Bookwild - John Fugelsang's Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

This week, I got to talk with John Fugelsang about his new book Separation of Church and Hate! He shares why he's passionate about taking back the religion of his parents from the way it has been used as a cloak for hate, how it's near impossible to find a quality in Donald Trump that aligns with Jesus' teachings, and ways to lead Christian Nationalists to arguing with God/scripture instead of yourself.Separation of Church and Hate SynopsisTold with Fugelsang’s trademark blend of radical honesty, relevant humor, and deep political and religious knowledge, Separation of Church and Hate is the book every American today needs. It is a return to civility, a rallying cry for compassion and clarity, and a reclamation of the values and truths we hold dear, for anyone who was raised Christian but has become disillusioned with organized religion; for Democrats, progressives, liberals, and moderates who are tired of the right wing pretending to own Christianity; for atheists, agnostics, and any one of any faith who’s sick of the fundamentalists using religion as a cloaking device for hate; for everyone who’s realized you don’t necessarily need organized religion to be a good person.For over two centuries, the United States constitution has given us the right to live in a society where church and state exist independently, and without conflict. So why is it that, suddenly, Christianity is being co-opted by far-right groups, politicians, friends, and family members to justify oppressive and unequal policies? And how do we fight back against those acting—literally—in bad faith? In this informative, perspective-shifting guide, Fugelsang takes readers through common talking points and arguments—God condemns abortion, gay marriage is a sin, guns are an ordained right, and more—and exposes their hypocrisy and overall inaccuracy through scripture, philosophy, and plain old common sense.Separation of Church and Hate, a new and critical book from comedian and TV and radio host John Fugelsang—who himself is the child of a former Catholic nun and Franciscan brother—finally offers the answers. Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

If you're debating a right-wing Christian nationalist, Jesus is probably on your side, whether you believe in him or not. According to Matthew 25, Jesus gives his commandments, take care of the poor, take care of the sick, welcome the stranger, and be kind to those in prison. That's Jesus's list. Three hundred years later, Jesus' operation is taken over by the Roman Empire. There's cultural appropriation, and then there's taking over the fan club of a guy you killed. But today I'm with John Fugel saying, who is the author of Separation of Church and Hate, a sane person's guide to taking back the Bible from fundamentalists, fascists, and flock-fleasing frauds, which the title alone had me sold. But I'm super excited to talk about it. Thank you for

coming on the podcast. I'm so honored to be here, Kay. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah. So you have a super interesting story that makes you such a credible person. Oh, I wouldn't go that far. Wouldn't go that. I wouldn't go saying I'm credible, but thank you very much. I appreciate it. Well, well, the way that you came to be, to be a person actually is a really interesting story.

So can you tell everyone kind of about how that all happened for you? Sure, yeah. Being a pastor's kid, you might relate to some of it, but I'm sort of the super Catholic version. My parents were both ex-Catholic clergy, which means they both once solemnly promised God that I would never happen. My dad was a Franciscan brother. He taught history to Catholic boys in Brooklyn, New York and wore the Jedi robes. My mother entered the convent right out of high school.

The convent put my mom through nursing school and then sent her off to work with lepers in Malawi, Africa. My parents met briefly before she was sent. My dad fell madly in love with this quiet southern girl in a nun's habit that he wasn't allowed to fall in love with. And they were friends for 10 years. he got her to leave and they married and it's a very long story but they they tried to raise us to be progressive free thinking albeit sexually oppressed catholics and like millions i grew up believing that christianity was about the stuff that jesus talked about service to others uplifting those less fortunate than us fighting for the marginalized turning the other cheek not hating people forgiving your enemies

according to Matthew 25, Jesus gives his commandments for individuals and nations, heaven or hell in the judgments of nations. Individuals and nations must take care of the poor, take care of the sick, welcome the stranger, and be kind to those in prison. That's Jesus's list. Oh, and don't execute people, you know, pay your taxes, don't be a dick generally. So growing up, I found in the late 20th century that the religion I was raised in wasn't the same Christianity I saw on TV, where it was all Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Jimmy Swaggrets and all of these blow-dry televangelists and, you know, warmed over segregationists. And they didn't talk about helping the poor. They didn't talk about the evils of racism. They were mad at protests against racism. They were mad at welfare mothers and

AIDS patients and women who wanted equality and nothing that Jesus actually talked. about and they did it by by using the abortion issue they did it by getting followers of Jesus to replace everything Jesus talked about by talking about abortion which Jesus never talked about so I I grew up feeling very alienated from the church by the time I was in college it was like assumed if you were Christian that means you you hate gay people and you're racist and you you think that government should force rape victims to be pregnant against their will and a lot of people think that of Christians

and it's because of the media it's because the fundamentalists have set narratives that Jesus himself rejected and none of that shit's actually in the New Testament so long story short as a comedian I talk about this stuff it always upsets people but I found wherever I talked about what Christianity started out as

and what it turned into I'd always meet people who said I was raised like that and now I don't feel like I have a home in spirituality and so I wrote this book for anybody of any faith, including atheists, who are ever going to have to deal with a right-wing Christian nationalist or fundamentalist, because the truth is their true religion is power. Their religion is control over society. They don't care about the things Jesus talked about. They don't care about his commandments. They don't care about religious freedom. They don't really care about fighting Satan. They care about imposing their Jesus-free, narrow,

right-wing version of Christianity on every element of society. And the media is not going to fight back. And the Democrats are not going to fight back. So I wrote this book for anyone to take any issue that divides us. And even if you're atheist, if you're debating a right-wing Christian nationalist, Jesus is probably on your side, whether you believe in him or not. Yes. That is, that's a lot of what's in your, I don't know if it's the very long-winded answer to a very simple question, Kate. Oh, no. We need all of that information. But that was a lot of like the first part that I read when I was reading your book and I was like oh I was like this this is what I needed and it was kind of it's kind of interesting because um I resonate a lot when you talk about it there's obviously the joke of like oh I'm

religious I'm spiritual and like like that's been an ongoing joke for a really long time yeah I don't think it's a joke anymore I think that's the largest growing spiritual group in this country people raised religious and now consider themselves spiritual because they're turned off to the meanness Yeah. And I guess I think I would always say at this point, I'm still technically kind of agnostic. I don't know what I think. Or I guess the other part is there are things from all kinds of religions that resonate with me. So there's like that kind of level of interest for me. However, when I was reading your book, I was like this, it almost gave new meaning. The listeners know I am a pastor's kid. I don't necessarily participate in like. organized religion at this way anymore. And I had kind of deconstructed at one point. However, your book was almost giving me like a new meaning to some of the biblical knowledge I do have because I grew up.

