Welcome to part one of our extraordinary conversation with John Fugelsang, author of the recent book Separation of Church and Hate. This book should be required reading for anyone interested in or interested in following the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Welcome to Deep Transformation, Self, Society, Spirit, life enhancing, paradigm rattling conversations with cutting edge thinkers, contemplatives and activists with Dr. Roger Walsh and John Dupuy.

I'm Roger Walsh and our co host is John Dupuy. And as part of our job here, co hosting this podcast, John and I get to read a lot of really good books. In fact, that's why we often select our guests because they've written really good books. But never, never since the podcast began have we had such a great time reading our guest book as this one. Because it is not only educational inform, eye opening, it is hilarious. And that's no surprise because our guest is John Fugelsang who is a media master in many arenas. He's an award winning actor, producer, interviewer, he has his own podcast and he has written and I should say he also, he's a well known comedian and if you want to have a really good laugh, look him up on the web, watch some of the videos and hopefully also, I'm assuming today you also get some laughs as well because he's a master comedian and John has written an amazing book which is a wonderful tongue twister of a subtitle. But let me try. It's the separation of church and hate, saving the Bible from fundamentalists, fascists and flock, leasing frauds. Try saying that a few times quickly. John, welcome. It is really a delight. Thank you so much for this book. It's really a contribution and speaks to some of the great issues of our time and some of the great challenges in our society in terms of the. Some of the conflicts that are happening in large part around different interpretations of the Bible. So welcome.

This is an important work, guys. Got to read it. I wasn't sure how the comedy would work with the subject matter. You did it brilliantly and to me it's a lot deeper than it is funny. Although I appreciate the humor that's kind of helps the medicine go down, right? But it just worked for me. I would read until my eyes got blurry. Very good book.

Oh, gentlemen, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. And it's a great honor to appear on your beautiful show and drag it down to my base level. So thank you. I'm very happy to be here.

Well, we can all work on that. Okay. Well, John, there's So many. A lot of places we could start. But why not? Why don't we start where you started your book in your own. Your family of origin and your induction into. Into the Bible.

Sure.

The history of you writing this book. Fascinating too. So.

Oh yeah, there's. Well, I'm glad we have some time to cover a lot of ground. I'm really happy to be here. You know, a lot of what I do is political interviews on political shows or, or comedic shows and so it actually be with people who are more spiritually educated than me as an honor. I'm here because my parents were in the clergy and both left. So my mother was a nun with the Daughters of Wisdom order. They put her through nursing school and she worked as a nurse with lepers in Malawi, Africa. My father was a Franciscan brother who wore the brown Jedi robes and taught history to Catholic boys in Brooklyn. And my father, the brother, met my mother. The sister was madly in love with her for 10 years. Finally got her to leave the convent. So I grew up with a very interesting perspective on the contradictions that you'll always find in religion. Because of religion I'm not supposed to be here, but because of religion I get to be here. And like so many, I was raised to believe that Christianity was supposed to be about the things that Christ taught and commanded. Servant leadership and humility and looking out for the least of these and how you treat the lowest of us is how you treat Jesus. I learned how in Matthew 25, Jesus gives His marching orders for what a nation would have to do to be called a Christian nation. Y' all know it better than me. The judgment of nations, the parable of the goats and the sheep. Jesus says, take care of the poor, you take care of the sick, you welcome the stranger and you're good to people in prison. That's it. Like that's heaven or hell according to Jesus, which is why right wing Christians never quote it. And like millions, I grew up feeling like this religion of peace and love and empathy and service had been hijacked by a self serving white supremacist mean little tax free clique. And everywhere I've gone, performing and broadcasting, doing TV or radio, I've met so many folks who were raised religious, now consider themselves spiritual people. Stop going to church. Not because of God, not because of Jesus, not because of Noah's ark or Santa Claus, but because of the cruelty and hypocrisy of so many American churches. And so this book was my attempt for believers and non believers. It was a tough Pitch for the first few years trying to sell this. Publicists were like, well, it's for atheists and Christians. What? And I'm like, it's for anyone of any belief system who's ever gonna have to deal with a Christian nationalist or a hard right wing fundamentalist in their family, in their job, in their school, in their local government, in their school board. And I am a comedian, so it's got a few more inappropriate jokes than most books about theology, but I'm so grateful it's been so well received and I'm thrilled that y' all liked it.

