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John Fugelsang
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- [01:05]
Peter Ogburn
Hey everybody, we got a great one today. You know, for a change, John Fugelsang is my guest author of the New York Times best selling book Separation of Church and Hate. It's about Jesus and what he actually said in the New Testament, you know, about feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger instead of cutting snap and deporting undocumented immigrants who've been here for years and work and obey the law. You may know john from his SiriusXM show tell me Everything, his podcast, the John Fugelsang Podcast and his standup comedy Separation of Church and Hate puts a lie to so much of MAGA right wing Christianity. Jesus, as you know, did his thing in Israel and this past week we finally had a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the return of the hostages and the exchange of the Palestinian prisoners. So a great week, a hopeful week for peace after two years of brutal war. And yes, Trump deserves credit and hopefully the other 18 or 19 points of the peace deal will come through and we can bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians and arrive at a two state solution. Now about John Pugilsang and his book about what Jesus really preached. Now I'm proudly Jewish, but I've never been a very religious person. In high school I went to an all boys school. It had originally been a school for Protestant boys and the day started every day with chapel, including a Protestant hymn at the beginning and one at the end. So being Jewish I didn't sing the hymns. Well the first week my math teacher, Mr. Lundholm at the end of class says will Mr. Franken, stay behind. No, I was really good at math, or at least second year algebra, and thought he was going to pay me a compliment. But instead he said, I noticed you didn't sing the hymns in chapel. And I said, well, I'm Jewish, so I don't sing the Protestant hymns. And he says, you want to get into a good college, right? And I said, yeah, and you're going to need good math grades. And so the next morning in chapel, I was singing along with the hymns. A mighty fortress is our God A bulwark never failing and still our ancient foe does seek to work us woe his craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate on earth is not his equal. Well, Mr. Lundholm was as good as his word. I got an A in math and ended up at the college of my choice. Well, this is one of my first direct contacts with a Christian jerk. And Peter, you've talked about growing up in the Southern Baptist Church, right?
- [04:29]
Peter (Guest or Co-host)
Yes, indeed. Yeah, I went there for many years as a young man.
- [04:34]
Peter Ogburn
Well, you left the church at one point. Can you tell the story about that?
- [04:39]
Peter (Guest or Co-host)
It was quite a controversy in my house, actually. This was in the 90s. There was a doctor who provided abortions in Florida. And this was kind of a national news story. The guy's name was David Gunn. And a fundamentalist waited for him outside of his clinic and shot and killed him. And it was national news.
- [05:04]
Peter Ogburn
I remember this.
- [05:05]
Peter (Guest or Co-host)
It was national news. And I had. I was 13 or 14 at the time. And I had a teacher, a Sunday school teacher, who told us, well, you have to consider all of the lives of the unborn that that fundamentalist murderer saved by killing this abortion doctor. So before you shed any tears for this murdered man, think about all of the lives that he's taken from these unborn babies.
- [05:41]
Peter Ogburn
That.
- [05:42]
Peter (Guest or Co-host)
That was the first time that I realized that I was in a very unhealthy religious environment.
- [05:51]
Peter Ogburn
And so you told your parents you were going to quit the church, right?
- [05:55]
Peter (Guest or Co-host)
Yeah, I went to my parents and. Well, it was complicated, I have to say. I went to my parents and I said, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to go to this church. I can't go to this church. This is awful.
- [06:08]
John Fugelsang
Awful.
- [06:10]
Peter (Guest or Co-host)
And I remember my parents had. They needed a couple of days to figure out what they were going to do with me. And their solution was, they said, okay, listen, as long as you're living in this house, you will go to a church. You don't have to go to this Church, but you have to go to a church. And so that was the compromise. And I ended up going to the Methodist church, which for a Southern Baptist it might have, well has been the church of Satan. Everybody was very scandalous that I would dare go to a Methodist church.
- [06:49]
Peter Ogburn
I remember you've told the story once on the show and didn't they have a dance?
- [06:57]
Peter (Guest or Co-host)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Actually. So we went on this kind of youth retreat and it was two nights away and there were lots of speakers and lots of Bible study and at the end of it all they had a big dance and it was, you know, they had a bunch of pizza and, you know, sodas and, and all the kids could get together and dance. And I just remember thinking again, it was like I was probably, again, I was 14 or so at this time. I'd never seen anything like this in a church function. It totally blew my mind. And it reminds me, I don't know if I should tell this joke or not.
