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And our meanest Christians tend to piously and publicly worship Jesus as their King, because that’s considerably easier than following his inconvenient teachings.
—John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds.
Last week I looked at a specific debate... True or false? ... Christians are called to change themselves, not systems. I agreed that it is necessary to start with ourselves, but that some of us may then be led to challenge systems. I appreciated Marshall Massey's responses in that post's comment section.
That original debate sprang from an assertion by Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and a rebuttal from one of his Christian opponents. It seemed like a textbook example of a conflict between two different understandings of Christian faith and practice—a conflict that has heated up in the USA's current political context, in which white Christian nationalists seek to dominate the country.
For a while it has seemed that the alliance between some evangelical Christians and far-right politics was defining the public face of Christians in U.S. mass media. Secular audiences could be forgiven for concluding that our Good News was actually bad news. For those seeking to offer different, more attractive and more honest expressions of our faith, help is coming in the form of both diagnoses and resources.
Some of these resources have actually been around for a while, but are worth mentioning now. Here are just a few examples, mostly from a quarter of a century ago or more:
- Elizabeth O'Connor, Letters to Scattered Pilgrims. ("Whoever joins God's liberation movement must be content to spend time in the wilderness....")
- Ron Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity.
- David R. Swartz, Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism.
- John Alexander, Your Money or Your Life: A New Look at Jesus' View of Wealth and Power.
- Kenneth Leech, The Eye of the Storm: Spiritual Resources for the Pursuit of Justice.
Are there any you'd add?
More recent, reflecting the situation we find ourselves in now:
- Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.
- Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. (And coming in September: Live Laugh Love. See my review here.)
- John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate (the book I started with above).
Of these last three, Fugelsang's book is less diagnostic and more of a resource: specifically, biblically-based counterpoints to the truth claims of white Christian nationalism. It's the book I've spent the last couple of days with, trying to decide whether to recommend it here.
The person who told me about this book often engages, sometimes at surprising length, with MAGA Christians online. The MAGA participants are often surprised at encountering biblical literacy among those who challenge their claims, and it is with this goal in mind—equipping the humane left wing of the Christian movement with biblical responses (and, more importantly, biblical context)—that Fugelsang wrote his book.
Separation of Church and Hate is divided into several sections corresponding to most of the principal controversies that mark these debates.
- Jesus and Paul
- Biblical literalism
- Feminism
- "Thou Shalt Not Hate the Gays"
- Abortion
- "Illegals"
- Poverty and poor people
- Sex
- Capital punishment
- Gun control and the worship of "Warrior Bro-Dude Jesus"
- "Thou Shalt Not Hate Jews, Muslims, or Even Atheists"
- White supremacy
John Fugelsang is not a biblical scholar, historian, or theologian, but he interviewed several of them in the process of assembling this book, and his acknowledgments include some familiar names. Within each of those themes, he gives some background for the controversies within that theme, and also lists typical claims made by Christian nationalists, and suggests responses. I'm guessing that you would already have anticipated many of his recommendations, but this book doesn't take a reader's familiarity with the Bible for granted. One of the good features of this book is its value as an introduction to the depth of biblical resources for justice, grace, mercy, and radical love. And in the process, he comes up with some flashes of insight that may delight you as much as they did me.
Fugelsang anticipates that his audience will include all sorts of readers, including people altogether outside Christianity, and Christians who don't share some of his interpretations. Here's how he explains his purpose:
[The book is] ... 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.
Personally, I hope I'm not in this conflict simply because it feels good to one-up anyone, but there's nothing wrong with modest confidence in one's desire to uphold the reputation of the Gospel. A related note: Fuglesang is, among other things, a comedian, and I sometimes find his jocularity a bit off-putting. (Note the subtitle!) Maybe you won't. It doesn't diminish the book's usefulness. However, at times it introduces a bit of dissonance when, on the one hand, he proposes excellent guidelines for pursuing dialogue in a courteous and receptive spirit, but then he himself uses some spicy nicknames for the people he's helping us oppose.
On balance, yes, I'm glad I have it.
Here's the review that appeared in Friends Journal. And in Popmatters.
Peter Wehner's urgent take: "American Christians Face a Choice: The faithful can still repair the wreckage they have wrought."
Lindsay Winslow Brown on the Pentagon's religious affiliation codes.
Becky Ankeny, "Lifting the Weight." ("What Big Bad John did for the miners reminds me of what Jesus does for us every one of our days.")
Kristin Kobes Du Mez on defining evangelicalism—what interests her about this theme, and what doesn't.
From a bootleg album of J.B. Hutto and the New Hawks performing in Warsaw in 1982: "Rock Me Baby." (Audio only. Listen to the enthusiastic crowd!)
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