, so I know students, they have the best BS detector around.”

This is because the children will recognize the intent of the bill is not from a place of love or gospel. Instead, Talarico states that "this bill will create a whole new generation of atheists who think that my religion, my faith tradition that means everything to me, is more about power than it is about love." This is especially concerning because of the growing indifference to religion that younger generations are adopting.

When starting the conversation, Joe Rogan initially questioned Talarico’s stance, saying that “it's always interesting to see a person who is a Christian who is not for the ten commandments in schools.” However, by the end of the podcast, Rogan, who previously endorsed President Trump, was moved enough to say, “So I just need you to run for president… We need someone who's actually a good person.”