Now Reading: After I heard about the book, by Book News Expert Velshi, I immediately bought it... Read the Introduction and knew that this was enough for most people to decide, immediately, whether you wanted to read this book... I'll be reading as I do non-fiction books ongoing, but I wanted to get this out today... The author. John Fugelsang is a comedian... How better to read about this major issue, but with a little smile or two... God Bless, Gabby
Introduction
I’m here because two people broke a promise to God. My mother was born during the Depression in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Her name was Mary Margaret, but she always went by Peggy, and she entered the convent directly out of high school. Her prom date had asked her that night if she would marry him. She politely declined, gently informing the poor boy that she’d already made plans to marry someone else. At age eighteen, while other kids were still enjoying the 1950s, she joined the Daughters of Wisdom order. She ceased to be Mary Margaret and received her new name, Sister Damien. This was before the movie The Omen was released, but you can imagine the jokes she would’ve had to live with had things worked out differently. The convent put her through nursing school and then sent her to Africa, first to work with lepers, and then at a village hospital in Malawi. But before they sent her overseas to begin her new life, they briefly assigned her to Holy Family Hospital in Brooklyn, New York.
My father had been born in Brooklyn just a few months before her, and had become a Franciscan brother a year after graduating high school. He’d been working as a butcher at the Brooklyn fish market, and after losing half a finger, celibacy probably seemed like a step up. Upon entering the brotherhood, he ceased being Jack and became Brother Boniface. As a brother, he taught history to Catholic boys at St. Francis Prep, coached basketball, wore the robe and rope belt, and walked among the people like the Lost Jedi of Flatbush. My father, the brother, met my mother, the sister, when he entered Holy Family for tuberculosis treatment. By all accounts, he was instantly smitten by this quiet, Southern girl in a nun’s habit, a woman he knew he couldn’t have, and had promised God he would never want. She was reserved and came from the segregated South; he was all Brooklyn charm and passionate about civil rights in ways her Southern father was not. He was exactly one foot taller than her, and their strong Southern and Brooklyn regionalisms did not suggest any potential compatibility.
But they became friends, and when the convent sent Sister Damien to Malawi, Brother Boniface took it upon himself to write her letters—many letters—to innocently keep her informed of what was going on in the states—civil rights, Vietnam, and US politics. Her village had no TV or radio, so his letters became the de facto newspaper for the entire convent. Her Mother Superior would open his envelopes and read them aloud; Damien was often the last to read her own mail. Eventually, she returned—briefly—to the US. After ten years of hiding his feelings, poorly, my father eventually convinced her to leave the convent and go on a date. They were married two months later, in the chapel at Fort Story Army base in Virginia Beach.
They soon settled on Long Island and tried to raise us to be progressive, free-thinking, sexually repressed Catholics. Which is why I would eventually turn to stand-up comedy, as I could never afford the therapy I so deeply required.
SON OF A NUN
My brothers and I were raised in Bohemia, Long Island, listed in the Guinness Book under “Most Ironic Town Name.” If you knew what “bohemian” meant, you were probably the town bohemian. We were an extremely Catholic family. I’m pretty sure we had open-casket reunions. Lots of kids had to go to church twice a year. A few had to go every Sunday and give something up for Lent. We attended Catholic Mass every Sunday and every single holy day, even when that meant church after school. Skipping church was not an option—ever, for any reason—except extreme illness or if you were dying. And if it looked like you might die on a Sunday, then you’d still have to get to five o’clock Mass on Saturday night.
We learned all the Bible stories that kids are usually taught: Adam and Eve in the garden, Noah building the ark, Moses parting the Red Sea. The slaughter of the Midianites, where God commands Moses to kill all the men and nonvirgin women—but keep all the virgin girls—didn’t make its way into any of our illustrated children’s Bibles. My dad was a lector, CCD (like Sunday school, except rarely on Sundays and seldom in schools) teacher, and eucharistic minister at church; my Uncle Louis in Brooklyn was a Catholic deacon; my brother an altar boy. And when my mother became head nurse at a convent nursing home for her former order, there was a steady multicultural flow of elderly nuns in and out of our house. We said grace before every dinner and our prayers before bedtime. Whereas some kids were taught piano, my parents got me organ lessons. And to the best of my knowledge, I was the only child in Bohemia, Long Island, to have been baptized in his parents’ living room by a priest his mother had known in the jungles of Africa.