I mean, I was in church like six, seven hours every Sunday for like my entire life. Wow. So it was like it almost gave new meaning that like, oh, if I could reconnect with the Bible, I could have these conversations with this knowledge. with this knowledge that now feels newly useful for me. That's why I wrote it. And maybe engage with people. Because something I've been saying recently,

there's been a lot in the media recently that started to scare me about like how many people are racist. And to be very clear, I obviously know that's not affecting me the most. But it affects, white, racism hurts white people too. It does. Racism is how. they broke up the unions. It hurts everybody. Right. There is, yeah, it does for sure. But then even,

even to your point about Jesus, like, if I'm going to care about the stranger, all, like, all of that, then in an empathetic sense, it was hurting me to see how many people sounded like they were okay with some racist ideology here recently. And so what I've been trying, the perspective I have been trying to come from when engaging in those conversations is I would hope. My hope is that there are more conservatives, not fundamentalists, not nationalists. My hope would be that there's way more people who are just falling into conservatism, but have kind of been gotten caught up in like, well, I have to vote for Donald Trump because he's the one pushing Christian values that I care about. Yeah. Well, I've been trying to approach the conversation. I don't know what those values are,

by the way, but we can talk about it, but go on. Oh my gosh. I know. I have a friend who went all this election stuff was happening. One of the things that I started asking people because she said she did, she would ask other Christians, what are the fruits of the spirit that Donald Trump embodies? And they'd all kind of be like, abortion. She's like, that's not a fruit of the spirit. For anyone who didn't grow up in church is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, something in self-control. Like, those are the I just ask, please, I just ask him that please give me one actual teaching or commandment of Jesus that Trump or the MAGA movement have fought for.

Yes. Or that the Republican Party has fought for in this century. Yes. And that's how you'll find out how little our loved ones know scripture. Yes. The first thing you'll get is abortion. And then I've got to explain that the Bible's not really against abortion. Judaism is not against abortion.

Jesus never mentions it. God never mentions it. God never sees fit to have Moses or the prophets or Paul or Elijah ever mentioned abortion. God asserts that a fetus is property in Exodus 21 and a woman's life has more value in his eye than a fetus. God gives gruesome, detailed abortion tips for pregnant unfaithful wives in Numbers Chapter 5. And if folks want to really believe God cares about the innocent children, let me tell you Gentiles what Passover was all about. I'm not saying that the Bible is pro-abortion, although they are legal and free in Israel right now because the Bible never bans them. God never saw fit to have anyone condemn the practice of ending a pregnancy in the scriptures.

There is no punishment or penalty for ending a pregnancy. They existed in the time of the Bible. A lot of Christians like to quote Jeremiah, before you were formed in the womb, I knew you. Yes. That is God telling Jeremiah that he was always destined to be a prophet. It is not God saying that men should force people to be pregnant against their will. Later in the book during Jeremiah's lament, he actually wishes that he wasn't killed in the womb, which strongly tells us in the Bible this was a thing people did at that time.

Right. Again, not saying Jesus was a clinic escort on the weekends. I'm saying the great con of right-wing Christianity in the last half century, post-segregation. One segregation failed and they had to let go of racial apartheid in this country. They got him after Nixon, they got him by getting people to throw out the teachings of Jesus, everything Jesus ever talked about, to criminalize abortion, which Jesus never talked about. But that's how they did it.

And that's how people will say that Donald Trump is Christian because he wants to put people in jail for something the Bible never mentions or prohibits. Correct. Yeah, I actually saw a reverend here recently because, It's been an ongoing part of my life right now is now finding some of these Christians that I do agree with. Right on. And not hating the ones we don't agree with because they want us to hate them. They're looking for a fight. They want to be told they're stupid. They want to play martyr and believe that they're being victimized all the time.

And we can't give them that. We got to love these haters. But I'm sorry, Kate Gore. Oh, no. You're totally fine. I agree. And what I was kind of trying to say earlier too is I'm trying to approach it that I don't think all of them are like racist or bigots when they tell me like I don't think, I don't think systemic racism

exists. And I'm like, okay, I'm trying to approach it as like ignorance more. I'm trying to hope that for more people it has to do with not knowing things because I had a similar experience recently of realizing all the holes in my education and all the things that we leave out about how we've treated black and indigenous bodies and people for hundreds and hundreds of years. So I'm trying to come from the perspective that maybe they have holes in their education as well. And can I be someone who can talk about those things like your fear there too. A lot of fear there too. No one wants to be told your grandparents were racist. No one wants to get me. I know. People will defend the undefensible to avoid being put in a place of

uncomfortable self-reflection. Absolutely. Yeah. And so I did see a reverend talking about what you were talking about is, and also you quoted her in your book, Jesus and John Wayne was the first book that I read about this last year. Kristen DuMaye. She's, yes. Kristen Cobes Dumay, great writer. That book was fantastic. That kind of started my like, because that was last year when I was starting to talk about elections with some of my friends who I knew were Christian. And I was like, there's no way they're going to vote for like at the base level, this like pedophile, this rapist, this man who like does not treat women well. I was like, there's no way they're going to.

