Hello Friends,
I’m writing this a bit early because I’m going out of town, first, to attend the life celebration of a friend’s mother, and then to go with my friends to hear George Saunders in Santa Cruz as he tours for his new novel Vigil. I confess: my husband wanted the audiobook, so I listened to Vigil the day it launched. My friends and I will be getting signed copies at the event, and then we’ll read and talk about it together. Lovely.
I’ve wanted to discuss Separation of Church and Hate by John Fugelsang for a while. If you enjoy Be a Cactus, please click the heart and/or comment. It helps others to find us. Okay, here we go!
Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds by John Fugelsang
“The primary driver of most global conflict, oppression of women, suppression of science, persecution of gay people, and abuse of power is not religion. It’s the extreme fundamentalist wings of all the world’s religions that provide this drama for the rest of humanity.” (6)
“Paul’s a bit edgier than Jesus in ways that make him more attractive to a certain kind of right-wing believer. While the gospel teachings emphasize love, compassion, and inclusivity, Paul’s personal opinions about women and sexuality just couldn’t help but bleed through his writings. Which means that over the last two thousand years, many Christians have been taught to prioritize certain passages from Paul’s letters that suit their personal biases over Jesus’s irritating orders to love everyone.” (46)
The inside book jacket of Separation claims that “the son of a former Catholic nun and a [former] Franciscan brother delivers a deeply irreverent and Biblically correct takedown of far-right Christian hatred.” I found the bits of humor less irreverent than refreshing. Generally, the book is a defense of Jesus’s ministry. Fugelsang takes down Christian Nationalist and fundamental evangelists’ arguments one after another, showing that they are not based on the words or actions of Jesus, but simply self-serving baloney. He reminds us that context matters—and he gives that context.
“He was the most famous innocent brown skin man ever to be wrongly executed by the state, and he was deliberately killed in the most painful and humiliating of ways.” (21)
Separation is for anyone who wants to debate far-right Christians on the hot-button topics of the day. This includes anyone from true believers to atheists. (You don’t have to believe in a God to prove that what Christian nationalists say about him is not based on the text of the New Testament.) Fugelsang includes many chapter titles that begin with “Thou Shalt Not” and include: Take All This Too Literally; Hate Feminists; Hate the Gays; Hate People Who Have Abortions; Hate “Illegals”; Hate on Poor People; Kill People Who Kill People to Prove that Killing People is Wrong; Hate Gun Control or Worship Warrior Bro-Dude Jesus; Hate Jews, Muslims, or Even Atheists; Be, or Defend, a White Supremacist.
“Jesus, disdained wealth, and earthly power, and challenged traditional laws of his own faith. He rejected earthly materialism, renounced the idea of revenge, and commanded us to welcome the stranger.
I know, right? Just like Donald Trump.” (23)
What Fugelsang tells us will be familiar to people with knowledge of the Bible. I was raised as a Catholic, as was Fugelsang—though his family was far more liberal than mine. His parents “tried to raise us to be progressive, free-thinking, sexually-repressed Catholics” 😂 Of his father, Fugelsang says, “His overall parenting strategy was to guarantee that I’d be way too liberal to ever fit in with the Christians and far too Christian to ever blend in with the liberals. And almost every therapist I’ve ever been able to afford has agreed that his plan worked perfectly.” In general, mid-to-late-twentieth century Catholics were never encouraged to read scripture. Specific Bible stories are on rotation in the Mass, each week delivering something from the Old Testament, something from the Gospels, and something from the Epistles (letters, New Testament, but not the Gospels). However, many Bible stories are left out of the rotation—perhaps because they are too dull, too crude, or too sexually explicit for the listeners (yes, really).
When I was a teen, I decided to read the Bible. Later, I also took a ‘Bible as Literature’ class in college, which covered only a portion of the text. However, from these studies and from the weekly readings in church, I knew the stories that Fugelsang addresses and why far-right Christianity has them wrong. For example, when someone tells me things like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is about the evils of homosexuality, I know it’s about accepting the stranger. But I would never be able to quote chapter and verse to prove it. In fact, in most cases, I couldn’t even tell you which book of the Bible they are in. For that, you need someone like Monte Mader, who can quote anything in the Bible from memory and tear any Christian Nationalist argument to pieces.