- [07:38]
John Fugelsang
Al.
- [07:39]
Peter Ogburn
Yeah, go ahead. We'll see, we'll see.
- [07:42]
Peter (Guest or Co-host)
It reminds me of my favorite joke, which is, why don't Southern Baptists have sex standing up?
- [07:50]
Peter Ogburn
Why?
- [07:51]
Peter (Guest or Co-host)
Because people might think you're dancing.
- [07:57]
Peter Ogburn
Well, I think Mr. Lundholm might not have been as bad as some Southern Baptists and I'm sure there's a lot of great Southern Baptists. But John Fuglesang's book Separation of Church and Hate is all about what Jesus really said as opposed to what the Christian right said he said. So let's go to my conversation with John. It's a great one, you know.
- [08:24]
John Fugelsang
For a change.
- [08:30]
Peter Ogburn
Okay. Well John, welcome to the show.
- [08:33]
John Fugelsang
Thank you so much, sir.
- [08:34]
Peter Ogburn
We're here today to talk about your, your new book, Separation of Church and Hate. A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists and Flock Fleecing. There's a lot of flock fleecing in churches.
- [08:54]
John Fugelsang
Oh yes.
- [08:57]
Peter Ogburn
This book is really about the difference between what far right Christians say Jesus stood for and what he actually said and taught.
- [09:09]
John Fugelsang
Yes, sir, that is the case. The only thing that Donald Trump and Jesus really have in common are they spent a lot of time around prostitutes and they both use ghostwriters and that's really the end of it. The only way to follow those two is if you've never read either of their books. And I wrote this book for believers of all faiths and atheists, an agnostics and anyone, I'm forgetting anyone who's ever going to have to deal with a right wing Christian fundamentalist or Christian nationalist in their job, their family, their. Their. Their social media feed or their government. And it's a guide to everything the right wing gets wrong. And how even if you don't believe in Jesus on most of the issues that divide us, if you're opposing a Christian nationalist, Jesus is probably on your side.
- [10:02]
Peter Ogburn
I have a confession to make. I'm Jewish. That's not the confession. My confession is that I know hardly anything about Jesus. And I learn more about Jesus from your book than from anything I've ever Learned in my 74 years before that. My rabbi in Minnesota, growing up, said to us Jesus was a great prophet who said a lot of wonderful things none of them knew. And of course, that's not true. Your book is really all about what Jesus said and didn't say as well. But there's a lot of new stuff in there.
- [10:44]
John Fugelsang
Yeah, well, I just go by what's actually in the book. I had a curiously Christian upbringing.
- [10:50]
Peter Ogburn
Yeah, let's talk about that. It's pretty interesting. Your mom is a nun. She was when she was 18, right?
- [11:02]
John Fugelsang
Yes, sir. Yes.
- [11:03]
Peter Ogburn
And from the South.
- [11:05]
John Fugelsang
Yes, sir.
- [11:06]
Peter Ogburn
And your dad was a. See, this is what I. A Franciscan brother. Is that what it is? Yes. Okay.
- [11:14]
John Fugelsang
Yes.
- [11:15]
Peter Ogburn
What is that? I don't know what that is.
- [11:17]
John Fugelsang
The Franciscans were an Irish order of Catholic brothers that came over to New York in the 1800s to open up schools. And they're mostly known for being teachers. My dad taught at St. Francis Prep in Brooklyn, New York. And, and you know, he. They wore the clerical collar, but the brothers mainly walk around like the lost Jedi knights of Flatbush in the big brown robes and the. And the rope belt. So my image brother and my. My mother was a sister, and he fell madly in love with this nun. Couldn't tell her the convent sent her off to work as a nurse with lepers in Malawi. And he stayed behind to be pen pals and, and, and have a very chaste friendship for 10 years until he finally talked her into leaving the convent and, and going on a date. And. It's a long story, but they, they tried to raise us to be progressive, free thinking Catholics, albeit very sexually repressed. You know, I was raised like, like millions thinking that Christianity was supposed to be about the stuff that the famous Jewish carpenter from the book talked about, and he's rather unambiguous in his commandments. Jesus says in Matthew 25 that individuals and nations will be judged heaven or hell, by how they take care of the poor, take care of the sick, welcome the stranger and how kind they are to people in prison. Jesus went on to ban the death penalty and overturn a lot of the laws of Moses while reforming Judaism from within. He never stopped being Jewish. And you know, the whole movement was supposed to be about love and empathy and forgiveness and, and how do I help the least of these? And how do I walk in humility and how do I help marginalized people? And as, as you well know, there's a large disconnect between what Jesus talked about and what some of his louder, authoritarian, unauthorized fan clubs fight for. And I wrote this book to talk about what Christianity started out as, what it turned into, and why the best parts of it are still worth fighting for. Even though if you quote Jesus directly, you'll be probably called woke by a Republican because they like to worship this guy. They like to fight for this guy. They don't like to listen to this guy.