Yeah, it was, John said, just a delight to read. And you mastered what seems such a rare art. I mean, I love the combination of comedy and education. So you crafted those two beautifully.

My wife gets all the credit for that. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the right voice for this. You know, I. I think with writing, it's not about finding your voice. It's about finding which of the many voices we all have is the right one. And I would read my wife early passages of the book and she would say, I'm bored. She would interrupt me to say, it's not funny. I'm not laughing. She would, like, stop me and say, you're trying to write like one of the academ academics or authors you have on your show. That's not you. You're not a professional, smart person. And my wife kept on my case to make it as conversational and irreverent and goofy as I possibly could. My goal was to make a book that was light and dense. So I thank you both so much for getting that. Yeah.

And though it was primarily written to give us, you know, the arguments to argue against these right wing nationalists, racist, blah, blah, Christians, so called. Yeah. But it works at a deeper level also. And let me tell you a little bit about my experience. When I was 11 or 12, I got. I was raised Catholic and I got a hold of a little Gideon's New Testament. I started reading Matthew, you know, first Gospel, and I got to Sermon on the Mount, and it just, boom. I went, oh, my God, who is this guy? You know, he's on the walls of the churches. I've never heard this stuff. And it was during the Vietnam War, and I had one brother who was a hippie who'd run off Bill Haight, Ashbury, and the other was a infantryman in Vietnam. So I was just looking at that and look at the world around me. I think I spent years of my life trying to find Christians that were actually doing what you're talking about. And that took me some, some weird roads. But when I read this book, it was like, oh thank God somebody wrote this. So John, very, very moved and very impressed.

Oh, you're so kind. There are many progressive theology books and I Lord knows I've read plenty and I've been inspired by many, many writers who are much better writers and human beings than me, but not a lot done by a foul mouth comedian. So thank you for that.

Yeah, I just got to go back and say I loved what you said about your wife's comments because my late wife first book I true popular book I tried to write right after she read three pages and said if you want to reach people, be really good if they could understand it.

Right. God bless her. It's so true. And this is my first book. So yes, I'm guilty of sometimes trying to write like I think a writer talks. And because I was so shamed, as you were, thank God, by our wives. By the time I got into the studio at Simon and Schuster to record the audiobook, it was the easiest part of the process. I had already said it out loud a hundred times. I turned in the first draft of this. I was in Chicago for the Democratic convention in 2024 and I was up all night. I had to go for Sirius XM. And around 6am the morning the convention started, I finally turned it in because I was reading it all out loud as I wrote it because I had to make sure it was conversational up to the end. I didn't want it to feel like a lecture. So I'm deeply gratified that you felt that way.

And John, what put this fire in your belly? At some point you said, this book hasn't been written, it needs to be written. And it was a labor of love for, he said 13 years before anybody would publish it. And it's really hard to believe such

a. Yeah, I first started talking about this book and oh lordy. I mean, the first time I actually submitted a proposal was in 2010 in the summer. My father was in hospice and I went down south to stay with him for a couple of months and I had the time. If you've done hospice, you know, it's a lot of sitting around. And my dad actually hit send on the email when I first submitted the first book proposal. And you know, it, as I said, editors didn't understand. They thought, wait, it's for atheists and believers together. And then years went by and I tried doing it again with different Agents and different publishers. And, you know, I got some good response at first, but then they came back and said, can you write a love story about your parents courtship? I want to cry. My agent was like, right, I know you can write a love story where I'll cry in the end. And I'm like, well, yeah, I want to write that, but that's not what this is. I'm not trying to write literature. I'm trying to write a book that I wish someone had given me at age 17 when I was trying to understand how the religion of love my mother and father had raised me in was the same religion as these televangelists, these ex segregationists like Jerry Falwell, these white supremacists and woman haters and homophobes and Muslim haters and immigrant haters on tv. Why is the media presenting people like this as Christian leaders who have nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus and the Bible I grew up with? I think that disconnect is universal, and I think the media is terrified of addressing it. Ward knows the Democratic Party's terrified of addressing it. And so I just thought, well, there's lots of great theologians and clergy and authors who've written books like this. Maybe a comedian should try that as well. And so for me, these are things that I've talked about for years on my Sirius XM show. I've debated these things. These are things I've covered on television. And, you know, I mean, I debated David Duke and Jerry Falwell on Bill Maher when I was still in my 20s. So it was a labor of love. But, yes, from the time I first submitted my first proposal to the book being released was a little over 15 years. So never give up, guys, on your passions.

