The David French Delusion: Praising Heresy to Own the Conservatives

David French just held up a self-proclaimed “non-binary God” progressive as a model Christian leader. Let that sink in.

The New York Times columnist and self-identified evangelical has reached a new low in his years-long crusade against conservative Christians. In his latest Sunday sermon from the pages of America’s most elite newspaper, French lavished praise on James Talarico—a Texas Democratic Senate nominee who denies fundamental Christian doctrine, champions unrestricted abortion, and embraces radical gender ideology—calling him a “Christian X-ray” that exposes the alleged moral bankruptcy of Trump-supporting evangelicals.

This isn’t commentary. It’s theological malpractice with a massive platform.

The Heretic Gets a Halo

Talarico represents everything wrong with progressive Christianity wrapped in a seminary student’s earnest smile. He literally proclaims that “God is non-binary.” He advocates for the legal right to dismember children in the womb under the euphemism of “reproductive freedom.” He weaponizes Christian language to advance a political agenda that would be utterly alien to two millennia of orthodox Christian teaching.

French acknowledges his disagreements with Talarico in a brief caveat buried in his column. But acknowledgment without consequence is meaningless. It’s a fig leaf covering an intellectually dishonest argument: that a charming progressive who speaks kindly while promoting doctrinal catastrophe somehow represents “decency” against the supposed cruelty of conservative evangelicals.

The Apostle Paul instructed Timothy to “watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Timothy 4:16). Both matter. Both are essential. A pleasant demeanor doesn’t sanctify bankrupt theology.

French’s Spectacular Hypocrisy

Here’s what makes French’s Talarico worship so galling: He’s committing the exact sin he’s spent years condemning.

French has built his post-Trump career lecturing evangelicals about the dangers of pragmatic ethics—of overlooking character flaws for political gain. He’s accused conservative Christians of trading Christian witness for MAGA politics. Sometimes he’s even made valid points about the importance of character in public life.

But now French himself is trading away sound doctrine for the aesthetic satisfaction of a candidate who seems nicer, who speaks in softer tones, who wraps progressive politics in the language of love and compassion. He’s accepting the appeal of a charming political figure while setting aside the theological wreckage underneath.

If overlooking Donald Trump’s character flaws represents a failure of Christian discernment, what does it represent to champion a politician whose stated beliefs repudiate core Christian teaching? French has spent years warning against Christians who excuse indefensible behavior. Now he’s legitimizing indefensible theology.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Doctrine and Character Cannot Be Separated

The Christian moral tradition has never treated doctrine and character as divisible. They operate in tandem. A kind heretic is still a heretic. A man who speaks about Jesus with warmth while denying the moral order that Christ himself affirmed is not a Christian statesman—he’s a wolf in an exceptionally well-pressed suit (Matthew 7:15).

French wants to reframe America’s political divide as “decent versus indecent” rather than Left versus Right. It’s a clever rhetorical move that conveniently allows him to classify anyone who disagrees with his political judgments as indecent. But decency disconnected from truth is not a Christian virtue—it’s just niceness, and niceness has never been the summation of Christian ethics.

Character matters enormously. No serious conservative Christian should dispute this. But character without doctrinal fidelity is incomplete at best and dangerous at worst. You cannot separate what someone believes from how they behave and still claim to offer a coherent Christian framework for political engagement.

The Bitter Fruit of Trump Derangement

What French’s column reveals is more troubling than the argument itself. There’s a corrosive bitterness driving his analysis—a contempt for conservative Christians who voted for Trump that has mutated into something uglier and more reflexive.

His disdain for “MAGA Christianity” has become so consuming that he’s willing to hold up a progressive heretic as a positive example simply because that heretic isn’t Donald Trump and isn’t supported by Trump voters. This isn’t prophetic moral clarity. It’s trollish editorializing from an elite platform, dressed up in the language of Christian concern.

Deep-seated rage at Donald Trump and his evangelical supporters does not justify placating doctrinal error. When you start describing a progressive politician who affirms abortion and denies basic Christian teaching as a “Christian X-ray” that illuminates the failures of orthodox Christians, you haven’t elevated the discourse. You’ve descended into partisan hackery with a theological veneer.

False Choices and Real Asymmetries

None of this requires choosing between character and doctrinal substance. Christians can and should refuse to excuse indefensible behavior from any politician, regardless of party. Character matters across the board. This isn’t complicated.

But we can simultaneously recognize that genuine moral asymmetries exist between the two major party platforms on questions central to Christian ethics: the protection of unborn life, human dignity rooted in biological reality, and religious liberty. Acknowledging these asymmetries isn’t capitulation to MAGA Christianity or tribal partisanship. It’s an honest moral assessment of imperfect political realities.

French wants evangelicals to believe that supporting Republican candidates despite character flaws represents a moral failure, while supporting Democratic candidates despite their promotion of abortion, gender ideology, and religious hostility represents enlightened Christian witness. This is not serious moral reasoning. It’s partisan preference masquerading as prophetic Christianity.

Progressive Christianity Is Not Christianity

Let’s be blunt: Progressive Christianity is not Christianity. Any movement that denies the core doctrines of the faith hasn’t offered a fresh reading of the tradition—it has departed from the tradition entirely.

The Christian tradition has a word for such departures: heresy.

And anyone—including certain prominent New York Times columnists—who aids and abets these departures by insisting they still count as authentic Christianity is not offering serious theological commentary. They’re offering cover for theological liberalism that has been slowly strangling mainline Protestantism for generations.

Talarico is not a reformer bringing necessary prophetic challenge to American Christianity. He’s a walking caricature of progressive Christianity’s worst elements: vapid God-talk stripped of doctrinal content, biblical language deployed to advance positions the Bible explicitly condemns, and the arrogant assumption that twenty centuries of Christian teaching can be discarded because they don’t align with contemporary progressive sensibilities.

The Real Danger

The danger French represents isn’t just his individual influence. It’s the trajectory he embodies—the final phase of a transformation from conservative Christianity to theological progressivism that proceeds by elevating practice over doctrine, niceness over truth, and political preferences over theological fidelity.

This path is well-worn. It’s the same road traveled by countless theologians, pastors, and institutions that began by questioning conservative political alignments and ended by questioning conservative theology itself. First you reject the politics of conservative Christians. Then you reject their social ethics. Finally, you reject their doctrinal commitments as the inevitable source of their political and social “failures.”

French isn’t there yet—or so his caveats suggest. But his willingness to hold up Talarico as any kind of positive example reveals how far down that road he’s already traveled.

Conclusion: Choosing Sides

The choice before evangelicals isn’t between MAGA Christianity and progressive Christianity. It’s between historic Christian orthodoxy—with all its political messiness and imperfect human representatives—and theological liberalism repackaged in the language of decency and compassion.

David French wants evangelicals to believe that rejecting Trump requires embracing Talarico, or at least treating Talarico as a legitimate Christian voice worthy of serious consideration. This is a false choice rooted in French’s own political preferences and personal grievances.

Conservative Christians can and should maintain high standards for character in public life. But we will not trade doctrinal fidelity for the approval of elite opinion-makers. We will not pretend that heresy becomes orthodoxy when spoken with a smile. And we will not accept lectures about Christian witness from those who legitimize theological error on the pages of The New York Times.

The Apostle Paul warned the Galatians: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6). That warning remains urgent today.

Progressive Christianity is a different gospel. No amount of David French’s praise can make it otherwise.