- [13:39]
Peter Ogburn
Yeah, they don't. They don't take in what he said. They. That's a lot of what the book is, is like on homosexuality, right?
- [13:48]
John Fugelsang
Yes, sir.
- [13:50]
Peter Ogburn
That in Leviticus there's prohibition against homosexuality, and that's in the Old Testament. But Jesus doesn't speak to it at all, but Paul does. And a lot of times in your book, Paul kind of says stuff that isn't what Jesus is thinking.
- [14:11]
John Fugelsang
Yeah, we have these people, these, anybody but Jesus Christians. And when Jesus won't allow them to be hateful to the gays, they can go back to Leviticus, which they don't follow. Leviticus was, as you know, it's a tribe for the Hebrews when they've escaped bondage in Egypt to keep their numbers up and keep faithfulness in the wilderness for 40 years. That's why the prohibitions about sex in Leviticus are all about, you know, keep reproducing, don't hook up with guys, don't have sex on your period, don't have incest. They all kind of are jiving around the fact that, hey, we're, we're looking for our homeland. We have to keep making babies. It's not about being mean to gay people. There's no instances in the Bible where anyone's ever documented as being stoned to death for being gay. But that's the law. That's what a lot of these Christians claim they live by. Leviticus 20:10 commands you to stone adulterers to death. And I don't see too many of these people bringing rocks to Mar a Lago. Thank goodness. That would be wrong to do. But it just kind of shows they. They don't really follow this book, Mr. Franken. And then Paul has some sex hangups and Paul has hang ups about women. Jesus has none of that. Homophobia is technically not allowed under the Sermon on the Mount.
- [15:24]
Peter Ogburn
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- [17:49]
John Fugelsang
Yes, we're taught that his young slave. And in the film Jesus of Nazareth, Ernest Borgnine plays the centurion very convincingly. The centurion is occupying Judea. The Jews do not have freedom in their own homeland, and these guys are despised. The centurions are the ones who actually go on to kill Jesus. A lot of us are taught that was the Jews, that was very much the Roman Empire, who had all the power and executed him. And the centurion comes up and says, we're taught, hey, my slave is dying. Will you come to the house and heal him? And Jesus is like, wow, you have faith, already healed. It's a nice story about how Jesus loves everyone, even pagan colonizers. But it's interesting. I learned a long time ago that in the original Greek, the word used wasn't slave. It was a word called pais, which means beloved boy. And when we know, think about the Romans. We know very often they leave their wives at home and bring along a young boy for pleasure on the road. This was a common thing. A lot of Paul's prohibitions against homosexuality. You're probably him being against Roman male temple prostitution based on the translations. It also shows why the apostles were probably thrilled that Jesus is healing the, the male lover of an occupying general. But it goes to show how Jesus doesn't have any hang ups. And when you think about it, why would an occupying general seek out a local homeless, Jewish mystic faith healer to come to his house for a common slave unless that person meant a lot more to him? So again, I'm not saying we know for sure he's a guy, but the evidence in the story, if we're taking it seriously, certainly indicates that. And it's more proof that homophobia is not compatible. But again, these right wing Christians, Mr. Franken, they don't care about the stuff Jesus talked about.
- [19:40]
Peter Ogburn
You talk to right wing Christians a lot and have nice conversations. You're always nice with them, right?
- [19:47]
John Fugelsang
I try, I do try to.
- [19:49]
Peter Ogburn
Yeah.
- [19:50]
John Fugelsang
And then you're. You, you taught me a lot about that.
- [19:53]
Peter Ogburn
I did.
- [19:55]
John Fugelsang
So.
- [19:56]
Peter Ogburn
But when you don't tell this story, you don't tell the centurion story. I think that's a little bit.
