Book Review: Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds
by John Fugelsang
Refutes Christian Nationalism with the Bible itself
Contained herein is more Bible than any church service—and in proper context. In this book, John Fugelsang incisively and thoroughly (as well as humorously) shreds all the pretenses of Christian Nationalism—and his greatest implement is the Bible itself. Although this book is about Christianity, and patriarchal religious cultures in general, it is relevant for all readers ranging from those of orthodox credal theology to committed atheists—due to its practical relevance for our shared secular world.
Fugelsang illustrates how it wasn’t too long in historical time after its founding that Christianity transformed from the 1st Century mutual love of the Messianic Jews to the hegemony of the Roman Empire—that Roman ethos permeates even some of the most Liberal denominations today. The bullhorn of Christian Nationalism has made the terms Christian and Christianity synonymous in the eyes of many (inside and outside the church) with human domination, patriarchy, and racism—protestations about that observation not withstanding. As Fugelsang puts it, this is cruelty in piety drag that punches down, never up—it’s necessary to look past what they preach and look instead at whom they attack (the usual authoritarian scapegoats). Even in the face of that, in the end the author affirms an essential role for organized religion—specifically one that (whether in name or not) lives the actual teachings of Jesus.
Christian Nationalism is thus shown to be a dangerous ideology that is more akin to fascism than actual religious faith. One of the reasons so much of society (and derivatively, government policy) is captured by this inhuman dogma is the relentless messaging that has been promoting it for as long as most people today have been alive—funding for this propaganda comes from billionaires aiming to soften public opinion for extractive financialized capitalism and also from non-wealthy deluded believers who are regularly bilked through shame or peer pressure. Much of AM radio and corners of social media have been for some time hotbeds of right wing religious hucksters. Books like this by Fugelsang, as well as Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Du Mez, are an effective antidote to this societal poison—these can provide an essential vaccination against the Christian Nationalist pandemic.