Separation of Church and Hate

by John Fugelsang

Being that this was during the rise of the Moral Majority and Christian right, I was exposed to many interviews with white men who were introduced as “Christian leaders.” But these Christians didn’t talk about helping the poor, welcoming the stranger, or fighting injustice. They never mentioned the evils of racism. They didn’t quote scripture to justify the need for all of us to take care of the least of us.

They expressed outrage at protests against racism, while never denouncing actual racism.

In recent decades, the US has witnessed fundamentalist Christianity publicly mutating into Christian nationalism: the belief that God intended America to be a Christian nation and that a “true” American should be Christian, too. These hopeless romantics fervently believe the Bible must be prioritized in both your government and your day-to-day life. Well, their interpretation of the Bible, that is.

And our meanest Christians tend to piously and publicly worship Jesus as their King, because that’s considerably easier than following his inconvenient teachings.

It’s a gospel of control over caring, power over humility, and judgment over mercy. They won’t fight for the words of Jesus, but they’re profoundly committed to stuff they believe he said.

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.

Christianity is under attack—but by divisive right-wing fundamentalists who publicly worship Jesus while fighting against, voting against, and legislating against his actual commandments. Help the poor? No. Care for the sick? No. Turn the other cheek? No. Render one’s taxes? No, sucker. Be kind to the incarcerated? Hell no. Welcome the stranger? Bitch, please. Modern right-wing Christians have been suckered into an anti-Christian trap of aligning with power, instead of challenging it.

Historically, American Christians of both major political parties have used a Bible to justify the slaughter of Indigenous people, the enslavement of African people, the labor exploitation of Asian people, ignoring the suffering of European Jewish people, cruelty to gay people, the indiscriminate detention and torture of Muslim people, and of course, pushing perpetual second-class citizenship on female people.

Decent Christians—including moderates and sane conservatives—along with righteous atheists, agnostics, and many people of other religions, have always had to band together to beat back the batshit-crazy Christians.

There’s an inspiring true heritage of authentic Christianity, and it’s almost always manifested itself in resistance to Christian authoritarianism.

I got tired of seeing my parents’ faith used to merge Jesus and meanness.

You’ll have an easier time convincing them that Jesus wasn’t an immigrant-hating homophobe by talking about what Jesus himself taught than if you just call them an immigrant-hating homophobe.

They’ve got a First Amendment right to twist scripture to their liking. You’ve got a First Amendment right to call them out for it.

And remember—if your church isn’t telling you to love your enemies but keeps telling you who your enemies are, you’re not really in a church.

“The politics of Jesus and the politics of God are that people should be fed, that people have access to life, that people should be treated equally and justly.” Rev. James M. Lawson Jr.

Jesus lived in a politically turbulent time under military occupation. And while he did not advocate for violent rebellion, his teachings and actions were seen as politically subversive.

It’s not the miracles driving people away from religion, it’s the Christians who don’t live by Jesus’s words about how we’re supposed to treat each other.

Jesus’s wisdom is in the principles that cut across religious and secular boundaries: calls to love your enemies, to care for the poor and marginalized. These teachings don’t require belief in supernatural events to be meaningful. Any skeptic can still recognize the wisdom in “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or the revolutionary ethic behind “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” By prioritizing Jesus’s teachings, Christianity can emphasize principles that unite, without relying on coerced belief in two-thousand-year-old supernatural accounts to win people over.

Jesus challenges his followers to love and pray for those who persecute them. And he says this to an oppressed people living under foreign military occupation in their own Holy Land.

Jesus pronounces his blessings upon specific groups of people. He focuses on the poor and marginalized; he praises nonviolence and peacemaking, radical love, mercy, and inclusion; and he pretty much takes down the status quo.

“Meh, I didn’t trudge all the way up Mount of Beatitudes just to hear some virtue signaling from Woke Jesus.” The Beatitudes are Jesus’s own guide for ethical conduct in Christian life. And you’ll never see a right-wing Christian politician or group fight to post these words on a classroom or courtroom wall.

You’ll notice that the people most convinced that America’s a “Christian nation” are the same folks who don’t think it’s government’s job to take care of the poor. But please know—when somebody proclaims, “Jesus says we’re supposed to do those things, not the government,” you are hearing the right-wing argument for rejecting Jesus’s teachings in the voting booth.

Jesus asserts that his true followers are the people and societies who care for the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the immigrants, and the incarcerated. And he tells you who his fake followers are—the ones who are openly religious but indifferent to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the immigrants, and the incarcerated, the lowest of the low. How we treat them is how we treat him.

People who’ve been conditioned to think you’re on the side of the devil aren’t permitted to meet you halfway.

Christian nationalism is like marching the Bill of Rights and the New Testament out into the woods, at gunpoint, together, and digging two holes.

Jesus taught love for all humanity, regardless of their nationality, ethnicity, or religious affiliation. But Christian nationalists are here to fight for Jesus—not listen to him.

But the founders got this very simple and moral concept just right: the government never gets to dictate how you can or cannot pray, or that you must pray. They knew the dangers of merging government, which was designed to protect individual rights, with any religion, which was a matter of individual conscience.