- [20:03]
John Fugelsang
No, I'll go through Leviticus. I'll say to them, because I wrote the book as a way to debate these people. And I'll, and I'll say, you know, there's no chapter of the Bible, there's no book of the Bible that you yourself follow that says being gay is a sin. You want to say Leviticus, well then you, you have to stone people to death for working on Saturday. I'm sorry, nascar, if these are the rules, like Christians don't follow this, but they'll weaponize a part of the Bible that they don't believe in or don't follow just to hurt a minority group that Jesus commands them to love. Because what their religion is, is power. They don't really care about the teachings of Christ. They don't care about religious freedom, they don't care about Satan. They, they care about conservative Christian domination of society. And if they wanted to stop abortion, they'd fight for more birth control. They'd fight for greater access to birth control and more sex ed. They need the issue. If they wanted immigration to stop, they'd lock up the employers, make it a felony for one year. You hire an undocumented work. They won't do it. They need the issue.
- [21:08]
Peter Ogburn
Isn't the whole thing welcome the stranger.
- [21:10]
John Fugelsang
I mean, I, that's it. God commands it. As you know, in the Hebrew scriptures, God's not ambiguous.
- [21:16]
Peter Ogburn
I don't know in the Hebrew scriptures, you got to understand that.
- [21:22]
John Fugelsang
I grew up on Long island, so I wanted to convert my whole childhood.
- [21:26]
Peter Ogburn
Yeah, well, I grew up in Minnesota and there are a lot of, you know, a lot of my friends took, went to Hebrew school, bar mitzvah. I wasn't, and I'm, you know, embarrassed to say that I, I really was never all that interested in religion. I, I, you know, I didn't, I didn't learn Hebrew and it wasn't bar mitzvah. But I was always interested in politics and the role that religion plays in politics, which is why the subject of your book, separation of church and hate interests.
- [21:56]
John Fugelsang
Would you, would you say that being culturally Jewish is what helped make you funny and what made you interested in the politics of empathy?
- [22:04]
Peter Ogburn
Yeah, yeah, Right on.
- [22:08]
John Fugelsang
You got the best parts. Then. Congratulations. None of the guilt.
- [22:12]
Peter Ogburn
I remember when Jimmy Carter was elected president and he won a majority of the evangelical vote and, you know, being an obviously very devout evangelical and from the south, and I was surprised when Reagan, I wasn't surprised Reagan won, but I was, I was surprised that he flipped the evangelical vote in 1980. And ever since then, Republicans have dominated the evangelical vote and particularly the far right Christian vote. And your book is largely about taking issue with the Christian right's understanding of who Jesus is and what he really said and meant and stood for.
- [22:58]
John Fugelsang
And the way they did that with Reagan was by making criminalizing abortion the top issue of evangelical Christianity. In the seventies, our, our friends on the right were kind of adrift. Jerry Falwell had been a segregationist, and after civil rights and Nixon, they sort of lost their mojo. Throughout the 70s, the biggest issue of the evangelicals was that Jimmy Carter's IRS was going after universities that still practiced racial segregation. And it wasn't a very sexy issue by the late 70s, but. And when Roe v. Wade was decided by the court, there Was no controversy. Jerry Falwell never mentioned it for five years in a sermon. No one cared at the time. It wasn't controversial. By the late 70s, they began to realize, hey, maybe this could be the issue. And so Ronald Reagan, who as governor had signed the most liberal abortion law in California state history, suddenly became deeply against it when he asked George H.W. bush to be his running mate. Overnight, George Bush became anti abortion rights.
- [24:03]
Peter Ogburn
And. And his family had been, oh, pro choice. Always pro choice.
- [24:07]
John Fugelsang
Yeah, yeah. He himself had been. And now because of this, for 45 years, what we've had on the right in this country is two generations of Christian who have been raised to prioritize criminalizing abortion, which Jesus never talked about. Over all the things Jesus actually talked about. And homophobia and abortion. Again, not things that Jesus talked about. But they came to define evangelical Christianity and politics for the 80s and beyond. And it's all based on stuff that Jesus never said. The stuff he actually said, welcome a stranger, end the death penalty, pay your taxes, forgive your enemies. That stuff. You'll get called woke if you quote it. And you had mentioned the abortion thing. The Judaism's not against abortion. And abortions are legal and free in Israel now because the Bible never bans it. And if you believe that the Bible's the living word of God, then you have to believe that God never wanted any of his prophets or Moses or Elijah or Paul or anybody to say anything banning abortion or say what the penalty for ending a pregnancy is. I'm not saying the Bible's pro abortion, but it certainly is not against it. And this is how they've consolidated power again. If they wanted to reduce abortion, have more birth control, but they don't care about reducing it. They just want the power.