This is also what Fugelsang offers his reader. He reminds us that Jesus brings about a New Covenant through his life, teachings, death, and resurrection, fulfilling and superseding the Abrahamic Covenant. This means Fugelsang is not worried about previous guidance. “With this New Covenant, the emphasis shifts to love, grace, and compassion (John 13:34).” (40)
Fugelsang points out what should be obvious to those who have read the New Testament—that the apostle Paul is Jesus’s PR man and was dispensing advice in letters as he tried to keep the early church together. Some of his advice contradicts the word of Jesus and many Christians have based their tenets on it. Yes, Paul is why so many of us are so screwed up. (The Sermon on the Mount/the Beatitudes play pretty big in Separation.) But in Paul’s defense, he was just writing letters to various Christian enclaves and communities (and these letters sometimes contradict one another—women can lead, no women need to be quiet in public, etc.). He didn’t know they would be gathered together and included in the canon. The main point: stop taking Paul’s advice over Jesus’s commands. “If Jesus was the game-changing rock star, Paul was his hardworking, deeply uptight, conservative PR guy.” (43)
“Now remember, Paul also ordered slaves to be obedient to their masters. Most of us would disregard that admonition as coming from a flawed man from an archaic era, right? Take note of anyone who thinks Paul’s order for women to submit shouldn’t be weighed in a similar context. Paul is not, in fact, Jesus.” (99)
Separation is organized by discussions of popular fundamentalist arguments and the words of Jesus that dismantle them. So: There is the claim of the far-right and the scripture it is based on; then there is the actual context of that scripture. (This is very helpful if you want to back up your arguments.)
Beyond all this, it’s nice to read and be reminded of what Jesus was actually like. It is, dare I say, refreshing? “I was taught…that Christianity was about the things Jesus prioritized: Service to others. Forgiveness. Caring for the poor, the sick, the stranger, the prisoner. Fighting injustice with nonviolence, like Dr. King and Gandhi. Standing up for the less fortunate, like Dorothy Day and Catholic Charities. Love. Empathy. Compassion.” (3)
“And if there’s one thing the Bible shows us, it’s that authoritarian government, aligned with some extreme conservative religious fundamentalists, literally killed Jesus.” (9)
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Some Interesting Discussions in Separation of Church and Hate that will upset the fundamentalist apple cart:
Jesus and Women
There’s a discussion of how women kept Jesus’s ministry afloat financially.
* “We know that Mary Magdalene, along with Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, were fellow travelers. To a sane person in the twenty-first century it might seem obvious that there were actually fifteen apostles, at least.
* “Wrong, says the church. Those women might have always been with JC and the twelve, but they didn’t have full apostle passes. They just followed Jesus from gig to gig, working the merch tables like it was a boy band tour. The church continues to treat these women as secondary figures rather than leaders.” (105)
* “All four Gospel writers specifically cite Jesus rejecting the accepted cultural norms and treating women with respect. Not only did he break rabbinic laws of his day by teaching and talking to women, but he allowed women to touch him—including those considered ‘unclean’ by the culture at large.
* He begins in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:28, by essentially telling men, “Stop looking at her like that.”