And so then when I was hearing that they were, I picked up her book, Jesus and John Wayne. And she covers some of this too is when politicians started to realize, oh, we can, we can capture votes. We can capture power by tapping into Christianity and like, what can we do with it? And I saw a Reverend breaking down exactly what you said that it was when we were still, when the Jim Crow South still existed, that was a powerful thing. for voting was racism is what could motivate people to get to the polls. And then when that wasn't an option anymore, exactly what you're saying, this guy was breaking down, then they're like abortion. Let's get them riled up about abortion. That'll get people to the polls. And like it worked. Like we're seeing how that worked. And I was starting in like the late 60s, early 70s. It's just,

it's wild to me. Yeah. I mean, the 70s were, they were really adrift. I talk about it in a book. I mean, after they lost on civil rights. And again, Jerry Falwell, was a segregationist. He opened whites-only schools. I was never told this as a kid on the news. He was just always introduced as Christian leader. I knew he defended apartheid. I watched him called Desbishop Tutu a phony when I was a kid. These Christians weren't mad about racial discrimination. And in the 70s, their whole scheme, right, after they lost on segregation, but before they found abortion, their big issue was that Jimmy Carter was sending the IRS after racists. Jimmy Carter threatened the Mormon church that he would take away their tax-exempt

status unless they let black men serve in the priesthood. Women still can't, of course, don't worry. But, and then Jerry Falwell and the right wing, their main issue in the 70s, was that Jimmy Carter's meddling IRS was going after private universities that practiced racial segregation. Ronald Reagan talked more about Jimmy Carter's IRS in the 1980 campaign. Then he talked about abortion. But after his election, they knew that abortion was going to be the issue. And, you know, again, Jesus is against the death penalty. More than months, never mentions abortion. And yet, try finding a right-wing Christian who doesn't support states murdering prisoners. I mean, they're socialized. And so my whole thing is, look, I'm not a Democrat, and I've never belonged to a political

party. And they are light years away from the things Jesus talked about. But on most issues Jesus did talk about, the Democrats are light years closer to what's in the Gospels than the Republican Party, which remains the junk wagging opposite of everything Jesus talked at, this Republican Party. Again, their religion is conservative Christian dominance. And that's how Donald Trump got them. He didn't promise to do anything Christ commands of us. His whole sales pitch was, I tell you, you people have been under siege for so long,

you Christians are so persecuted. I'm going to put you on top. I'm going to put you on top. You deserve to be in power. That was the whole sales pitch. He didn't appeal to the better angels of our natures. Even Bush appealed to the better. No, Trump didn't do that.

I'm a big racist asshole people that I'm going to lie about black people. And I mean, you're right. There's a difference between racist and bigot, right? I mean, you know, the biggest are the haters. The racists are the kind of ignorant people who allow the bigotry to set the tone. I mean, the racist lie about Barack Obama not being a citizen told for years with no evidence. It's the racist lie about innocent Haitian migrants being illegals who are eating pets. And the Republican governor and the Republican mayor and the chief of police all came out and said it wasn't true.

And the lady who first reported her cat missing found her goddamn cat in her basement. And yet, President Man Baby and Vice President Babyman both spread this racist lie to hurt a marginalized group that Christ commands us to welcome, love, and treat as we would treat him. There is no Jesus-based justification for Trump support. There's conservative Christian-based justification for Trump support. There's no Christ-based, you know, and I'll say, give me another one. They'll say, well, strong border. And I'm like, okay, well, God of the Hebrew scriptures commands us to welcome the stranger and to treat the alien as one of our own.

Christ in Matthew 25, again, commands us to, says, we'll be judged, individuals and nations, heaven or held by how we welcome the stranger. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have standards and limitations on who are the countries. To me, it's the criminalization of migrants. It's calling them illegals, which is Hitler 101. Make them unhuman. Make them unhuman.

So Christians will be okay with whatever we do. They're Christian refugees. Well, they're saying the in me within again. That's why I call them Christian refugees, because these are Christians, these brown-skinned people, they are abusing the border crossers. And we could talk all day about the apocry. they're not going to go after the employers like Trump. Trump's hired these people in two different centuries. There's a giant help wanted sign at our border because powerful people don't want to

pay a living wage and Republicans will never take it down. They're not going after the employers. This is just beating the shit out of brown people. I mean, so I say it all the time. I had to say it to our friend Scott Jennings on CNN. Why should I follow you and Donald Trump and reject God and Jesus? Again, I wrote this book because when you're debating these folks, we don't want to hate them. But you don't have to debate him. Make them debate Jesus. Make them debate God. That means so powerful. Jesus overturns eye for an eye and sermon on them out. He stops an execution and says only the sinless may execute. Why is Jesus wrong about murdering prisoners? And you and Donald Trump are right. Just go ahead and use what's in the scripture. Chances are they don't know what's in the Bible. And even more so, they're counting on you not knowing. They're counting on you not knowing what's in there. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That's what was very helpful of kind of having this. I mean, you break down all kinds of, probably all of the most important issues that were to find.

I try. Yeah. The other thing that was really fascinating for me, kind of rereading, was about Paul and about the creation of the Bible. And kind of in line with what you're talking about in terms of like, I had forgotten since I'd been out of traditional church for so long. I'd forgotten that like that Jesus is like I have fulfilled is it fulfilled the law? Like we have the moment where he's saying

you don't have to adhere to Old Testament like I've transformed. Paul says it before we lived under a guardian that was the law. Now we have Christ we no longer need a guardian and Jesus when he says you know you think I came to abolish the law I came to fulfill the law.

Yeah. And it's a very important phrase and it's very very abused by right way Christianity because Jesus is not denigrating Hebrew law. He's saying, no, we're done with that. I'm replacing law 1.0 with love 1.0. This is a new covenant. And we have to remember when talking about Christ with our right-wing friends because they don't like the woke Jesus stuff. They like the kill the gays in the Old Testament stuff. They like Leviticus because it's mean, mean, mean. They don't follow anything else in Leviticus. But they like the part where it says that gay men with men's an abomination. Yeah. Same book commands them to stone

Donald Trump to death for adultery in Leviticus 2010, but they don't read it. They just, and we all pick and choose the parts of the holy books we follow, but fundamentalists pick and choose to hurt other people, to weaponize the book against a minority. Jesus commands them to love. So the whole point of the New Testament is, yeah, that's the sermon on the Mount, when he's saying, you've heard it said, eye for an eye, but I say to you, turn the under cheek. You've heard it said, don't hate your enemies. I say to you, you know, don't, don't. Don't hate your. I say to you, bless your enemies. He's more or less saying, fuck what you heard. I am giving you a new covenant. This is how it is now. And a lot of right wing people don't really care for that. So they're what I call anything but Jesus Christians. They're really into homophobia. So they're obsessed with going before Jesus the Old Testament or after Jesus to call to find any way they can to morally justify their shitty hangups. Yes. When Jesus is very simple, you've got to love them and you're judged by how you love them.