- [25:31]
Peter Ogburn
Yeah, I have sex education in schools.
- [25:35]
John Fugelsang
Amen.
- [25:36]
Peter Ogburn
Yeah. Let's go back to what all the stuff I didn't know, Okay. I didn't know, for instance, that Jesus was only proselytizing for about three years before he was crucified.
- [25:52]
John Fugelsang
Yeah, it was a very short gig. Most Christians, you know, are just focused on the manger and the miracles and the cross and not the three years he spent teaching and giving commandments and talking about what a nation would actually have to do to earn the label of Christian nation. But yeah, I mean, we focus on the miracles in the society, and I'm all for that. Look, the miracles are always the best parts in those Jesus movies they make us watch. I get it. But they don't teach us why his politics were revolutionary. They don't teach us how women were essentially property and how he broke the laws of his own faith by teaching women and treating them as equals. You know, we're taught about healing the blind, and that's great, but the truth is that the character of Jesus, whether he's real or not, his words are as threatening to authority now as they were 2,000 years ago.
- [26:42]
Peter Ogburn
Let me ask you about that. What do you believe? Do you believe Jesus was real or not? And this has to do with how this book was written? And what do you believe?
- [26:54]
John Fugelsang
Do you believe?
- [26:56]
Peter Ogburn
Is he your. What do you call him, personal savior or.
- [27:01]
John Fugelsang
I guess you're actually the first person to ask me this question.
- [27:04]
Peter Ogburn
Really?
- [27:05]
John Fugelsang
Yeah. Which is surprising. You know, here's what I think. I think that the opposite of faith is not doubtful. Doubt's an important part of any faith journey. The opposite of faith is certainty. And that's why fundamentalists scare me, because they don't think they're better than you. They know that God thinks they're better than you. For me, I can tell you what I believe, but I also believe I don't have a right to impose that on anyone. I can say, sure, I'll believe Jesus is the son of God. That's what I was raised with. I'll believe the miracles and the resurrection, okay, But I have faith in it. I'm not going to walk around claiming I get to set policy because of my superstitions that I was raised with. I don't get to impose that on anyone. The founders were very specific about this and, and Jesus was very specific about it all too. So, I mean, I think if people take Jesus literally, well, then you, you take his teachings literally. But you'll never see our right wing friends try to post Jesus quotes on the side of a schoolhouse or a courthouse because his words are as threatening to authoritarian power now as they were 2,000 years ago. And on the immigration thing you mentioned before, God commands us in the Old Testament to welcome the stranger, treat the alien as one of our own. Jesus says that we'll be judged as a nation and as individuals by how we welcome the stranger. So my question always is to right wing friends, why should I listen to you and Donald Trump and reject God and Jesus? Like, I think you don't need to fight these people. You can make them argue with their own holy book. They probably haven't read it. So if you know enough about the scripture and each topic, you can get them to debate their own prop they use. And you don't have to fight them. Your yourself.
- [28:46]
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- [29:08]
John Fugelsang
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- [29:15]
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- [29:45]
Peter Ogburn
What would Jesus have thought? Let's talk about some the Trump administration, specifically stuff like cutting off all the aid to usaid. Yeah, Jesus says befeeding the hungry, healing the sick. I mean that food and medicine being wasted means millions of people have or will die.
- [30:13]
John Fugelsang
Yes, it's already in the thousands. I mean, to say nothing of the folks who will no longer get their AIDS and HIV drugs because of Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Yeah, I mean they're consigning people to death. Our our pro life friends are very comfortable with these people, many of whom are Christians, dying horribly starving, not having their medication because hey, that's government waste. Right. And when you've convinced people to not view others as human, it's very easy to make Christians commit all kinds of atrocities. We've got plenty of evidence of this in history. It's also why, you know, they want to call migrants illegals, because if you don't think of them as people and call them illegals, well, I think Germany showed us you can get a whole population to not mind human rights abuses. I call them Christian refugees because that pisses off the right people. But in the case of usaid, it's abominable. I mean, Christians should be the ones leading the fight to bring aid overseas to the less fortunate. Christians should be the ones greeting migrants at the border with water and blankets. I mean, if you believe what's actually.
- [31:23]
Peter Ogburn
In the book, well, what would Jesus immigration policy be? Would he believe in open borders or.
