James Talarico's Church: Inside St. Andrew's Presbyterian in Austin

Long before he was a candidate quoting scripture on a debate stage, James Talarico was a toddler in the pews of a North Austin church. That church, and the pastor who's led it for decades, are still shaping how he talks about faith and power today.

Where James Talarico Goes to Church

Talarico has belonged to St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in North Austin since he was 2 years old. It's a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation, and it shaped him early: at 9, he joined a demonstration outside the Texas governor's mansion that St. Andrew's organized after the murders of James Byrd Jr. and Matthew Shepard, calling for hate crime protections. "Politics and religion were always two sides of the same coin for me growing up," he says of that period.

The church has stayed central well into his adult life and career. While serving in the Texas House, Talarico enrolled at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, earning a Master of Arts in Theological Studies in 2025 and continuing coursework toward a Master of Divinity, according to the seminary. In 2023, he stood in his home church's pulpit as a guest preacher and called Christian nationalism "a cancer on our religion." A fellow Presbyterian pastor who has hosted him at his own congregation described Talarico as "Presbyterian through and through" — someone with "an ability to communicate essential biblical truths in a very understandable way."

The Pastor Who Shaped His Faith

Much of that formation traces back to St. Andrew's senior pastor, Rev. Jim Rigby, who has led the congregation for more than 35 years and baptized Talarico as a baby, officiated his parents' wedding, and delivered the invocation at his 2019 swearing-in. Talarico has repeatedly called Rigby one of the most influential people in his life, crediting him with a lesson that still shows up in his stump speeches: that love of God "has to grow into justice and move us from the sanctuary to the streets."

That closeness has followed him into the Senate race. As the campaign has drawn national attention, St. Andrew's has seen a wave of "hostile press and negative communication," Rigby told the congregation, and the church has brought in plain-clothes security as a precaution. "We want you to know your safety is very important to us and we are doing all we can to protect you," he wrote to members. Whatever comes of the race against the winner of the Cornyn-Paxton runoff, Talarico's answer to where his politics come from keeps leading back to the same sanctuary he's been sitting in since before he could walk.