It's not about how you judge them. It's how you love them. Right. You have a really, I don't have the highlight pulled up right now, but you have a really funny way that you explain what it's like to think that all of Paul's words are completely true because they're just in the Bible. But you kind of talk about how like Jesus was here. You also mentioned he only preached for about three years. There's a very short, short ministry that was happening there. And then Paul is just someone who, after he, after Jesus had been crucified, is now looking back on his teachings. And you have a line that's kind of basically like, it would be like if like a film critic talking about a film,

then we were like, oh, all of his words are correct because it's in the Bible, basically. So you're going to talk briefly about Paul and kind of rewriting things. Sure. Yeah. Thank you for asking that question, because this is something that I wish someone had explained to me when I was a young person. because we get so much of St. Paul's letters in Catholic Mass all the time. And I'm not here to bash Paul, but I will tell the truth about him. There's a lot of beautiful language in Paul, a lot of great stuff about love. And, you know, a lot of hang-ups about women, a lot of hang-ups about guys talking up with guys, a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with Jesus that Paul poured into his work.

And Paul was the guy. Okay, so Paul was Saul of Tarsus. He was a Pharisee and a Roman citizen, hated the Jesus movement. He was present for the stoning of St. Stephen, the first martyr. And, you know, after Jesus died, there was only about 20 people, all of them Jewish, who were pushing his movement in the Holy Land. And Paul's friends were murdering all of them as fast as they could. And Paul was so good at catching these people that they began, he was a bounty hunter, he loved his work, and they began sending him outside of Jerusalem to other cities. And one day, acts of the apostles tell us, on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus appears in a vision and blinds him.

and he hears Jesus's voice saying, Paul, why do you persecute me? Saul, why do you persecute me? Now, we don't know how we knew it was Jesus because these guys never met, right? But he was pretty sure it was Jesus. So he goes in the town, he's blind. Jesus shows up like a Star Wars ghost to another guy who goes and lays his hands and heals him. That's the story. And Paul is transformed.

And he stops being Saul, becomes Paul. And his whole mission, the story tells us, is that he's going to preach Jesus, not to the Jews. And he was Jewish. Again, he was a Pharisee. But he's going to bring it to the Gentiles. And, you know, Paul was a Roman citizen, unlike the apostles. So while all of Jesus's actual friends were getting murdered by Paul's friends, Paul takes over the whole operation. And I said it was. And then they all die.

And Paul's church is the one that we have now. I say in the book, it's like if Ronnie Wood joined the Rolling Stones in 75, and then the other guys all got killed in a plane crash. And Ronnie just kept the band name for his solo career, right? He is. So Paul is the one who sets up all the doctrines and the hierarchies, all the rules. He sets up all these churches all over the place. He's the one with the hangups about women. He's the one with the hangups about gay men, although most of that is ancient Roman temple practices of, you know, exploiting guys for male prostitution.

It's not about consensual same-sex relationship. So we can talk about that if you want. At one point, Paul writes to his protege, Timothy, all scripture is God-breathed. He's talking about the Hebrew scriptures, and he's telling Timothy, all scripture is God breathed. And then eventually, you know, Paul makes the religion happen. He sells it as, it's like Judaism, but you keep your foreskin and there's bacon and you get eternal forgiveness. And it worked and people converted all over the place. And with it, Paul gets eventually executed by the Roman Empire.

But 300 years later, Jesus's operation is taken over by the Roman Empire. I mean, like, there's, there's cultural appropriation. And then there's taking over the fan club of a guy you killed. That line, I died during that line. I had to read it out loud to my husband. I was like, this is amazing. Look at the Confederates who took over Lincoln's party, but that's a whole other podcast. So then Paul's letters become canonical scripture when the Council of Nicaea meets

to have one creed to rule them all and decide which of these go away. Okay, Gospel of Thomas will leave that out. You know, these letters of Paul will put those in. So suddenly, Paul's letter- Mary Magdalene doesn't make the cut. Well, that came later with the Crusades. Oh, you're right, right. When they decided she was a prostitute, even though it's not in the book.

And that's one of my favorite stories. But I'll finish up this boring Paul cell right now. So suddenly Paul's letters about scripture are scripture themselves. And the quote I had in a book that you referenced was, I said it's like if Roger Ebert's review of the Godfather was suddenly deemed by outside parties to be part of the Godfather's official script 300 years. later. So now when Paul's talking about all scriptures God read, he's talking about himself. And that, Kate, is how Paul came to be just as good as God or Jesus for women haters and homophones.

That's how generations of men have been able to ignore Jesus' incredible feminism and go back to Paul saying, women, you must be submissive. Yeah. When I did my first deconstructor, when I was first deconstructing. I read a book called Mary Magdalene revealed and that was where I'd learned about that was the first time I was learning that there were essentially a bunch of men choosing what should be included in the Bible and I'm like, oh, well, how could that go wrong? Roman men, by the way, Roman men, the people who killed, the people who really killed Jesus. Yeah. Which is why the Jews are so evil in all the movies and, oh, the Romans feel so bad they have to torture and scourge and crucify this poor guy in every movie. Don't they? They feel so bad in all the movies. Even Mel Gibson,

And Pastor of the Christ, conscious pilots fucking given Jesus a pedicure before he nailed. I mean, the Romans didn't have power over the Jews. But again, when you merge authoritarian government with right-wing religion, that's literally what killed Jesus. Right. And it's the Romans kind of co-opting that was reminding me so much of the, like this is just an echo of that. It's just ruler or rulers or people who want power doing the same thing. and just like calling it Christianity, but kind of doing it however they want to do it. Can you talk about how Jesus was feminist?

