"But it’s a fun cult, like in the good ways."
Attendees of U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico’s church laugh that it “is really a cult,” an undercover video obtained by Townhall shows.
The video, the latest in a string of them published by numerous outlets, calls into question the “Christian” foundation for the St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin.
“It’s unlike any church I’ve been to,” someone can be heard saying in the video.
“I’m not even a Christian, I just saw the sign out there and I was like, I might check this place out,” a woman identified as Mina Rao says. “Three years later, I’m still here.”
“I keep forgetting it’s a church,” the person responded.
“Yeah. No, it’s really a cult. But it’s a fun cult, like in the good ways.”
“It’s one of those – you can drink the Kool-Aid safely,” another woman identified as Heather Malkawi says. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”
Malkawi works for a group called Texas Impact, which “equips people of faith and conscience with information, opportunities, and outreach tools to educate their communities and engage with lawmakers on pressing public policy issues,” according to its website.
“Some people that are (St. Andrew’s) members are Republican,” Malkawi lamented.
After joking that they aren’t “MAGA Republicans,” Malkawi added, “Unless they’re a masochist.”
Perhaps ironically, Minister to the Parish Babs Miller criticized evangelical Christians as “almost cult-like” in another undercover video published by Texas Scorecard.
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: A minister at James Talarico’s longtime church calls evangelical churches “almost cult-like” and says some view the Bible as a “magic book.” pic.twitter.com/ELIG2eRISD
— Brandon Waltens (@bwaltens) September 28, 2026
“Evangelical churches are almost cult-like, and they’re just, I think, slightly or maybe greatly misguided about what is intended by anything that the Bible says,” Miller said.
“It’s really a lot of selling of ideas that keep the group together and keep them convinced that everybody else is wrong and they’re right,” dismissing it as “white Christian nationalism.”
“The white, predominantly the white males in Texas, have discovered that they are no longer in the majority,” said Miller.
“I really do think that they are afraid that if the blacks and browns get in control, that they’re going to treat the white people like the white people have always treated the blacks and browns,” she added.
“If you polled our members, and asked them if they were Christian, agnostic, or atheist, the vast majority would say agnostic or atheist because they don’t buy the religion that we got from the Puritans,” Miller said, according to another video cited by Newsweek.
Even more undercover footage released by Texas Scorecard showed Rev. Carol Johnson saying, “We don’t have a lot of people who are religious here.” Johnson went on to describe St. Andrew’s as “not a belief-based church.”
The Democrat nominee has called St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church home since he was two years old, he says. It has been led for 35 years by Rev. Jim Rigby, whom Talarico calls a “mentor.”