Separation of Church and Hate

by John Fugelsang

It’s easy to persecute when you’re convinced an angry God will punish you for not persecuting.

Pastor John Hagee touts himself as founder of Christians United for Israel, but he’s not particularly fond of Jewish people. He tipped his hand to NPR in 2006 when he revealed, “It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God’s chosen people, that gave us the Holocaust.”

Christians are called to witness and serve their faith, not to judge or condemn others for their beliefs or lack thereof. If actual Christians really believed that atheists were condemned to eternal suffering, they’d go out of their way to be kind to these poor damned souls.

“We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person here may worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.” George Washington, who owned people

Christian theology teaches that every person is made in the Imago Dei—the image of God (Genesis 1:27). White supremacy rejects this by implying that some humans look more like that image than others.

America is the only nation on earth where Christianity has been historically entwined with white supremacy from its beginning. Slavery, and the succeeding years of segregation and institutionalized racism in America, endured for one reason—Christian leaders consistently validated it.

Jesus lays down the Golden Rule in both Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31 when he says, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Unless you’re enslaving someone because you yourself would like someone to do it to you, this one’s pretty airtight. Raping, mutilating, and owning people are in no way covered under this policy.

Four years after the federal desegregation mandates following Brown v. Board of Education, Southern Baptist pastor Rev. Jerry Falwell sermonized, “If Chief Justice [Earl] Warren and his associates had known God’s Word and had desired to do the Lord’s will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made…. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.”

Rev. Bob Jones Sr. gave a radio address on Easter Sunday 1960 titled “Is Segregation Scriptural?” where he cited Acts of the Apostles: “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands” (Acts 17:26). This was proof, said Jones Sr., “that God Almighty fixed the bounds of their habitation. That is as clear as anything that was ever said.”

A core element of Christian nationalism is the myth that America was founded as a deeply Christian nation, and yeah, we may have dabbled in a little ethnic cleansing, some random occasional slavery, and some barely there segregation, but that doesn’t matter in our golden imagined past. I hope I’m not spoiling anything here, but most Christian racists don’t think their views are problematic. They’ll tell you that white Christians built the US, all on their own, and anyone who uses woke race-baiting terms like “slavery” or “genocide” or “systemic” probably hates white people, and that’s why we need prayer in schools.

In PRRI’s 2023 survey, asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background,” 81 percent of Christian nationalist adherents agreed.

In a 2018 PRRI survey, 86 percent of white evangelical Protestants and 70 percent of both white mainline Protestants and Catholics said that the “Confederate flag is more a symbol of Southern pride than of racism.”

Given the extremely clear ethical teachings of Jesus, white supremacy must be called out as not only a social evil but also a theological heresy. In Dr. Anthea Butler’s essential White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America, she writes, “Because of racism, evangelical decency was lost, and evangelicals’ resentments grew.”

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” G. K. Chesterton

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” James Baldwin

The fundamentalists’ and nationalists’ Holy War has never been for Jesus, and it’s never been against Satan. It’s always just been a struggle for their own power.

Christian nationalists have always wielded faith as a tool of control and exclusion, prioritizing power and cultural preference over the words of Jesus. But Christ followers have always resisted these abuses and aligned themselves with the call to justice, mercy, and love.

Authentic Christianity puts the well-being of others first; it defends the persecuted, and serves rather than rules.

In a world of division and power struggles, the only authentic path forward for Christianity is reclaiming the essence of Jesus’s teachings—challenging systems of injustice, caring for the struggling, and embodying love in word, deed, and policy.

Everyone reading this probably knows someone who’s a captive of toxic Christianity. For many of us, these aren’t faceless crazed zealots and nationalists; they’re our neighbors, coworkers, old friends, family members. We can’t despise them back. We just can’t. We’re called to be compassionate to these folks, to never give up on love, empathy, or critical thinking to reach them.

growth is not to be answered with smug liberal “I told ya so’s.”

This struggle against hypocrisy and spiritual thuggery won’t be fought by politicians. It’ll be won by ordinary people, calmly proving that hate is not a Christian value—at their jobs, over the family dinner table, and on social media.

Authentic Christianity doesn’t seek dominance, but transformation. Jesus of the Bible is constantly telling you to go beyond your religion’s rules into a deeper kind of love.