All right, well, thank you for the encouragement. I think how long I've been trying to write thing now, really, how long

are you working on it?

Oh, 12 years.

I understand. I get it.

That's a different story. So you implied something interesting here, John, and that is that you are part of a larger movement which is an attempt to provide a correction to what has been a media focus on some of the more fundamentalist perspectives on the Bible and somewhat not so generous interpretations the media has focused on. And you are focusing on contemporary issues. But there's a long history. There's something in the human psyche that tends to use religion, which is, you know, traditionally defined as the concerned with ultimate values, try to use those in the service of whatever egocentric motives. Correct. And so it's been used really Religion has powered both the best and the worst of human behavior.

Amen.

You know, with, I mean the extraordinary, starting with Jesus and of course even before him, but in so many traditions, these extraordinary human beings that have lived from, expressed, communicated these teachings and yet have a history of these same teachings being used to justify war and slavery and torture and witch burning, etc. And so there's this long history, and now you're addressing some of the contemporary misinterpretations, the disposition of the, in our history, dispossession of Native Americans, slavery, and more recently this surge of resurgence of fundamentalism and now Christian nationalism. So it seems like you're part of your coming in on a contemporary focus on what is a, almost a perennial human issue here.

I think so. But if there's one thing the last few years have taught me, it's that current events aren't always current. And so many of the issues that divide us are, have divided us for a very long time. And you know, I don't think it's the same teachings used for atrocities. I think it's the same book. I think it's this notion of, well, it's in the Bible somewhere and that has allowed a lot of people to justify a lot of evil acts. Religion didn't invent hate, but hate has always found voice and a home in religion. And as George Harrison said, as long as you hate, there will be people to hate. And we've seen this through the entire history of the faith, I would say since Rome co, opted, let's go back to the Crusades. The Crusades is a great example of the beginning of doing the opposite of what Christ commands for Christ. You know, we're going to go slaughter Muslims and pagans and Jews and steal land for Jesus. Right? We're going to doctrine of discovery. The Vatican does the most unholy thing. Go out there and subdue and subjugate people and steal their resources, bring them back here, but do it for Jesus. Put up a lot of crosses and convert them, you know, and as we learn from slavery in Indian boarding schools, being saved didn't save anybody. You can easily look at the long, bloody, brutal history of authoritarian Christianity and many atheists do and say that's what the faith really is and maybe that's what Christianity is, but that's not Christ followers. And I say that throughout the entire history of the faith, it's always been the Christ followers pushing back against authoritarian Christianity. Saint Francis of Assisi leaving the Crusades, renouncing violence, walking unarmed through a War zone to host peace talks. Bartolomeo de las Casas, the Catholic priest on Columbus third voyage committing one of the first acts of protest by a white person in this hemisphere, writing to the Queen to protest what Columbus was doing to the Taino people. You know, they knew back then it was wrong. Look at how American slavery was propped up by Christianity and bastardizing the story of ham in Noah. But it was Christ followers like Frederick Douglass and the Quakers and Harriet Tubman who resisted. Look at segregation propped up by Christianity. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Baptist Ebbedeser Baptist Church uses scripture in non violence to shame white Christian America out of this American apartheid. Hitler, the greatest Christian nationalist of all time. And Diedrich Bonhoeffer is one of the martyrs who gives his life as a Christ follower against Christian nationalism. Look at how many of us have talked so many parents and grandparents out of so much homophobia in the last 20 years. There's an incredibly inspiring history of Christian activism in this world and it's almost always in resistance to Christian authoritarianism. And I understand why it's so strange for so many people to look at the Falwells, to look at the turning point USA people to look at the Donald Trumps and say this is my religion, I was raised in. And sometimes you got to separate the authoritarian Christians from the actual Jesus followers.

And you do that very well in this book. This is not a rant or bagging on all Christians. No, they're saying that there's been so much good stuff, but this is the stuff that's in the air now and has really led us astray.

And just I go after fundamentalists of all religions. I, I like, I go after fundamentalists because they're the same people ruining Christianity, are ruining Islam, ruining Judaism, turning people off to faith.

And you, you say, you know, if you want to be a Jesus follower, a Christian, get a red letter edition of the Bible in the New Testament. It has all the words that Jesus actually said in red letters. So, and you, you talked about how Paul kind of grabbed the whole thing and ran off with it. And most of the hateful stuff that we get in the Bible, it's not the fundamentalists quoting Jesus.

