Separation of Church and Hate Quotes

“Spiritual people use religion to become better people. Fundamentalists use religion to pretend they’re better than other people.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

“But Christian nationalists are here to fight for Jesus—not listen to him.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“Under Rome, Christianity transitioned from a persecuted little faith into a force powerful enough to persecute others. Once the empire got their hands on Jesus’s movement, they enacted huge changes in its theology, narrative, organization, and relationship with political power. Gone was the simple, direct message of love from the homeless Jewish faith healer. In its place sprung up new hierarchies, ecclesiastical institutions, and endless dogma and doctrines. More importantly, the merger of Christianity with imperial power led to it becoming a tool for political control, with countless spiritual teachings twisted for authoritarian purposes. Emperor Theodosius issued a series of decrees that enforced Christian rule—and suppressed pagan practices. As religion merged with empire, pagan temples were destroyed, pagans were executed for heresy, and marginalized pagans faced persecution for not conforming to the new normal. Jesus’s movement was now officially being used to justify violence, oppression, and authoritarian control.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“In focusing on what cannot be proven, many Christians fall into the trap of a Christianity that’s more about defending the supernatural than embodying the moral teachings of Jesus. 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.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“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.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“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.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“Not only are Christians supposed to prioritize following Jesus’s words above the other parts of the Bible, that’s also quite literally why this religion got its name.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

“The New Covenant established by Jesus marks a massive shift from the religious law and customs Jesus was raised with, to a different kind of faith-based user experience. It’s Jesus’s software update, from Law 1.0 to Love 1.0. Calling oneself “Christian” is to accept the new terms and conditions.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

“Trump defenders may be intrigued to know that while Jesus never once condemned abortions, immigrants, or gay people, he was seriously not a fan of adultery, and spoke out against the divorce laws of Moses because he thought it should be harder for men to dump their wives.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

“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.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

“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 all these dramas for the rest of humanity.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

“And I was taught—relentlessly—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.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

“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.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“Kristin Kobes Du Mez is professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University and author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. I asked her about this Christian obsession with power. “Conservative evangelicals have tended to prioritize interpretations that justify exercising power over others—men’s power over women, and Christians’ power over society,” Du Mez says. “Many theologians argue that Jesus rejected this approach to power. He emptied himself and refused to claim earthly power, which was very much within his reach. He said the first must be last, and that to follow him meant to take up one’s cross, to sacrifice oneself for others. These are hard teachings, however. If you want to build a movement and claim power for yourself, these teachings will get in the way.” Christian nationalists want the US to be a Christian nation, but they don’t want to follow the words of Christ. It’s like irony and hypocrisy having violent hate-sex. It’s also the culmination of what Rome did to the Jesus movement—the triumph of Christian dominance over Christ teachings. And because Christian nationalists believe that God really does support anything they do, they’re quite possibly the most dangerously entitled non-billionaires in America today.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“We’ve all known conservatives who were capable of being inclusive. Right-wing people, not so much. But Jesus was a revolutionary, and calling out the ultraconservative hypocrites among the religious authorities is part of what led to his death.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“Imagine the hecklers: “Meh, I didn’t trudge all the way up Mount of Beatitudes just to hear some virtue signaling from Woke Jesus.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“Jesus was: A peaceful, radically nonviolent revolutionary Who wasn’t American and never spoke English Who hung around lepers, hookers, and crooks Never sought tax cuts for rich Nazarenes Was anti-wealth and anti–death penalty Anti–public prayer, too (Matthew 6:5) Never asked lepers for a co-pay Never called poor people “lazy” Never even slightly antigay Never mentioned abortion Supported paying taxes”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“Jesus’s admonition to not look on women lustfully is not anti-sex—it’s anti–sexual harassment.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

“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.”
― john fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

“If you want to trigger and enrage Christian nationalists, Jesus will show the way. Stand up for the oppressed, welcome the stranger, love your enemy, fight poverty and injustice, resist violence, and choose compassion. Or just ask them which Jesus teachings justify their politics.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“apart from a “Year of our Lord,” the Constitution doesn’t mention God, Jesus, or the Bible in any way. The First Amendment explicitly prohibits any national religion. The Establishment Clause stops the government from ever favoring one faith over another, and the Free Exercise Clause protects individuals’ rights to practice their religion without undue government meddling.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“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.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“a movement that manages to gloss over the well-documented wishes of both the founding fathers and Jesus in equal measure.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“If anyone’s trying to use the Bible to justify any meanness to LGBTQ people, they’ve always got to go around Jesus. Being gay is natural; hating gay is a lifestyle choice. And unlike being gay, homophobia is highly curable.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“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.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

“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. But conservative power was what Jesus stood up to—not for—time and time again:”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“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.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“Any Christian individual or group who advocates, engages in, or justifies violence directly rejects Jesus’s unglamorous, deeply unsexy teachings of non-retaliation and love. Jesus blessed the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9) and taught reconciliation (Matthew 5:23–24). His true followers are instructed to live in peace with everyone (Romans 12:18).”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“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.”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate

“Jesus modeled servant leadership, washing his disciples’ feet and teaching that the greatest among his followers should be the servant of all”
― John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate