Take back the Bible (from people who hate)
Separation of Church and Hate is a wonderful book from actor/comedian John Fugelsang. It’s brilliant, funny and an intelligent take-down of people in power who profess to be ‘Christian’. But use their faith to create hatred, division, war and hardship to those less fortunate.
Interestingly, John’s own parents were a nun and Franciscan brother (they fell madly in love and were pen pals for 10 years before marrying). So he knows his religion and Bible, better than some bigoted people who preach it.
A book that is mostly concerned with so-called ‘Christian nationalists’ in the USA, of course now we are having a similar kind of thing happening in England. With far-right MPs and media being taken seriously, by those who profess to be ‘traditional Christians’.
But in both cases, their politics are as far away from what Jesus believed and preached, as could be:
Jesus was a peacefully, radically non-violent revolutionary who wasn’t American, never spoke English, who hung around lepers, hookers and crooks. He never sought tax cuts for rich Nazarenes, was anti-wealth, anti-death penalty, anti-public prayer.
He never called poor people lazy, was never even slightly anti-gay. He was a long-haired, community-organising, authority-questioning, brown-skinned, Palestinian, unarmed homeless Jew. But only if you believe what’s actually in the Bible.
He writes that rather than make ‘disabled and poor people pay’, Jesus Christ (the real one, not the made-up one in right-wing politics) is good for people, planet and even the economy.
If your church is not telling you to love your enemies (but telling you who your enemies are), you’re not really in a church.
He says the reason our churches in the western world hardly have any parishioners, is not because people don’t love God. It’s because they are fed up of the hypocrisy:
- The Vatican hires out buildings for $30,000 a month to McDonalds, and even Pope Leo won’t denounce bullfights (some bulls drown in their own blood) due to donations from Catholic countries like Mexico.
- The Church of England owns over a billion pounds worth of property, yet people are homeless, and King Charles III (head of the church) does not pay corporation or inheritance tax on private estates.
- We have ‘Catholic’ former Conservative ministers, whose policies were so mean, that church leaders actually wrote open letters to them, begging them to change policies.
- The two-child benefit cap has been restored, leading some ‘Christian MPs’ to suggest this is promoting a welfare estate. In fact, 70% of all children in poverty have working parents.
- Then of course we have the issues with immigrants. No-one is denying there is a problem, but to call all immigrants ‘illegal aliens’ (Trump even calls Somalians ‘garbage’, applauded by his Catholic vice-president).
John says ‘You can’t hate these people back. You’ll get a lot farther by convincing your racist uncle that Jesus wasn’t an immigrant-hating homophobe than if you just call your uncle an immigrant-hating homophobe’.
Is this book the truth and the light? I can’t say, but it is certainly the hypocritical modern Christian’s worst nightmare. Nick Offerman
Fugelsang has discovered the Kryptonite to use against Christian fundamentalists – a deep, intelligent knowledge of the Bible. Patton Oswalt
More wisdom from John Fugelsang on religion
Please understand this: the Bible does not tell us to follow the Bible. It tells us to follow Christ.
Only in American can you be pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-unmanned drone bombs, pro-nuclear weapons, pro-guns, pro-torture, pro-land mines – and still call yourself pro-life.
Obama is not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free healthcare. You’re thinking of Jesus.