Our official religion is All and/or None. Sorry, nationalists. You get to be Christian, and everyone else gets to be what they want to be. Sit down.

If you’re going to debate something as personal as the Bible, your job is to remember to be the calm, patient person who doesn’t hate back. If you’re just there to antagonize, you’ll only make your fundamentalist more cranky and wrathful. Some of these folks seriously enjoy being martyrs, and any hostility from you will give them license to act like one.

Real faith is not afraid of reason, and it can be enriched by engaging with the scripture thoughtfully and critically.

Literalists can spend so much time trying to prove the facts that they miss the truths. If Jesus only spoke in parables, using story to tell a deeper truth, why is it so hard to imagine that parts of the Bible might be parable, metaphor, and poetry? These stories are designed to provoke reflection, not to serve as simplistic dictates. The belief that every word of the Bible should be interpreted to the letter and applied directly to contemporary life is not the point of faith.

“What does belief in this have to do with what Jesus commands?”

Christian nationalists generally oppose feminist movements and any policies that promote gender equality. Feminism is a threat to their version of Christian morality, because a certain kind of male will never stop believing that God prefers him to a woman.

In a first century where women were submissive, unclean, and disposable property, Jesus breaks all the social codes to treat them as equals.

Jesus broke down ethnic, gender, and religious barriers just by having a conversation. It’s worth pointing out that Jesus keeps picking Samaritans, a very particular type of unpopular foreigner, whom his people were allowed and encouraged to hate, to be these examples of humanity.

At the time, studying the Torah was traditionally reserved for men, but Mary wanted to learn and Jesus wasn’t going to say no. She’s described here as one who “sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak,” which is usually the position of the top male disciple. Sitting at the feet of a rabbi meant that a person was one of his best students.

Jesus’s question to Simon is pointed: “Do you see this woman?” (Luke 7:44). It’s a powerful response, when you think about it. He doesn’t judge the guy, but the question urges his host to look beyond the rules, to see this guilt-ridden woman as a human soul of great repentance, sincerity—and potential for goodness.

Deuteronomy 24:1 asserts that men could divorce their wives for trivial reasons, leaving women vulnerable and without support. Tired of her? Kick her to the curb. There was no such thing as alimony, and women couldn’t get jobs or even an education. Divorce really could be fatal, but only for women. So, while Jesus’s rule may appear harsh, at the time he was being extremely progressive. He calls out Moses’s divorce laws as “hard-hearted” and announces that men shouldn’t be able to casually dump their wives anymore. He was standing up for women’s rights and safety, and trying to keep them from being thrown away and left to starve.

So when this woman praises Jesus’s mother for her baby-making and baby-feeding abilities, Jesus corrects her. He doesn’t want his mother blessed for birthing and nursing; he wants her blessed for the choices she herself makes. In front of everyone, Jesus affirms that women are not to be reduced to being only mothers, but should also be praised for having agency and doing the right thing.

“Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman.” St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215)

Jesus’s respect for women was not as appealing to the guys who inherited his operation. St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was one of the most significant figures in early Christian theology, and a beautiful writer and theologian. But a hero to women, he was not: “What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman…. I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children.” “Woman was merely man’s helpmate, a function which pertains to her alone. She is not the image of God but as far as man is concerned, he is by himself the image of God.”

John Calvin: “Woman is more guilty than man, because she was seduced by Satan, and so diverted her husband from obedience to God that she was an instrument of death leading to all perdition…. This is reason enough why today she is placed below and that she bears within her ignominy and shame.”

Webbon proudly asserted that if he could wave a Christian nationalist “wand,” the Nineteenth Amendment would be abolished, and US women would lose the vote. Speaking of his wand, Pastor Webbon justifies his misogyny because politics is war, and “the sword has been given to men.” “The sword is—without being crude, I think this is a fact—it is a phallus. It is assigned by God to men.”

When Jesus was arrested and the apostles all scattered, it was the women who never abandoned him, who never hid, who never denied knowing him. In the Resurrection story, Jesus reveals himself to the women before any of his male disciples.

Judah solicits sex from a prostitute—then condemns his daughter-in-law for being a prostitute and demands her death. And Tamar fiercely challenges the power dynamics that deny women agency and autonomy. She’s forced, by religious law and marriage customs, to secure her rights and safety any way she can after Judah’s broken promise. And she’s held to a drastically different standard than Judah, whose actions are never condemned. Tamar’s deception is a brave response to injustice, exposing Judah’s hypocrisy and securing her future. The Bible portrays this deeply wronged woman as an intrepid figure who acts with brilliance and self-respect.

Sodom and Gomorrah is a story of God’s anger at a people who reject and abuse strangers, instead of welcoming them. Throughout the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah keeps coming up not as an example of the dangers of same-sex relations, but rather as an example of how really bad people treat strangers and the less fortunate.

And rape is not about love, pleasure, or sexual preference. It’s about power.

If you don’t like big government poking around your private life, Leviticus is a funny chapter to hang your hate on.

“The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself” (Leviticus 19:34). Or even better—Leviticus 25:35: “If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you.” If they wanna hate the gays, they’ve gotta love the immigrants.

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 privatized healthcare, pro dismantling USAID, and still call yourself “pro-life.”