- [31:32]
John Fugelsang
Well, I mean, the last president to believe in open borders, I think, was Ronald Reagan and Amnesty of Course Reagan said let them come over and go home when they're done. That's why he used the language open borders. We have a president now who's hired undocumented immigrants in two different centuries illegally because he didn't feel like paying American workers a living wage. Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue was built by undocumented Polish workers. So Donald Trump's never really had a problem with this if it helps him save a buck and not have to pay us workers. But yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's unambiguously anti Jesus and I mean USAID is such a crystal example. The whole mission of Jesus is service and humility, constantly servant leadership. The last shall be first. Right. Looking out for marginalized classes class. Jesus was not about total right wing domination of your government and the media and the local school board. And God bless Mr. Charlie Kirk. I've spent a lot of time on his website. Never seen anything from Turning Point USA about helping the poor. I've never seen anything from the right wing evangelical groups about helping the sick. I mean that's why so many, the church built so many hospitals once upon a time because Jesus commanded us to heal the sick, that it was like considered to be the reason why you got to build hospitals. Now they've succeeded like they did against Dr. King at just calling any kind of actual Christian policy Marxism.
- [33:03]
Peter Ogburn
Yeah. I'm Charlie Kirk. You know, obviously we condemn horrible. A horrible tragedy.
- [33:11]
John Fugelsang
Awful. And I hoped that this would make some of our friends want to do more to stop gun violence. I, I think it's tragic that, that, that Charlie, who I had my tussles with. But you know, I, I used to think a lot of awful things that I grew out of. And I think it's so sad that Charlie's not going to get to have a black friend or a trans friend or a gay friend and get to expand his mind and expand his heart. And, and I think that it's, you know, I, I, I think that's one of the many tragedies about it. And it was so preventable and, and it was more white conservative on white conservative violence. And again like Jesus does not allow you.
- [33:49]
Peter Ogburn
We're not sure who the assassin is in terms of their motivation.
- [33:53]
John Fugelsang
Correct. You're right. The alleged person who was raised in a Republican family. But again, we don't know his motivation. And it's also more scary that we seem to be in this era of political terrorism that's not really have any ideological teams. Luigi Mangione and the guy who Shot at Donald Trump, like all political acts of terrorism, but none of them did it on behalf of an ideology. And again, if you're going to follow.
- [34:17]
Peter Ogburn
Melissa Hortman in Minnesota, that was very ideological. That was totally ideological.
- [34:24]
John Fugelsang
Yeah. That was very much the right against the left. Burning down Josh Shapiro's mansion is very much kidnapping Gretchen Whitmer. I mean, we've got plenty examples of right against left violence, but. And I think we're very eager to say, oh, it's not one of mine, but we have to be mindful. This algorithm is making young men crazy. And, and there's a lot of guys making money off us hating each other. And we have to be ready for these. These shootings that don't fit into a neat binary left or right column.
- [34:51]
Peter Ogburn
You know, we got him on Charlie Kirk. You know, he said some terrible things. I mean, he did.
- [34:57]
John Fugelsang
He did.
- [34:58]
Peter Ogburn
Well, some of the stuff he said. He said, if I see a black pilot, I'm going to be like, boy, I hope he's qualified.
- [35:05]
John Fugelsang
Yeah. I mean, it's idolatry to, you know, act like one race is better than another. If you believe the part of the Bible that says all men and women are created in God's image, then, I mean, white supremacy is de facto anti Christian, not just unchristian. It's. It's anti Christian. Again, this. This. This guy, he said these things, they're going to be there forever. He's. He's. He's never going to get a chance to grow beyond them. And. And that's why I think, I take it as a lesson that we've all got to keep on trying to. Trying to love deeper and love better and understand better.
- [35:38]
Peter Ogburn
Did I ask out how the Bible is written? No, you didn't. I started to, I think, because in it, you say it was an oral tradition or started that way, I mean, originally.