And one of the crazier parts that you mentioned was how most of his ministry was even funded by women. And women did travel with him, but we don't hear about it. And by the way, same with Paul. When you go deep in Paul's letters, you find that he actually made women deacons. And it doesn't really make sense. in one chapter he'll say women have to be subservient, never speak in church. And the other chapter, he'll say women should be deacons. So it doesn't make sense.

It's almost like many, many guys have rewritten this text over many, many centuries, isn't it? Yeah, like the greatest game of telephone. I loved that line. Thank you. That was like an old stand-up bit that I finally got to write down. This is so nice to talk about with you. So the feminism chapter wound up being my favorite chapter in the book. It was the chapter where I learned the most.

And in fact, my publicist came to me and said, that needs to be moved up to the front half of the book. Yeah. Because I like, I have abortion in the front half. You know, that divides us more. And I realized, no, the feminism chapter really has to come first. Yeah, if you understand that, abortion might not end up happening. Originally, I'd seen the book is the first half was a book of essays called The Book of Woke. And I got rid of that because they were like, get to the guide. Simon & Chuster was like, it's a guide to debating, get to the issue sooner. So I start with biblical literalism. Then I move to feminism, then I move to the gays and abortion.

And then immigration. poverty and health care you know all the stuff that divides us and um you know my my mother and my grandmother from down south were the strongest people i knew and jesus shows up in this world where women are second-class citizens uh that's a polite way of putting it i want to say judasms come a long way yeah judism is way beyond a lot of christians now in terms of feminism Israel had a female prime minister long before us. Women serve in the Israeli military. They're very good on much, very far ahead of us.

It's the fundamentalists of all the religions that are second-class citizens and women. It happens everywhere. Yeah, it's every religion. The more to the right, your Islam, Hinduism, the more to the right it is, the more women are second-class citizens. So Jesus grows up in this world where women are either property or they're also icky. women have no rights men own them marriage is a deal between two men the father the bride the father of the groom women are property and there are no real divorce laws when a man got tired of his wife under mosaic law he kicked her to the curve and said i'm done with you that was it and if a woman didn't

have relatives to live with it was either prostitution or begging or death that's the world a women could not own property they had no inheritance rights some women didn't inherit money, but most of the time, according to Leviticus, you can read it. I mean, concubines are allowed, but women inheriting money, not. It's almost like guys wrote all this shit. And, you know, women could not be educated. And then it gets to women's bodies. And menstrual blood, which gives life to humans, was deemed a disgusting, gross thing by the dudes who wrote this book. So women were unclean in the eyes of God. When you're menstruating, you're unclean. when you give birth, you're unclean.

If you give birth to a female baby, you're unclean for twice as long as if you gave birth to a male baby. Sorry, ladies, that's how God sees it. Obviously, menstruation was totally icky. And men who would have sex with women while they were menstruating were looked down upon. It was forbidden. It's unclean. It was weaponizing women's bodies and biology against them, right?

Which is something that these guys always do. So Jesus shows up and ruins it. ruins the whole scheme. He treats women as equals. He includes women in his ministry. I'm one of those guys who's going to say they were 15 apostles. Because Mary Magdalene and Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, go everywhere with Jesus. But the dudes who wrote the Bible said, no, no, 12 apostles, three groupies.

Yes. Martin Scorsese depicts them as being full apostles at the last supper and the last temptation of Christ. He's the only guy it's ever done. And Jesus demolishes the laws of his religion. In short, just a few, there's that. And again, this all happens before we're old enough to appreciate any of it. Like we're kids and we're not taught about the role of women in Jesus' life. We're not taught that these people lived under European military occupation.

We're not taught what any of this means as kids. They teach us the manger of the miracles in the cross, not the three years he spent teaching in a very politically charged atmosphere. And for most of us, that's all we absorb. The manger is the miracle in the cross. that's all most adults really think about when they think about Jesus. And so I oppose abortion and put up a tree in my house once a year. How could I not be the best Christian in the world?

So there's the famous story of Mary and Martha where they're all in the house. And Martha's cooking and cleaning. And Mary is sitting at Jesus' feet learning. And Martha's mad. And Jesus says, hey, babe, chill out. You're not helping anything. And as a kid, I was always like, well, that's not nice Jesus. Martha's doing all the work.

When you actually read the story and know the background, you know it was illegal for him to teach women. And Mary sitting at his feet is the position of the top student. And Martha's all mad that she's doing all the housework. Sure, but Jesus finally says, no, she's made the better choice. This is Jesus telling a woman that education is more important than doing housework and cooking for men. I wasn't taught this extremely. You've got the story of the Samaritan woman by the well. Now Samaritans were the cursed foreigners that we're all allowed to hate, right? and time again, Jesus makes them the good guy because he can't stand how his culture just, oh, them, like the Muslims, whoever were allowed to hate, right?

Samaritan woman, they go to the well. The apostles do their own thing. It's the middle of the day. This woman's there. And Jesus strikes up a conversation with her. He was breaking the law by talking to her. She wasn't Jewish. She wasn't supposed to talk to her.

And she says, how can you a Jew talk to me as Samaritan? He doesn't care about the law. He engages with her. And he knows that she's been married five times and is living with another guy. and under the rules of their age, this is grounds for a full-throated slut-shaming. Again, like, if you weren't a virgin on your wedding night, the guys of the town stoned you to death.

That's the world, okay? And if you rape the virgin, you had to pay her dad and marry her. That's the world we're dealing with here that Jesus is in. Women are property and they're icky. Jesus doesn't care about shaming the Samaritan woman. He doesn't not caring about slut shaming her. At one point, he says to her salvation is from the Jews,

which is why the right-wing Christian, will never quote this story. It is the longest recorded private conversation Jesus ever has with anyone in the Bible, and it's with a woman of a despised foreign minority that he wasn't legally allowed to even talk to. My favorite story is the bleeding woman. Sam Cook did a great song about this, touched the hem of his garment. This lady had been bleeding for 12 years. We're taught this as kids, right?

Bleeding for 12 years, tried every treatment, couldn't get it to work. She heard Jesus was coming. She goes into the crowd, and she touches him, and he says, who touched me? She goes, me, goes, oh, you're healed. It's a great story, right? I mean, I love the miracles. They're usually the best parts of all the Jesus movies. That in the temple scourge.

But we're never taught that this woman couldn't go out of the house because she was legally unclean in the eyes of God. Just by going into that crowd, she was rendering everybody else in the crowd unclean. She was breaking so many laws. And when she touched Jesus, she made him unclean in the eyes of God. It was a violation. He turns around and he says, who touched me? She says me.

And he says to her daughter, you're healed. your faith has healed you it's the only time jesus ever calls anybody daughter and he says it to this woman who had been defy just reviled by religious authorities for 15 years who touched him who broke so many laws of their faith this woman violated the taboo jesus breaks the taboo for good it is insane that misogynist think this guy is on their side and as soon as he dies as you said kate Paul comes back in and misogyny's back on the menu. Paul's the one. Women can't be in authority.

Women must be subservient to men at all times. All the actual teachings of Jesus were forgotten. And to this day, it motivates so many guys who want young girls to get vouchers to go to private Christian schools so they can learn the proper role of biblical womanhood. If God loves everyone equally, then God's a goddamn feminist. And Jesus is the biggest feminist in the entire Bible. Yes. I was also, I was reading your chapter that talks about.

about the Samaritan woman who had been bleeding the same day that I believe it was J.D. Fance who was saying it. I could be wrong. Saying what? Someone recently, though, was bringing up the concept of like you're going to an ER and you're not able to be seen because an illegal immigrant is in more ahead of you. And illegal. I was reading the chapter you had like, I had just read that chapter where I saw that. And I'm like, Jesus was healing Samaritans. Like, guys, come on.

I mean, Jesus healed lepers. And again, like, welcome the stranger. The only law in the entire Bible about borders or immigration is the commandment to welcome the stranger. Now, these guys will all talk about Romans where Paul says, oh, you must obey the governing authorities. And that's the argument they use. Yeah. I mean, that's what Donald Trump's first attorney general in the first term used when they had their child separation policy. Respect the governing.

authorities. Now, number one, these people don't respect the governing authorities when there's a D after their name too much, do they? I don't think they do. Number two, Donald Trump doesn't respect the governing authorities. This is the whole, the guy's whole deal is lawlessness. Again, they will always go around Jesus because his love is more than they can handle and they need to go to Paul or the Old Testament to justify their cruelty. They don't follow Jesus. They worship him, but they don't listen to them. They fight for them, but they do not obey them. And again, the media's not going to call them out for it.

The Democrats aren't going to call them out for it. It's going to take the rest of us, showing our loved ones and coworkers and douchebags on our social media feed that hate is not a Christian value. Totally, totally. Sorry for the long-winded essay answers, Kate. You're asking really good questions. I'm like pontificating over here. I mean, I feel like I'm in church. I'm like, mm-hmm.

Oh, you don't want to be in my church. You'll burst into flames in my church, but thank you. I don't pretend to be a good Christian. That's the other thing about this book. I do not pretend to be pious. I know the Bible very well. I used to brag about what a great Christian I was when I was young. Now when people ask me, I say I aspire to be Christian.

Which I think is beautiful. As I was reading it, it was my funny, because first of all, for anyone who hasn't read this yet, and you're like, I don't know if I want to read a book about a Bible. Like, do I really want to read a book about the Bible? you want to read this book about the Bible because it's so funny and I do I could go on and on about how you use comedy in it but but just know that it's a it's a Bible book with dick jokes folks yes including including a St. Paul dick joke because Paul made a joke about cutting off your own dick once yes he did it's in here yeah and what I think what I thought was really cool as I was reading and it's clear that like you are in in some ways it's almost like you want to be Christ like like if we wanted to get rid of Christian, just the connotation, all the loaded parts of it. I feel like you're trying to say, like, you're aspiring to be Christ-like. Some of the most Christ-like people I know aren't Christians. They're atheists and other religions, you know. And so, yeah, I mean, it's one thing to be a Christian.

I'd rather emulate Jesus than some of the Christians this country is produced. And that's how I was starting to feel as I was reading it is all of a sudden, I was like, wait a second. So my funny comedy bit about it is I was having a come to Jesus moment because I was like, Oh, I like Jesus. I just don't make religious fundamentalism. But that's the thing. I say in the top, I view Jesus like I view Elvis. I love the guy, but some of the fan clubs terrify me.

And if there is a God, I think that God cares more about what's in our hearts and our deeds than what unofficial God fan club we belong to, if any. I don't buy this stuff that, you know, Jesus said in my father's house there are many mansions. To me, that means there's a lot of ways to worship God. And I go deep on this in the book. You don't need to belong to an organized church to live a Christ-like life. Just as you don't need to live a Christ-like life to belong to an organized church, they can happen at the same time.

And we've all known many Christians who walk the walk. But generally speaking, you know, a spiritual relationship is between you and the commander-in-chief, whoever he or she or they are or are not. So for me, it's like I don't need, you don't necessarily need it. Maybe your church is working at a homeless shelter on the weekend. Maybe your church is a soup kitchen. Maybe your church is picking up trash in the park. Maybe your church is visiting old people and helping them out or animal rescue.

There's lots of different ways to be of service. It doesn't necessarily require pledging obedience and loyalty to an unauthorized fan club. Yes. Two things from that. One of my best friends, her grandma, this quote means so much to me, but her grandma loves to say, the only ministry isn't at the pulpit. And when I heard her say that, that was another version of me hearing a Christian say something where I was like, oh, well, I resonate with that feeling. Yeah.

And so when actually I was told you, I was listening to you on the I've had it podcast and you guys were talking about ministry and all the different ways that you can minister. And even how like them talking about issues is, I feel like you're talking about these issues is a different kind of ministry as well. but you were also talking about you don't necessarily need church, like we were just talking about that. There's all kinds of ways to do it, or maybe church is something different to you as well. And that was reminding me, it's something I thought was very powerful that you cover in the book,

is Jesus talks about having your spirituality, your prayer being private, not being performative, not, I'm going to say, have pyrotechnics to your faith, basically. Yeah. So can you, can you talk about performative faith and kind of how that has happened on the flip side i feel like these performative people also i don't want to not ask you about this part really like to talk

about there's a new thing about empathy being a sin so i know ali ali stuckie is making a lot of money selling christians on a rejecting empathy yes i don't really know what i need to add to that i I mean, literally, they just will never stop looking for excuses to not do what Jesus tells us to do. Jesus commands absolute empathy. Jesus commands uncomfortable empathy. Jesus doesn't say you're going to get lots of shit like the prosperity gospel for following me. Jesus' ministry is not about what you get. It's about what you give and what you do.

And he says, you want to follow me? You've got to pick up your cross and carry it every day. His whole line about, I've come to bring a sword. He's going to divide families. He's not talking about literal violence. He's saying that when you follow my path of extreme empathy, when you follow my path of service and uplifting the least of these, you're going to have to give up something.

If you're going to devote yourself to the true Jesus path of fighting for the least of us, which is what he was all about, then it's going to cost you something. That's what that whole statement is, not physical violence. But the first part about prayer, it's so essential that we remind ourselves of this. Matthew 6.5 is where Jesus pretty much tells you not to trust these people who pray in public to be seen. Now, I'm not talking about people praying together in church. That's, you know, praying in public on the street corners or outside the synagogues to be seen.

He says they're doing it to be seen. They have their reward. And then he says, and if there's any ambiguity about this, you know, because I think about this when I see Mike Johnson, the revoltingly, revoltingly fake Christian, how they kneel in the well of the house where the cameras are so that their piety can be broadcast and seen by many. on everyone. They could have gone into a private office and done it the way Christ commanded, but again, they're not interested in Jesus. They're interested in power. They don't care about Christ. They care about conservative Christian control of society. That's been the whole history. That was the conquistador Christians. That was the Confederate Christians. That was the corporate Christians. That was, I mean, all throughout

history, the whole history of the religion has been authoritarian power. And then the Christ followers pushing back. But when Jesus says don't pray in public, just so there's no ambiguity, he follows it up. This is where he gives the Our Father and teaches you how to pray. And before he teaches the words of the Our Father, he says, when you pray, go into your closet and pray in secret as your father is in secret. He literally says, don't trust people praying to be seen in public. And then he tells you to pray in private. So not knocking, you know, church services where folks join hands and pray together. but sporting events I mean on the street corner

in the well of the house in front of cameras it's all just a thirsty audition for America's next top Christian it might be nice it's not nice to people who care about the Constitution or folks who aren't in your club it is not legal it is not constitutional but again

tragically these people hate the Bill of Rights as much as they hate the actual New Testament it's all control and if I could just build on the power thing that's been the whole history of the faith right this is This is what my next book is going to be about, too. It's been the fake Christians versus the Christ followers. You've got the Crusades begin.

And for the first time now, this is a conquering religion. It's not about the less fortunate. It's about killing people. It's about murdering pagans, slaughtering Jews, slaughtering Muslims, taking land. And St. Francis, the Christ follower, quits the crusades, preaches for peace, walks through a war zone to have peace talks between a Muslim and a Christian. shows what the real deal is. Then you got the doctrine of discovery, and the Pope says,

go ahead and rape all the lands and steal the resources, but as long as you force Jesus on the indigenous people, you're doing the right thing. So Columbus is slaughtering and dismembering and raping people in the shadow of the cross for loot and plunder, and it's the Catholic priest, Bartholomeo de Las Casas, the first real act of protest by a white person in this hemisphere. And it was a priest against the enslavement of the indigenous people.

So then you got slavery propped up by Christianity in this country. and it's the Christ followers that were the abolitionists, Frederick Douglass, the Quakers, Harriet Tubman. You got the Holocaust, and you've got like Christ followers like Dieter Bonhoeffer martyring himself for his Jewish brothers and sisters because that's what real Christians do. You stand up for the people that are different from you. You've got capitalist Christians exploiting poor people in labor and Christ followers like Dorothy Day in the Catholic labor movement who fought for an end to child labor in a weekend. You got segregation, American apartheid, and it's a Baptist minister out of Ebenezer Church in Atlanta, Dr. King, who shames white America using scriptures.

King used nonviolence and the Bible. I'm trying to use nonviolence in the Bible and jokes. He just used nonviolence in the Bible to do it. I mean, I could go on, but this is the whole history. Look at how many of us have talked to our parents and grandparents that have so much homophobia in the last 30 years. There's an amazing history of Christian activism, and it's always been in resistance. to Christian authoritarianism. Yes.

I don't know if you have time, but my one other, since we're talking about Dr. King, sure. And performative Christianity. One of the things that was very confusing for me was I had seen the clips of Charlie Kirk talking about how he didn't like him okay. Oh, yeah.

He's a bad guy and black families were better off before the Civil Rights Act. Always saying that, oh yeah. He said that a lot. That's white supremacy. We took care of things. We took care of it. You know, we forced a Bible on them.

Being saved didn't save them, but that's how they live with themselves. I'm sorry. Yes. You're fine. And obviously, I don't condone gun violence. And I would love for guns to be controlled a little bit more. And I'm not celebrating what happened to him. However, after his death, some of his fans are generating fan art of him and MLK, like in heaven.

I know. I know. Yeah. You were whatever. And for me, he was like very much an example of performative Christianity and hateful Christianity as well. So I just say go to the turning point USA site and find me the Jesus teachings. I mean, when did Mr. Kirk, who I had dealings with him? He came after me a few times.

I'm sure. And I wish to God he was still alive. Yes. You know, I really thought this might make some of our Republican friends. Changed their care about maybe making it harder for mentally unstable 20-somethings to pop off and kill somebody. maybe now that someone you care about, there's finally a, right, it's finally a school shooting you all care about. You want to come over and try to make it harder for this to happen? No, they don't want to do that.