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. And go wash your hands, we’re leaving for Mass in five minutes.
My parents presented as Republicans, identified as Independents, and lived like closeted Democrats. Like most dads, mine was liberal in some ways and conservative in others. He maintained the same severely short haircut regardless of what decade he was in, flew the US flag outside our home, and believed God was love.
His overall parenting strategy was to guarantee that I’d be way too liberal to ever fit in with Christians and far too Christian to ever blend with liberals. And almost every therapist I’ve ever been able to afford has agreed that his plan worked perfectly. When I was very young, my father pulled me out of bed late one night to watch Jimmy Carter sign the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. He couldn’t believe an American Christian had helped bring peace to part of the Middle East, and he wanted his kid to witness Christian, Jew, and Muslim embracing each other. I was too sleepy and confused to even understand what I was seeing. Moshe Dayan had an eyepatch, which was cool, I guess. My father’s face convinced me of the moment’s significance. I had never seen him so happy. To him, this was everything Christianity—and America—could and should be.
I was lucky to grow up around large Catholic families in both Brooklyn and the South—and to have eventually married into a very sane Protestant family. I’ve been blessed with relations who’ve been White, Black, and Latino; gay and transgender; cops and convicts; military members, teachers, chefs, immigrants, DREAMers, and firefighters; hardcore right-wingers, reasonable Libertarians, compassionate lefties, and the happily politically apathetic. I’ve had Muslim cousins, Jewish in-laws, an atheist brother, and an ex-nun mother. I don’t get to hate anybody. Big families meant many reunions, many conservative relatives, many cans of beer. My dad would often debate loved ones on politics and scripture, in the same gregarious Brooklynite way he’d debated for years with his Franciscan housemates.
It exasperated my Southern mom, but everyone mostly loved each other, despite any differences in voting habits. I think many of us remember an America when family could disagree over politics while still generally getting along. Maybe yours still can. And I swear, it all seemed quite normal at the time. I had no idea growing up what Roe v. Wade was, nor did I know that the issue of abortion was splitting and redefining American Christianity. But when the Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority decided to make abortion their central political issue—half a decade after Roe v. Wade, by the way—the American church would never be the same. In the eighties and nineties, my father the social studies teacher always kept the news on. 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.
If you watched American TV news in the late twentieth century, you received a steady diet of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and all manner of ex-segregationists and blow-dried televangelists, all ranting about welfare queens, feminists, and AIDS patients. These right-wing Christian media stars preached the virtue of forcing poor pregnant women to give birth against their will, that they might experience substantially greater poverty and greater risk to their health. They warned us that any government programs that actually helped the poor were “communist.” They expressed outrage at protests against racism, while never denouncing actual racism. They always punched down—always attacking the poor, the addicts, the migrants at the border, and a gay minority they assured me the Bible condemned, somewhere.
Millions of American Christians were media-fed this version of Christianity. White supremacist. Pro-apartheid. Anti-labor. Zero teachings of Jesus. Offering only condemnation and propaganda, always seeking more power, and always needing more cash. Watching TV news was the first time I became aware of Christianity as a political force in my country, but it was a Christianity I couldn’t understand. I didn’t have the words to express it, but it was awkward to be told I was the same religion as these men. These were the fundamentalists, the power-hungry grifters who took advantage of the fact that most people don’t know the Bible all that well. They were charlatans, frauds, hypocrites, and villains. And they made for great TV. Within a decade, Christianity in US media culture would become synonymous with the criminalize-abortion movement and condemning gay people. And the fact that attacking abortion and gay people has nothing to do with the ministry and teachings of Jesus has never gotten in the way of the right-wing agenda. And apparently, the media’s still never been told.