Correct.

But they're quoting Paul. And Paul had some issues. I, I really had some real problems reading him. And sometimes as you bring out in the book, you know, First Corinthians 13, it's brilliant piece. But then there's his hang ups. And then he said, because we interpreted everything he wrote as the revealed word of God. So then as Anti woman, anti gay, anti this. We inherited it and we weren't able to separate it. And I think, I think you just do a beautiful job in just separating the junk out there and it inspires you to actually be a Christian again.

Oh Lord, thank you for that. I mean, I've gotten a bit of heat about my comments on Paul and I want to stress it's not an anti Paul book at all. I realized in writing it I didn't want to write a whole chapter on St. Paul, but I realized, I'm sure you gentlemen know you can't tell the story of how Christianity began and how it got to where it is now without doing a deep dive on Saul of Tarsus. And you know, I give Paul a lot of slack. I don't think he realized what was going to happen with his letters he was sending to set up the early church. But it's very important we know the story that he was a persecutor of Christians. He was present for the martyrdom of St. Stephen. He was harassing and really good at catching Christians and making their lives hell. And that's why they began sending him out. And that's what Damascus was. And it's a great story I was never taught was that Paul was a Pharisee and Paul was a Roman citizen which allowed him to travel more freely through the empire and allowed him a lot of protection while his old buddies were murdering the actual apostles. So the apostles were all getting bumped off and Paul's version was the one that lasted. Paul was able to travel and sell his version of Christianity which was yeah, it's like Judaism but there's eternal forgiveness and you can have bacon and keep your foreskin. And that wound up being really good marketing. And the rate of conversion was astonishing. And within 300 years, the empire that killed Jesus took over his operation. And that's because of Paul's work. Again, the apostles, there's only like 20 people following Jesus at the time he died and most of them got knocked off. So Paul's version lasted. And Paul poured himself and all of his heart and soul and all of his sex hang ups into this, into his letters and just telling people how to set things up. So when he writes to Timothy and says all scriptures God breathed, he's talking about the Hebrew scriptures, he's not talking about the letter. He's writing to Timothy right now. This, he's not saying this letter is God breathed, Scripture's God breathed. So 300 years after he's gone and Rome killed him eventually, you know The Roman citizenry did not save him. Rome takes over Jesus's operation, not unlike how the Confederates took over the Republican Party. And suddenly Paul's letters about Holy Scripture are holy Scripture. And suddenly Paul's not talking about God. Paul's speaking for God. And suddenly for millions, Paul's hang ups about women being second class citizens are just as valid as Christ treating women as equals. And Paul's homophobia, which is a complete rejection of the Sermon on the Mount, is as valid as Christ's commandments to love. So it's in the New Testament, allows a lot of people to embrace certain deeply unchristlike positions. And again, Paul was doing the best he could. I think sometimes we're too hard on the guy because he didn't know. And in many ways Paul was advanced. You know, in some letters he says women can't speak in church and must be in submission. And then he makes Phoebe a deacon. So it's almost like he's writing different things for different audiences or different people. Wrote these letters over many, many years and signed it as Paul. But the thing is, Paul's not Jesus. And I say, I titled the chapter Paul Jesus's PR man who is not Jesus. A lot of theologians, including the great Bishop John Shelby Spong of the Diocese of Newark, have posited the theory that Paul was a closeted gay man in the first century Holy Land. And I thought that on my own. Right, yeah. I've read it all over. And when you read the letters with that in mind, it makes a lot of sense because Paul didn't like straight sex either. Paul just thought the body's bad and thought everybody should be celibate like him. So with compassion to Paul and there's so much beautiful language and so much that he writes about love. That's very valuable. But there's a reason right wing mean Christians quote Paul a lot more than they quote Jesus. And it's astonishing how many woman haters and homophobes believe Corinthians and Romans and Timothy are Jesus talking, not this guy that never actually knew Jesus while he was alive.

And what did Jesus have to say about the religious hypocrites? I'm setting you up for this.

Yeah. I mean, next to helping the poor, calling out the religious hypocrites was Jesus's favorite thing to do in live appearances. That's what enraged Jesus, not sexual behaviors. The only sexual behaviors Jesus ever gets upset about are dumping your wife and adultery. That's it. You know, I mean, there are so many prohibitions against women in society. And Jesus knocks them all down. When a woman is being slut shamed in his presence, he is not interested in making the woman feel bad about it. He knows she feels bad and he's about the forgiveness. Jesus is not about condemnation or domination. His whole movement is about transformation. And that's what's so beautiful about it.