They don't want to sell power and control. And just look at how much fundraising they've done off of Charlie's staff. Look at how much money they've raised to profit off of this murder. It's insane. And again, God bless Mr. Kirk, but when did you ever hear I'm talking about the poor? Helping the sick, welcoming the stranger, anything Jesus talked about. Their religion has nothing to do with Jesus. I heard about white replacement.

The racist white replacement theory. Again, God commands us. Jesus commands us to welcome a stranger, but they believe in white supremacy. That's what's always, and America is the only nation on the planet where our Christianity is inseparably tied up with white supremacy. It's literally how we were founded. We have curses against us for white supremacy in terms of the enslavement of African people and the ethnic cleansing of indigenous people that these Christians have not begun to address.

I mean, liberal Christians have, and right-wing Christians are out there defending monuments to white supremacist Confederates. Precisely. Yeah, I was just, I was just reading a book because fiction helps just as much called Happy Land. It was talking about all of the lands that was actually taken back, kind of like the 40 acres in a mule. Like, we didn't stick with that. And we kind of just took it. A lot of people just took it back from black people who had recently found their freedom. But in the South, it would, she kind of puts you in.

empathetically in the life of a woman who's having this happen, the land's being taken from her. And they're like, just go to the courthouse. And she's like, and walk past the statues of my oppressors. That's it. That's what Donald Trump did. They want African American taxpaying citizens to walk past statues of white supremacists who took up arms, broke their oath, committed treason and slaughtered U.S. soldiers so that every black person in this country could be born a white man's property. They did it so Dr. King would be a white man's property. They did it so Dr. King would be a white man's property in the state of Georgia. That's who they're celebrating. But you know better than me, Kate. A lot of our loved ones have never been morally taught to connect the dots on this.

And you attack the Confederacy. You're attacking my childhood warm memories. And that's why these are very, very, very scary times. But again, I follow Jesus more than I follow Donald Trump. But before I leave, can I just ask, how did you and your husband meet? And what is his background? What is your, yeah, please. What is your spiritual matchup? Yeah. So I, there's a lot there. I grew up in an evangelical white Methodist church. My dad was a pastor. And there's just a lot there. There's a lot of control. All the issues we've talked about. I remember when I was like I feel like I was seven asking my dad like what are the differences between politics. Like what do Democrats care about? What do Republicans care about? And he told me about. to keep it short, about abortion and about gay marriage. So that was like... Two things Jesus never condemns or talks about.

Well, and even, yeah, you think about that. And then you even think about explaining politics. And like, those are just the two issues that you can tell your kid. So that was basically what I grew up in. And it was it was very much that we are in the world and not of it. So we did not have anything secular. We didn't listen to secular music. We didn't watch secular movies.

Like none of that. We were all James Dobson. You were in it so much more than me. My goodness, you were in it so much more than me. Very, my friends, which I say that because I didn't really get to go hang out with them after school. So I kind of didn't have that friendship, but they all called my parents the restrictive parents. So it was just like I didn't get to be in the world in my childhood, basically. And so then I got to college. And that was when I first, like, one of the stories I tell is Madman was one of the first secular shows that I started watching.

in college. Fascinating. And when it touched on Jim Crow in the 60s, I was like, that was happening the years that my dad was alive. Like it blew my mind because my education was lacking, too. Wow. So kind of since then, it's kind of been like I'm a big proponent of stories, even fiction are so important for building our empathy. Oh, absolutely. And can turn in the holes in our education. I can't wait to read your book, Kate. My God, what a journey you're on. Wow. Thank you. And so that I met my husband at that same time. There's also a lot of mental health issues in my family.

And so having a new person in the system shook it up. I met him when I was in college, basically. We were both Christian at the time. And then there's a lot of stuff that happened, essentially. I was finally out of that house. I was finally starting to have my own thoughts. And I was finally like, maybe I was right. And this wasn't the best place to grow up.

So I ended up going no contact with. Wow. You really did, huh? Uh-huh. Who was then diagnosed as a narcissist. I went no contact. Then our whole family went into therapy. My mom couldn't stay in it for more than a couple months.

She quit. And I went back to no contact with her. Wow. My dad did it for a year and a half. And then all of a sudden, when it was getting a little bit like, oh, we've got to really dig into this stuff. All of a sudden, he called me one. day. Fear, fear, fear. And said, the therapist was dangerous. She was like a six-year-old, like maybe 90-pound woman. So sorry. And he told me that he prayed to God and it was hurting our family

and he would not be doing therapy anymore. Wow. The thing that made him uncomfortable, God told him he didn't have to do anymore. That's great for him. It happened a lot growing up. No, I get it. I get it. I'm so sorry. But could I just say, look at, look at this strong, loving, pro-growth, evolving woman that your parents produced. I mean, my God, they did something right here. And, you know, what you're doing is what my mom would have called a ministry. I mean, you really are. I mean, for both empathy and intelligence.

There's those who wouldn't like women folk talk about books too much. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's like you were talking about Jesus can't speak to or he couldn't teach women. And that's like one of the most empathetic and one of my favorite reads of the whole year is a book called Junie by Aaron Crosby. X-Dene, Aaron Crosby, X-D. but it's it's about an enslaved woman right when they were about to get their freedom.

But she, in her author's note, talks about how she gave her the gift of literacy. Nice. Because of how much stories matter to her. And so something where she did get to learn. And for me, like, any story I read that talks about how stories help us feel seen and understand where we are. Exactly right. I was similar to that. We wouldn't let enslaved people read.

And I'm like, it's because knowledge and empathy and education is so important. That's right. It's true. And that's why it's so nice to talk to you as you're being part of the solution to all this. Oh, thank you. You too. Well, you know, I don't pretend to have it all figured out now. And when I was a kid, I knew everything.

And so I think that's, you know, the irony of these people being against evolution is that Jesus' whole messages evolve and transform. So that's why I'm so grateful to be here on your show because you're someone. And I do this with a lot of entertainment or journalists, people who don't actually live this. And you've lived it. So your words and your experience mean so much to me. Same. Thank you so much. If you ever want me back, always happy to come back.

And thank you for all you do. Totally. Yeah.