My parents generally felt that some people had abortions too casually, but they would never vote for any politician who would take that right away. They never joined a political party but also never voted Republican (for “Jesus-based reasons”). Years later, my mother would tell me about hospitals pre-Roe, saying most nuns she’d worked with as nurses vigorously supported giving women the choice. But by the 1990s, if you told another young person you were “Christian,” they often presumed that you despised gay people and feminists and thought the government should force rape victims to be pregnant by their attacker.
BEHOLD, THE “SMALL C CHRISTIANS”
Now, some of my atheist friends like to say that religion is responsible for all the world’s hate, violence, sexism, homophobia, war, and oppression. In a 2018 US News and World Report survey of more than twenty-one thousand people from all regions of the world, the majority of respondents identified religion as the “primary source of most global conflict today.” And I can certainly understand why they feel that way. But they’re mistaken. 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.
The overwhelming majority of progressive, moderate, and even conservative Christians, Jews, and Muslims are getting along just fine, right now, in all corners of the earth—just trying to make their way through life and leave a better world for their kids. Of course, people from different backgrounds peacefully coexisting, working together, and building families, businesses, and communities in a drama-free way doesn’t attract much media attention. But the violent lunatics and bigots? They get the eyeballs and clicks, so they still get the coverage. 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. This powerful, profoundly white, well-funded, and growing movement seeks to impose a very narrow religious identity on our entire nation. And it all serves a deeply inspiring vision, where America gets to be a second-rate theocracy, like Iran, guided by ultraconservative values that just so happen to put their group first.
“Christian nationalism” is also becoming an umbrella term for all kinds of right-wing zealotry: The fundamentalists, who use faith as a cover for power and control. The spiritual bullies, convinced that they get to be as cruel and judgmental as they want because they already know for a fact they’re going to heaven. The Apocalypse worshippers, whose Bible is pretty much just Revelation duct-taped to a Left-Behind Book. Pious politicians who brag they’ve accepted Jesus as their savior, while actually only accepting him as their mascot. The Strapped Bro-Dudes for Jesus, worshiping a jacked-up, gun-toting, ass-kicking Alpha Christ, who doesn’t actually appear in the Jesus parts of the Bible. The Christian supremacists, who always believe violence is morally acceptable if it’s their side doing it. The Holy Haters, convinced that God despises the same people they do, including LGBTQ people, immigrants, academics, Muslims, Jews, the poor, foreigners in general, environmentalists, science believers, people who support women’s reproductive rights, people who think gun safety laws could maybe help save a few lives, racial minorities, liberals, organized labor, feminists, atheists, and/or anyone else they think God put here by accident. While many of these movements overlap, the general shared goal is societal control, under the guise of “defending Christianity.”
They don’t care about Jesus’s teachings or commandments. They’re not really concerned with “freedom of religion.” Their mission is earthly power, in the form of a Christian nation that’s controlled by their specific, Jesus-free take on the Bible. These groups are aggressively shaping our political discourse, cultural norms, and legislative priorities. They don’t like that they can’t control women anymore, and they’re terrified of becoming a minority in a country they believe they own. And our meanest Christians tend to piously and publicly worship Jesus as their King, because that’s considerably easier than following his inconvenient teachings. They fight for legislation that neglects the poor and vulnerable, defunding social welfare programs and criminalizing homelessness. They do this while prioritizing tax cuts for the wealthy, exacerbating poverty and inequality but never alleviating suffering. They weaponize scripture they themselves don’t follow against minorities they dislike. They preach nationalism over global compassion. And they often frame anyone who disagrees as “enemies of God.”
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. For many of our right-wing friends and neighbors, Jesus is three things—the manger, the miracles, and the cross—but never the three years he spent teaching, reforming, and explaining what a “Christian nation” would actually need to do to earn that label. Jesus modeled servant leadership, washing his disciples’ feet and teaching that the greatest among his followers should be the servant of all (John 13:1–17, Matthew 20:26–28). He was not about total right-wing domination of the school board. Many Americans can remember being raised in a Christianity that focused on love, forgiveness, and service—the values of the biblical Jesus, whom Christians are generally supposed to follow, above the other parts of the Bible.