Yeah. And I would just add one thing there, John. You emphasize transformation. I would agree completely. But also say transcendence.

Yes, sir.

Yeah. And they're related, but I think distinct. And so there's this profound call to a moral transformation and a, a spiritual awakening or transcendence in the words of Jesus. And clearly this guy has something. I mean there's, I sometimes have gone through and just looked at the more mystical sayings. It's like, wow, okay, this is. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the greatest thing about Jesus is that his teachings are as threatening to authoritarian power now as they were 2,000 years ago. But also there's just so much that can. Endless discoveries to be made in the depths of his love and compassion. I mean, I get, you know, for me, it's like listening to a great Bob Dylan record and I'll get more out of it every time I read it.

Yeah. And I think that's one of the hallmarks of a profound person and text, that you can go back to it and it's like, where was I the last time I read this?

Yeah, for me too. And that's why I wrote it. Outrageously pro Jesus book. And I meet so many young people who just don't understand. And I just want to say it's not Jesus, it's his unauthorized fan clubs. And a lot of these fan clubs don't have anything to do with Jesus. Right wing Christianity does not care about the teachings or commandments of Christ. They don't care about God, they don't care about religious freedom. They don't care about fighting Satan. They care about conservative Christian power. That's what they fight for. And they will use the Bible, use Jesus. They will wave Jesus around like a prop while legislating against his actual teachings. And this has alienated so many millions from even the concept of belief. And that's why it was so important to me to write it. Because they don't own God, they don't own religion, they don't own faith, they don't own Jesus, they don't own America and they don't own you. And so I just wanted, when I was 17, trying to understand how I knew gay people. I worked in theater and yet my church told me that they were evil and sinners. And I knew they were good people. I knew they were Christlike people. I knew gay men who were better Christians than many of the Christians I knew. And I didn't understand. And I felt like Huckleberry Finn, you know, reading the letter about returning Jim and like, okay, I'll go to hell then. Fine, I'll go to hell for him if that's what hell means. And the reality is no religion lied to you. People who don't know the Bible very well but use it to get power lied to you. And for so many of our racist loved ones who think that that's part of Christianity, that's not because of Jesus or God. They were lied to by their parents or their parents church. And people can only wake up out of that matrix one at a time. We can't drag them out. So I wrote this book as a guide to people who have to live with those kind of people, with the haters. Not conservative Christians. Conservative Christians and I may disagree on things, but we don't hate each other for it. I'm talking, y' all know the. The hardcore Christian nationalists who think that hate is strength. And that's just what I wanted to. To smash with this book.

Yeah, you've taken. Given us Jesus back. It's quite a thing, you know, did the archeological dig and separated trash and the chaff and in our inherited ridiculous things that awful things that Christianity does and given us back Jesus. That. And it's so powerful.

I don't blame Jodie Foster for what her crazy fans do. So I can't blame Jesus for what his crazy fans do.

Well, that you've got a big heart, my friend.

Yeah, I mean, look, it's like I say in the beginning, this is not tearing down religion. And I keep reminding the atheist. I keep having little messages to atheists and conservative Christian readers throughout this and thanking them for making it this far. But, you know, our atheist friends very often will say, oh, religions responsible for all the oppression and misogyny and homophobia and violence. And. And I'm like, it's not religion. It's the fundamentalist wings of all religions. The overwhelming majority of liberal and moderate and even conservative Christians, Muslims and Jews are getting along just fine right now all around the world, creating communities and families and businesses and going to school together. And that kind of stuff doesn't get on the news. The media is one of the unsung villains of the right turn for Christianity because showing nice people of different faiths getting along is terrible for ratings. But having a violent douchebag hater, that's great. I mean, I'll watch if there's a horrible right wing Christian on TV because they make good villains, they make for great tv. They didn't put Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on because they were such good Christians who said the things Christ said. They put them on because they were good for ratings. And that's why we've had 45 years in this country of criminalizing abortion, replacing everything Jesus talked about in the minds of certain right wing Christian folk.

I just want to say thank you, John, for being in the media and being so successful. Because it seems to me that depending on our media, we're going to make it or not as a civilization because media is the most powerful institution and in the world at the moment. And so to have someone like yourself bringing, really trying to bring some sanity and love and compassion in is really extremely important. And I know it's a very challenging medium. So thanks for just. Thank you for doing that.

