"A lot of what I have wrestled with as a person of faith in public life is around the fact that I am responsible not only to help the person who is struggling right in front of me, but also to fix the systemic issues that are causing the problems in the first place," James said. "And so that parable has actually informed how I think about every single policy issue."
Anna Golladay, a former Methodist pastor in Tennessee, said the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis amid federal immigration crackdowns pushed her to run for Congress.
"I have many friends who are faith leaders in Minneapolis, and I was keeping up with them and the work that they were doing in the streets," Golladay said. "And I just had this kind of unending nag that I needed to do something. And the switch flipped pretty quickly for me after Pretti was murdered."
She wanted to be in Congress in part to sway votes on funding for immigration operations. She wanted to run to keep Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, her Republican opponent who has been in office since 2011, from being unopposed.
Golladay said she sees her religious background as an advantage in Tennessee's 3rd District, which she described as "the buckle of the Bible Belt." For years, Chattanooga has had one of the highest church densities per capita.
"There is an expectation where I live that you are often more informed by faith than not, regardless of what your attitude toward it is," Golladay said.
In fact, it is her political identity that is more of a stumbling block for voters than her religious one. Golladay said she has knocked on Republicans' doors before only to be told that they can't vote for a Democrat because they're Christian.
"I will often chuckle to myself when I hear that," Golladay said. "For me, it opens a door. That's a very easy beginning of a conversation."
When Golladay attended seminary, she read the Gospel and said Jesus's teaching was clear: Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, shelter the unhoused and care for the poor.
"I think we have allowed a lot of the work and stories of Jesus to be co-opted by Christian nationalists -- a type of religion that I don't think recognizes the point He was really trying to make. I am highly influenced by the stories of care and empathy in the Bible, and I think that we are largely losing sight of that call."
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