And yet millions of bewildered Americans have grown up to find this religion of peace and empathy has been hijacked by a right-wing movement that uses Jesus’s name, waves him over their heads like a prop, and legislates against his actual teachings. 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. Also, Some of Them Like to Kill People From the 2012 Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Sikh temple shooting to the 2015 Charleston church shooting; from the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally to the 2018 Tree of Life Congregation synagogue shooting; to the US Capitol attack of January 6, 2021—all acts of violence committed by right-wing men who proclaimed themselves Christian.
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). He quite famously challenged his followers to love their enemies and to care for those who are different from them.
But Christian nationalists and white supremacists have shown what religious zealotry and authoritarian propaganda can do in a country that has over one hundred guns for every person.
ALWAYS IN POWER, ALWAYS UNDER SIEGE
In contemporary America, you’ll hear a steady refrain from the pulpits of preachers and the podiums of politicians: “Christianity is under attack.” Christians still constitute the majority and wield significant cultural and political influence, mind you, but that’s never stopped a narrative of systemic oppression. This talking point, which pairs nicely with shrieking claims of persecution, warns of an encroaching secular agenda that seeks to destroy “traditional Christian values” and turn our families into transgender atheist groomer communists who listen to hip-hop and use paper straws. Politicians use the “Christianity under attack” rhetoric to secure votes and consolidate power. By framing themselves as warriors in a spiritual battle, they thirstily pander to a sense of tribal loyalty among a certain kind of Christian voter. Televangelists and megachurch pastors have long capitalized on the victimhood narrative to solicit donations and build obscene personal wealth. And polarizing cultural wedge issues are historically one of the slickest ways to redirect attention away from real social and economic problems. Examples of “Christianity under attack” have included First Amendment restrictions on public prayer in government settings, restrictions against anti-LGBTQ discrimination, and resistance to teaching creationism in public school science class. Nothing that threatens Christian religious practice—just conservative religious domination. Donald Trump never even tried to sell himself as an actual Christian to earn blind evangelical obedience. Rather, he easily attracted voters sympathetic to Christian nationalist ideas by branding himself as a defender of “Christians under siege.” Which is to say he pandered to and played up the persecution complex: “I will tell you, Christianity is under tremendous siege, whether we want to talk about it or we don’t want to talk about it…. And we’re going to reverse that trend big league.” January 30, 2016, campaign event in Dubuque 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.
But conservative power was what Jesus stood up to—not for—time and time again: The authoritarians among the religious leaders, drunk on their own eminence. The wealthy, worshiping their own stature and possessions while denying the suffering of the poor. The capitalists in the temple, greedily exploiting poor believers. The imperial government of Rome, whose hunger for power led to its own collapse.
Religion, like all institutions of man, is inherently flawed, but irony will never let you down.
THE MOST IMPORTANT PART
Shakespeare tells us that even “the devil can recite Scripture for his purpose.” And from the very beginnings of the American experiment, Christianity has been used to justify all manner of evils, from slavery to ethnic cleansing to preemptive war. 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.
But there’s another side to this. Because for nearly every great injustice perpetrated throughout history by authoritarian Christianity, liberal and moderate Christians—and many conservatives, too—have fought back. Progressive Christians helped lead the battle to abolish slavery. They’ve opposed imperialism, segregation, and science denial; fought for humane conditions for the American worker and for an end to child labor. Throughout history, Christian reform movements have dared to critically engage authority with scripture and tradition, supporting compassion, social justice, and human rights, as Jesus did. And I’m sorry, but they really do listen to better music. 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.
St. Francis of Assisi left the Crusades and preached against war. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist, used the scriptures to shame white America out of the mutually destructive American apartheid of segregation. And millions of liberal Christians have, very gradually, helped many conservative loved ones beyond a whole lot of homophobia. It’s sadly not a coincidence that some of the most historically bigoted and segregated parts of this American Land have also been known as the “Bible Belt.” And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that nobody hates like a Christian who’s just been told their hate isn’t Christian.