You're very kind. I don't know. My definition of success has changed a lot over the years. You know, when I was very young, one of my first network jobs was hosting America's Funniest Home Videos. I did that for a couple of years and lovely people paid me very well. And I realized on that job that my concept of success was different than my managers and agents concepts of success. So for me, this was something that was in my heart that I wanted to do. It's not commercial. I've had many managers and agents over the years beg me to not talk about the Bible. But it's something that's been in my heart and it's something that I wanted to find the right way to express so it wouldn't be preachy or just condemnation. I wanted it to be entertainment. And at the same time, you know, I also thought there was an audience for it. I pitched this to Simon and Schuster saying, no, there's people out there who'll buy a book like this because I do believe that, you know, they, they tell us the largest growing religious group are Mormons or some say Islam and some say it's none of the aboves. But I always believe the largest growing group in this country are people who were raised religious and like I said, now consider themselves spiritual. Those folks are out there and the spiritual hunger is not going to end. Whether religion does anything, people are always going to be in love with the great mystery. They're always going to lean into the great Question mark. And I think Jesus can show us the way. Let's get some of his more obnoxious cheerleaders who don't actually follow him, you know, just to the sidelines a bit and talk about what he. And this is why, throughout the book, I give debate tips for people with their right wing loved ones saying, you're never going to convert them, but you will sway the bystanders, their wives, their kids at the table, people at the cookout. If you can model respectful debate and ask questions rather than attack. And if you can, you know, actually say, well, where does Jesus say this? Or if you believe this, don't you have to believe? I mean, if you want to use Leviticus 18 to say being gay is bad, don't you have to stone Donald Trump to death for adultery as per Leviticus 20:10? I mean, it's your passage. It's what you say you live by. And I try to make it entertaining in that sense. For all the issues that divide us from gun control, feminism, abortion rights, LGBTQ equality, anti Semitism, healthcare policy, social safety nets for the poor, I try to cover as much ground as possible. The death penalty, of course. And to show that even if you're an atheist and don't believe in Jesus, if you're debating a right wing Christian, that Jesus you don't believe in is probably on your side and he can help you with the argument. And I also believe these people aren't zealots, they're not nationalists, they're our family members. In many cases, they're our old friends from high school we're still in touch with on Facebook. We can't hate them back. And I find not all the time. Most of these folks have never been debated about what the Bible actually says. And y' all know there's plenty of Christians in this country who just think, hey, I put up a tree in my house once a year and I hate Muslims, I'm a Christian. You know, I mean, I find that your nationalist loved one may appreciate that you took the time to engage them on Scripture. I'll always believe we get farther by showing in the Bible how Jesus is not an immigrant hating homophobe than if we just haul off and call our right wing relative an immigrant hating homophobe.

Yeah, and it's very hard for them to argue against it. When you show the Matthew 25, for example. And yeah, she said how we're supposed to treat people and what's important, and you bring that forth so much. Jesus said the way you treat the poorest among them. The way you treat the homeless, the way you treat the prisoners is how you treat me.

Yeah.

Is that revolutionary or what?

That's so, so important.

I mean, I go into that in the first chapter of the book and I say, I mean, we could end the book right here. You know, you got things to do. I mean, like you get through Matthew 25. That's it. And it's not just Jesus saying what it takes to be a Christian nation. It's also Jesus letting you know who his fake followers are, the ones who talk a good game about piety, but who don't want individuals and nations to care for the poor, care for the sick, welcome a stranger, and be kind to those in prison. Again, how you treat them is how you treat Jesus. And for the life of me, I just, I really want to see more Matthew 25. Christians like Senator Raphael Warnock who bring this up and use scripture and nonviolence to shame these frauds out of this racket of Christian nationalism. Because the whole thing is based on the fact that you're better than other people. It's against the founding fathers and against the Gospels. The notion that you're better than someone else because you believe in Jesus. If you believe that, you don't really believe in Jesus. Because the man's whole mission is about humility, servant leadership, washing the feet of your followers, going to the margins and helping the least of us. It's not about total right wing domination of the school board.

Yes.