- [35:49]
John Fugelsang
And they were eventually written down in Hebrew and Aramaic and Latin and Greek and rewritten many times and rewritten by aging scribes, by candlelight. And there were errors in the copies, and there were copies made of those copies with the errors in them. And eventually, you know, Council of Nicaea. 300 years after Jesus and Paul dies, Rome takes over. That's what happens. They take over the operation of a guy. They killed Confederates, killed Lincoln and tried to take over the Republican Party. And Romans killed Jesus, took over his operation. And once they did, they decided which of these Bible stories were canon and which weren't. So they took all of Paul's letters where he was setting up the early church and writing to his proteges in different towns and talking about what the Scriptures meant. And they said, okay, Paul's. Paul's letters are now holy Scripture as well. So suddenly, Paul's letters about holy scripture are actual holy scripture. I say in the book, it's like if they decided that if Roger Ebert's review of the Godfather was deemed to officially be part of the Godfather screenplay. And so Paul's commentaries become holy Scripture, Paul's homophobia and his misogyny become part of the New Testament. And it allows 2,000 years of people to be bigoted and just say, well, it's in the Bible because they consider Paul to be as meaningful as God or Jesus, because they don't read the book that deeply. But it's undergone so many revisions. The word homosexual was never added until after World War II. And we're told this is the absolute, undiluted hundred proof word of God. It's a big game of telephone tag. And if it is God's word, God didn't want any of us to ever see any of the original copies.
- [37:33]
Peter Ogburn
What you're doing in your book is pointing out these contradictions. And in many cases, this isn't just, you know, something got in that shouldn't have gotten in. And there was no answer to it, but that the actual response is there.
- [37:50]
John Fugelsang
I mean, Mary Magdalene's never called a prostitute in the Bible, but Pope Gregory decided she was, and then it stuck.
- [37:57]
Peter Ogburn
Oh, yeah. One thing you have in your book is that the 12 apostles accompany Jesus, but also some women. Yeah, tell us about that.
- [38:10]
John Fugelsang
The chapter that moved me the most to write was about feminism and this character of Jesus. And it was illegal at the time to teach women women couldn't really hold jobs. They had no inheritance rights. Women were property. Menstruation was weaponized against women. They were made to feel disgusting and told they were unclean and ritually impure. And Jesus shows up, treats women as equals, and brings three women everywhere with him. And the 12, Mary Magdalene and Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus. Scorsese in his movie, made them apostles. But the men who wrote the Bible decided that women don't count as people. So it's 12 apostles and three groupies. And as you read on, you learn that women actually were the sponsors of Jesus's ministry. They were like the executive producers. It was wealthy women who had money who were supporting them.
- [39:05]
Peter Ogburn
Given their station at that time, how did they have that money?
- [39:09]
John Fugelsang
Marriage. Marriage often. Often to Romans. And so wealthy women decided to throw their money around and this guy was very popular with women. And when you read the Bible, you understand why time after time, he goes against the laws of his own culture to treat women as equals and to break taboo. And even though he never has sex that we know of, he is a hero to women and really treats them as equals. I mean, time and time again, the story of the woman who was bleeding for 12 years. We're told this as a kid and it's a great Sam Cooke song. But like, this woman was ritually impure in the eyes of God because she hadn't been able to stop her bleeding. She ventures out into the crowd, and it's a famous story. She touches the hem of Jesus's garment and he says, oh, you're healed. And yay. But in the context of the times, this woman was breaking every law. She wasn't allowed to be in public. And by touching Jesus, she made him ritually unclean in the eyes of God. So if you're conservative, you want to condemn a person like this. Jesus doesn't care that she broke all these laws. He says, daughter, you're healed. It's the only time he ever calls anybody daughter. And this is a woman who was ritually unclean in the eyes of God. She violates the taboo and Jesus breaks it for good. Consistently, consistently goes out of his way to elevate women. And then Paul comes along and says they have to be subservient and they can never have power over man. And the next 2,000 years kind of speaks for itself.
- [40:43]
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- [41:05]
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- [41:42]
Peter Ogburn
Now, these miracles, okay, so you believe them, right?
- [41:48]
John Fugelsang
Or, or Not I, I, I, I don't care. I, My attitude, you don't care? I don't need them to be real. I, I have to believe, I'm sure. But to me, it's, it's not about that. I don't really see how you. I don't believe you spread a movement by forcing people to have coerced belief in 2000-year-old supernatural accounts. I mean, the miracles are great. They're great in the movies, but, I mean, it's the teachings of Jesus that define the ideology. And again, it's the teachings of what scares authoritarian leadership, even now, just as they did back then. I mean, this guy was killed not because of the miracles. He was killed because a group of conservative religious authorities aligned with authoritarian government. That's what killed him, and that's what our democracy is up against now. I mean, healing the blind, great. But I'm not going to say that healing the blind is like, what the hell I'm going to die on. Sure, I believe it, but, But, I mean, I don't. It's not important to me. To me, what's important is the teachings about how we're supposed to treat each other, and that's the stuff that has been left aside while we romanticize the miracles.
- [42:52]
Peter Ogburn
Well, how is this time similar to that time in terms of fighting an authoritarian?