Liberal and moderate Jesus-following Christians—and their allies—have the power to stand up to right-wing Christianity and call its adherents out on their own terms, using the very book fundamentalists wave around so bombastically. Never forget that the first-ever protest by a white person in this hemisphere against slavery and human rights abuses was against Columbus himself, led by his ship’s own Catholic priest, Bartolomé de Las Casas. There’s an inspiring true heritage of authentic Christianity, and it’s almost always manifested itself in resistance to Christian authoritarianism.
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND HATE
This is a book about what Christianity started out as, what it became, and why it’s still worth fighting for. It’s about the grotesque mutation that is Christian nationalism and how fundamentalism has always been the opposite of Jesus, even though it gets most of the TV airtime. And it’ll show how the best of Christianity has always pushed back against the worst of it. This book is not an attack on God, Jesus, or Christianity. It’s not designed to ridicule people of faith or mock belief. It’s not another atheist manifesto, and it won’t try to convince you that religious people are superstitious or dumb. It’s also not going to ask you to believe in miracles or divinity, or to take all of the Bible as literal fact. Most Christians don’t. It doesn’t denigrate the idea of organized religion, and it won’t mock the life or teachings of Jesus.
It’s designed to help you use the Bible when engaging with the Christian fundamentalist in your life, at your job, or, if you must, in your social media feed. It’s a guide to everything the haters got wrong. It focuses on Christianity through the teachings of Jesus, known to some as the “red letters” of the Bible. And it’ll show that if you’re debating an authoritarian Christian on almost any subject that divides us, Jesus probably has your back. Whether you’re a believer, agnostic, or atheist, whatever you think about politics, you’re going to have to deal with these people at some point.
They want to control the level of freedom in US society based on how they pick and choose from the Bible. It’s going to be increasingly vital to dismantle their supernatural authority by elegantly pointing out that they don’t really follow this Bible they claim to base their lives on. And you’ll be surprised at how good it feels, too. You may find yourself unable to escape a particular person like this in your life, and that person may delight in projecting authoritarianism or hate as some kind of spiritual piety.
But there are two things to remember: Much of the time, these people don’t really know the Bible all that well. And they’re 100 percent counting on you not knowing the Bible all that well. For all of our lives, fundamentalists have used the Bible to manipulate their way into our government, all over our school boards, and onto our airwaves. If they’re going to stand in your house and claim to represent Jesus, you’re allowed to prove if they really mean it. The extreme right uses Jesus’s name as camouflage. This is a guide to camouflage removal.
A FEW HELPFUL DISCLAIMERS First, I am not a clergy member, nor a professional academic or theologian. This means I will not be using the word “exegesis” at all in this book, beyond this sentence. But I do know many wonderful scholars and clergy, gracious and learned people with all the spiritual and academic depth I lack, and they have charitably allowed me to ask them about a few theological specifics above my pay grade. I am but a friendly guy on a barstool, tugging on your coat about what’s actually in the Bible.
But I promise: What I lack in credentials, I make up for in name-dropping. As a comedian, I’ve long known that taking on toxic Christianity is not a commercially viable subject matter. But like many, I got tired of seeing my parents’ faith used to merge Jesus and meanness. Against the strenuous wishes of many wise agents and managers, I began talking about Christianity onstage. And everywhere I’ve performed, spoken, or broadcast, I’ve been amazed at the massive numbers of truly good people I’ve met, of every conceivable background, who were raised Christian but now feel alienated from the domination and cruelty of so many churches.
Now, I won’t be claiming to be anything resembling a great Christian. Tragically far from it. I’m happy to run through an extensive list of sins and shortcomings for you. But Jesus taught me the joy of calling out pious religious frauds, and I’d like to show you how rewarding it can be. I generally trust people who are seeking the truth; I tend to be wary of those who claim they’ve found it. When I cite specific scripture, I strongly encourage you to doubt me—and research what the Bible really says. I won’t ask you to believe anything I can’t prove, so you’ll know I’m not selling you religion.