So I mean like, you know, and again, I'm in political talk radio, so this is, I'm more of a hothead about it than most nice people. And this is, what I've done for years is debate, debate, debate about it. And I thought, well, let me, let me let folks know, you know, on all these points, all these points, like they're, they're allowed to think whatever they want, but if they're going to claim with our First Amendment that they're speaking and fighting for Jesus, we're allowed to use that First Amendment to ask some questions to see if they really mean it. Because most of these right wing folks have not read the Jesus parts and they're counting on the rest of us not having read them either.

And maybe to expand the frame a little bit, we've been talking primarily about Jesus and the Gospels, but there's a lot of other Bible there and there's some very curious stuff and really important to acknowledge that the Bible is this incredible mishmash of fables, myths, wisdom, love, compassion, extraordinary horrendous acts of one kind or another. And you can basically, you're pretty much able to find anything you want to justify any position.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's why I bring it back to Jesus, because you're right, you can justify anything from this book. So you know that's. It's in the Bible somewhere. It's in the Bible. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've had this debate with people about, no, you, Jesus says this and they'll say, hey, it's in the Bible and it's good enough for them. Well, Christians aren't supposed to follow the Bible. The Bible doesn't tell us to follow the Bible. The Bible tells us to follow Christ. And if you've been suckered into believing that your hate in Leviticus is as valid as the love of the Gospels, then find a new name for your religion. You know, I mean, that's. If I'm in a Rolling Stones cover band and I advertise that I am in a Rolling Stones cover band, but we only do songs by Vanilla Ice, then I need to find a new name for my crappy group. And if you're going out there trying to get control of society using Jesus, if you're trying to force your version of religion onto the rest of us in the name of Jesus, but you don't actually follow Jesus, the rest of us are kind of obliged to call you out for it with as much love as possible. And it's not hard to do. You can take these people and they'll always claim persecution. They'll always claim it. Jesus on his last, worst day didn't play victim, but they'll always play up the persecution narrative. That's how Donald Trump got them on his side. Not by promising to do anything Christ commands. He said, you Christians are under siege. When I'm president, you'll be first. I'll put you first. And that's a very seductive. He didn't call to the better angels of our nature to look out for our fellow American. No, he said, you're better and they're attacking you and I'll protect you and put you first. That was his message, completely gospel free. And it's very seductive and it's garbage theology.

John, how is your. The reception? I mean, you're. To me, you're a prophetic voice. Not in the Edgar Cayce sense, but in the MLK sense. You've got a very important message that needs to be heard and you're out there.

Thank you.

Doing it with Great passion and compassion and intelligence. So how has this been received and since you started, you know, talking about this book and getting out there?

It's been really, it's been wonderful for me. I mean, I always believed. And again, this is my first book. I worked on it a long time, and I've been a writer for many years, a comedian, but I've always believed that if it found its audience, it would land. And I've been so humbled by the response from people, from poor folks who waited weeks to get it in the library to some very kind celebrities and big shots who've given me some very kind blurbs. You know, most of the criticism about it has been people who just don't like me when I read, like, reviews on Audible or Goodreads or Amazon. It's people who don't like my humor, don't like my tone, don't like how I sound on the audiobook. But some people don't like how I talk about Paul. But I haven't had anybody tearing apart my arguments about Christ in this. Their attacks are against me personally. So I understand why they feel threatened. Because nobody hates like a Christian who's just been told their hate isn't Christian. But the. Honestly, I expected a lot more negativity than I received. I was all ready to go on Fox News and I told my publicists I want to go out there and get tape of me debating these right wingers. And like, the right wingers did not want to have me step into their room. So hopefully, hopefully more in the new year. But I've been overwhelmed by it from people of different races, different age groups, different economic strata, young people, old people, queer people. And it's been very moving to have Christians tell me this validates all my beliefs and have atheists tell me this validates all my beliefs for the same work. So thank you.

Yeah, that's quite an accomplishment. You put all that together and it's just brilliant.

Well, when gentlemen like you who are learned and kind and know the Gospels read my little knock knock jokes and like it, it means so much more. I mean, it's one thing to have a confused kid like me read it and be like, ah, so that's what it says. But to have folks like you who know what they're talking about respond to the work is deeply gratifying.

It's been deeply touching to read and as I said, a lot of great laugh. I notice after a number of your comments about how to respond to people, you say, yeah, you probably won't get invited back again, but you will be remembered.