- [42:58]
John Fugelsang
Well, I think the regime speaks for itself and the authoritarian Christian bent in this country that has aligned with Donald Trump, despite the fact that Donald Trump does not fight for anything Jesus talked about. If you believe that Jesus wanted to criminalize abortion and that Jesus wants governments to force people to be pregnant against their will and persecute transgender kids and persecute migrants, then you think, Donald Trump's a great Christian, but that means you haven't really read the Bible. And Donald Trump got these folks not by promising to do anything. Jesus said. He never said, I will do it as our Lord commands on earth. Is it none of that? He promised them power. He played up the persecution narrative, said, you've been under siege so long, big league, I'm gonna put you on top. He didn't appeal to the better angels of their nature. He didn't say, we have to be kinder and more loving and do the things God commands. He said, you guys have it tough. I'm gonna put you above other people. And that's a very seductive message. He promised them power. But I ask my MAGA friends all the time to please tell me one teaching of Jesus that the Republican Party has fought for in this century or the Donald Trump and the maga movement fight for. And it's usually a great way to find out how little they know the actual Bible out.
- [44:16]
Peter Ogburn
And when you have these conversations, do you, what's the result? Do you, you don't convince. Are you convincing people or are they coming away a little bit more open minded?
- [44:27]
John Fugelsang
Well, my attitude is not to debate in a vacuum. I mean, I, I've learned a lot from how you do it civilly in front of an audience. And I always say you, you might not win them over at the cookout, but you'll reach their wives, you'll reach their kids. If you debate with civility and facts, you'll reach the other people at the cookout or the reunion. And I find that having grown up with a couple of really conservative families in the south and New York, you probably won't sway someone out of fundamentalism. One person can't do it. It takes many events. But I do find if you engage them on what's in scripture, if you meet them on those terms, very often they won't agree with you. But your right wing loved one or co worker might appreciate that you took the time to talk about what the Bible actually says and you can just say to them, this is what Jesus says. Where is it reflected in this policy? I find you get a lot farther with these folks by showing where Jesus wasn't an immigrant hating homophobe than if you just call your uncle an immigrant hating homophobe.
- [45:32]
Peter Ogburn
So now where, where can people find you? Now you have a. You're on SiriusXM.
- [45:39]
John Fugelsang
I'm on the progress channel five nights a week. We're also a free podcast called the John Fugelsang Podcast. That's like the highlights of last night's show for those who don't have serious. And I'm on tour doing standup around and I have a substack and the book is called Separation of Church and Hate. We are now in our second printing. I spent about 10 years trying to sell this book and being told by publisher after publisher that a book about. A book for non believers and believers about Jesus and politics. There's no audience and I'm very proud to say that we, we made the New York Times bestseller list our first three weeks and we're already in our second printing. So it tells me that, you know, there is an audience and I find that there's a lot of people out there who were raised religious and now consider themselves spiritual because they're so turned off to all the meanness and cruelty and hypocrisy. And I wrote this book for them.
- [46:36]
Peter Ogburn
Well, thank you for bringing it here and I recommend the book.
- [46:43]
John Fugelsang
Can I just take a moment to thank you as a first time author because Rush Limbaugh's A Big Fat Idiot is a great structured piece of work. I love why Not Me. Why Not Me is like the most underrated thing you've ever done. It is.
- [46:58]
Peter Ogburn
So thank you.
- [46:59]
John Fugelsang
Woody Allen levels of funny throughout it and, and the truth with jokes and lies in the Lying Liars. I mean, you have set a template for writing about politics with humor in such a way that I think is going to be imitated by people for a really long time. So thank you for the example you've set.
- [47:16]
Peter Ogburn
Well, thank you, Peter. Keep that.
- [47:18]
John Fugelsang
Absolutely.
- [47:19]
Peter Ogburn
Yeah. Okay. Well, good luck with this and see it crawl up to the top of the bestseller list.
- [47:28]
John Fugelsang
I thank you very much for letting me talk to your very attractive audience. And again, for someone like yourself who's done so much for policy and for civic governance, it's really a pleasure to come here and pontificate about gentile stuff for a while. So thank you.
- [47:45]
Peter Ogburn
Thank you. Well, I hope you enjoyed listening. That beautiful music is by Leo Kotke, the great Leo Kottke. I want to thank Peter Ogburn for producing this podcast. We'll talk again next week.
- [48:14]
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John Fugelsang
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- [48:44]
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