A few more things before we begin: This book covers many topics and you’re welcome to create your own adventure and skip around. Because the teachings and commandments of Jesus are relevant to many of our modern debates, some quotes and parables are cited more than once, in different chapters. Throughout the book, I frequently refer to the Torah as “the Old Testament.” I’m sorry if you’re offended by the term; it’s the simplest shorthand for talking to Christians, and I’m a simple person. Also, I won’t be capitalizing the H in “He” or “Him” every time I talk about Jesus. I tried it, but it started to feel a bit too much after a while. I’ll still capitalize the H when referring to God, so you’ll know I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I know how certain right-wing folks are sensitive about pronouns. Most cited verses are from the NIV Bible, but I do go full King James for some of the gorier moments. And please know, nice conservative Christians, that this book is not about you—it’s about those extreme right-wing hateful Christians. I come from two large, rather conservative American Christian families. And while I may disagree politically on some issues with our conservative Christian brethren, I’ve always found most to be quite lovely, and often more liberal with kindness than many, well, liberals. But nice conservative Christians are going to have to deal with these haters too, so I thank you for making it this far.
There will be much in this book that conservatives will disagree with; I’ll try to be as polite as I can. Parts are quite silly, and I’m sorry for that. The point is, intrepid conservative friends, while we may disagree, I know you won’t hate me with a violent bloodlust over it. And let me point out that nowhere in this book will I suggest that the Democratic party is somehow the party of Jesus on a policy level. Far from it. I’ve never belonged to a political party, and I’m happy to hear you out about big money in politics, Wall Street donors and lobbyist culture, lip service to climate action, how our representatives don’t fight hard enough for single-payer healthcare, universal basic income, unions, paid family leave, etc. I’m all ears. But while Democrats fall painfully short in many ways, their party policies on healthcare, social safety nets, immigration, gun safety, women’s equality, gay rights, and antiracism are light-years closer to the teachings of Jesus than Trump-era Republicanism, which remains the brazen, junk-wagging opposite of JC’s actual words. Atheist friends—thank you for making it this far. And I get it—we’re arguing over a book that was written by Bronze Age goat herders who thought the earth was flat, etc., etc. I know. And I agree with you that religion should have no power over our governance, but here we are. Nonbelievers will also have to deal with fundamentalist Christians; perhaps you already do, perhaps they’re the family you still love. I can confirm that calling them superstitious cult members or saying they’re brainwashed to believe in myths doesn’t work. The hardcore ones will just double down and say you’re on the side of Satan. But I find that if we positively engage folks like this on what’s actually in the Bible, something else can happen. They may get defensive, but they might appreciate that you took the time to engage them on scripture itself. 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. And again, I’m not asking anyone to take anything in the Bible as literal fact. But if you plan on debating the fundamentalist Christian in your life, it helps to know the specifics of who said what and to ask questions rather than seek conflict. Also, I tend to be too irreverent when I should be serious, and can sometimes be way too churchy when it’s time for a joke. Sorry in advance; I promise to feel guilt over it. Finally, some surveys will tell you how the fastest-growing religious demographic in America is Mormonism. Some say Islam. More recent ones say “no affiliation.” I would argue there’s a large and growing religious group we don’t acknowledge—people who were raised religious but now consider themselves “spiritual” because they’re turned off by the cruelties and hypocrisies of organized authoritarian religion.
Spiritual people use religion to become better people. Fundamentalists use religion to pretend they’re better than other people. Human hate has been around a lot longer than religion. It’s natural and at times we all fall prey to it, but religion didn’t create hate—hate found voice in religion. The right has turned a movement based on compassion and love into a mean, self-worshiping tax-free clique. The intolerance of right-wing Christianity is what’s driving young people away from religion. It’s not because our youth are controlled by Satan, although the fundamentalists might be. 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. It’s time to take the Bible back from the hypocrites. 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.