Yeah, I mean, and that's true. You know, I don't think you can actually sway a fundamentalist. These people are in a sort of cult and they been there their whole time. And we see this with our Muslim friends too when they go really far to the right. And you know, fundamentalism means you don't think you're better than other people. You know, that God thinks you're better than other people. Fundamentalists are on the true side of the one true God. Which means if you oppose me, you're opposing God, you're representing Satan. If you oppose, all of your viewers probably know someone in their family like this, you're opposing me, you oppose, you work with Satan. And I'm not going to negotiate school curriculum or what marriage is with Satan. And that is the cancer that's wrecking the world's great religions. Fundamentalism has nothing to do with Jesus. It has everything to do with religions that control people. And that's what turns people off to faith. So it's just the response from atheists and agnostic brothers and sisters has been. So I was invited to go speak at the Freedom from Religion convention in Myrtle beach and oh my God, I'm telling you, I'm showing up there with my book about Jesus to give a lecture and I got 2000 atheists like cheering for Jesus. It's like there's a lot of good people out there. And we've seen throughout history it takes coalitions of Christ followers with non Christian allies to beat back the batshit Christians.

And John, you just pointed to the fact that fundamentalism is not in any way unique to Christianity. In fact, it's. One can find it to varying degrees in each of the great religions. There's certainly, certainly most publicity has gone to Islamic fundamentalism, but that's not unique. Now we have Hindu nationalistic religion under MODI gaining enormous power in India. You know, there's always been a jewish, ultra orthodox, etc. And maybe to bring in the framework that John and I work with a lot. Well, part of what we're very interested in is adult psychological development.

Yes.

And what's now very clear is that fundamentalism is an expression of a particular developmental stage which is called maintaining norms. And at that stage, which is pretty much the conventional stage, what is really important to people is having a clarity of understanding, even if it's rigid, a absolute belief that, you know, the things black and white, black and white, they're doing it right. And a willingness which can be both an incredible strength and a great tragedy to really put themselves on the line, including even their lives sometimes for what are maintaining the norm and which is. So this is, it's more than just a perspective. It's actually rooted in a particular developmental stage. And to move beyond so called post conventional psychological stage means being willing and able to really step back and start questioning the myths which we've been given by our culture and have inculcated.

Amen.

And begin to ask, well, wait on. Is it really true that you know my country, right or wrong, or that women's place is in the home or that you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that's a big ask. And our culture does not give. First off, our culture doesn't understand adult development. So correct. Doesn't provide any framework or motivation or institutional support for that kind of maturation. So to a large extent, people are on their own and it's a challenge.

So this is why I was so thrilled to be on your show, because this is the stuff I want to learn more about. Because, and you explained it beautifully. I'm sorry to cut off, but please go ahead.

No, yeah, no. So just to say that when we understand fundamentalism in this way, we can understand that it is really congruent with the way that particular stage of development operates. And it's very deep seated. It's very ego syntonic, meaning it's very congruent with people's needs at that stage. And given that understanding, it makes sense of why, as you point out in your book so many times. And I just want to. Well, I'll back to that in a moment.

But it makes a lot of sense.

It's so hard to talk people out of this now. It's not by no means impossible. And another thing that's very important, which dovetails with what you say is when you attack people or critique people at this stage, they will go into defensive mode and get even further deeply rooted and very, very threatened and defensive.

You're on the side of Satan. You're on the side of Satan.

So just everything you say makes a total, just fits so beautifully with this. And, and that framework just adds something, I think, to our understanding.

Roger, you're, you're so right and you speak so beautifully about it. And every religion has fundamentalism, Hinduism and Judaism and heck, I'm sure the Scientologists will get around to it. And I, I sort of break it down in the book. I have like a, you know, I, I believe that fundamentalist Christians have more in common with fundamentalist Muslims than they have in common with moderate and liberal Christians. Fundamentalism is its own island at this point.

Stay tuned for part two of this conversation with John Fugelsang, where we explore how a huge portion of American Christians have taken Christianity and exchanged it for Christian nationalism. Thank you very much for being a part of this conversation. We hope that you were moved, as we are moved being part of it ourselves. We'd also like to say that this is being funded by Roger and myself. It comes out of our pockets. So if you would like to help us to mainly to get this podcast out to more people because the bigger audience have which is steadily growing. But the more people we can reach and the more marketing we can do, the more positive effect we can have on the world. So we've done a couple of ways, but we'd like you to buy us a cup of coffee. Very simple. And I do that with podcasts that I support and I find it's very satisfying. So thank you for your help. Thank you for your presence and thanking for all you are and all you do. We love you.