* “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’
* This could be the first recorded biblical utterance of ‘Eyes up here, buddy.’ Jesus’s admonition to not look on women lustfully is not anti-sex—it’s anti-sexual harassment.” (90-91)
Abortion
* Fugelsang argues that the Bible never forbids it and Jesus never mentions it. “Again, nobody’s saying Jesus is pro-abortion. But there’s zero reason to believe that if Jesus met a woman who’d made that choice he would’ve shamed her, or tried to have her jailed. And that’s another difference between Jesus and some of his unauthorized fan clubs.” (146)
“Pro-Life”
* “Only in America can you be pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-drone bombs, pro-torture, pro-cutting services for the poor, pro-for-profit privatization of healthcare, pro-dismantling USAID, and still call yourself’ pro-life.’” (148)
* “In recent years we’ve seen 150 death row inmates freed by DNA evidence or recanted testimony, some after decades in prison, all appeals exhausted.” (226)
Science
* “Science and biblical literalism don’t mix, but science and faith can and do coexist. Both can answer different questions: Science explores how the universe works, while the Bible addresses why it exists.” (76)
”I’ll never say Jesus was a socialist. But I will say if he were alive now and preaching the exact same message, ring-wing Christians would call him one.” (190)
Other Reading (or Watching)
I enjoyed reading the receipts (chapter and verse) for liberal Christian beliefs. If this is all a bit more than you want to indulge in, you could take a super short cut and watch Jordan Klepper interview Fugelsang on the Daily Show:
John Fugelsang - “Separation of Church and Hate” | The Daily Show
Fugelsang Is also the host of "Tell Me Everything" on SiriusXM Progress and has a Substack. Here’s an interesting post:
“Offering thoughts and prayers for the poor is typically done by politicians who don’t think and don’t pray. It’s a convenient substitute for tangible help or systemic solutions. Prayer is supposed to be a way to seek guidance, not an excuse for inaction.” (199)
If, on the other hand, you want to dive in and read about examples of lefty politics in Christian leadership, The Contrarian has some.
* Pope Leo
Pope Leo has certainly met the moment. This year, he castigated xenophobia, challenged hateful rhetoric, and rebuffed phony excuses to ignore the plight of our neighbors. NPR reported on his discussion with journalists in November:
His plea to care for immigrants inspired or impressed upon Catholic interfaith organizations, non-religious community activists, and ordinary individuals to aid and defend their neighbors. …
Pope Leo also consistently spoke out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (even decrying efforts to impose Russia-friendly terms on Ukraine and Europe) and denounced starvation in Gaza. He insisted that concern for the poor get translated into action. …
Pope Leo sounds as if he is directly criticizing Trump, because Trump exemplifies evils that the pontiff decries—neglect of the poor, crass materialism, embrace of violence, and bigotry. While Trump oppresses; the pontiff stands with the oppressed, bringing light and hope to the dark Trump reign.
* Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde of The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Episcopal Diocese of Washington(commonly referred to as the National Cathedral)
After reminding Trump these are people of faith, she implored him to “have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away and … those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands, to find compassion and welcome here.”
In our interview, I witnessed how Rt. Rev. Budde models grace, humility, and kindness. She affirmed, as Contrarians have grasped, that “courage is contagious.”
* Pastor Jamal Bryant of Georgia’s New Birth Baptist Missionary Church
The Contrarian’s April Ryan interviewed him twice this year. One central topic he spoke about with notable passion was his leadership in the national boycott against Target. While he did not start the boycott, he quickly became the face of the movement responding to Target’s cowardly compliance with Trump’s assault on DEI. “I wanted to bring a spiritual dynamic to it,” he told April. The movement had a stunning impact, inflicting $12B in losses and prompting the CEO’s exit (unfortunately, the COO replaced him), although Target persists in its anti-DEI stance.
Pastor Bryant recently posted on Instagram:
I’m amazed how @target is willing to do everything except the right thing. Making the staff smile won’t do it! Fake sale prices won’t do it! Giving checks to black churches won’t do it! Paying black influencers to post won’t do it and bribing HBCU students with discount cards won’t do it. … We don’t want to hand you violins to play on the Titanic. This is fixable … just do the right thing!
Just for Fun
Recently, I posted on LitHub’s best book covers of 2025. They decided to post the best covers of the last decade. Fun stuff.
https://lithub.com/the-best-book-covers-of-the-last-decade/
Thanks again for reading! As I said, I’m putting this together early and can’t know what fresh hell might arrive in the next several days. None, I hope. Take care. Be well.
