Separation of Church and Hate
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Greg: [00:00:00] Hi, this is Greg for the Rebuilding Faith Online Community. I joined the community because I was burned out on the way the churches we had attended were being led. They were close-minded, too much church politics, and it seemed the American church was getting away from the teachings of Jesus and they had other agenda ballot jury through Rebuilding Faith offers new insights.
And a more open way of learning about Jesus and living out our faith. The best part about my experience in the community has been finding out there are more folks that have had similar experiences within the organized church.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Welcome to another episode of Cabernet and Pray, where we sip the wine and we stir the faith. And I wanna just begin today for those of you, if you happen to live in Arizona, we have our final tasting event. Of the year of 2025, uh, October 27th.
And so if you live in the state and you want to check that out, we're gonna be [00:01:00] taking over a wine bar and having an evening of a custom wine flight and a conversation about Jesus.
And it's a guided conversation. So, it's more of an experience that we get to have around wine. Super fun. And I love where these conversations go. We're gonna talk about is Christianity about a book or an event? So that is gonna be a good time. You can reserve your spot. Uh, put the link in the show notes.
You can also go to communion wine code.com and you can check that out. That is October 27th at 7:00 PM Well, today we have an incredible guest. This is someone who I bought his book and had heard about his book, read it, and immediately realized this. This is a gem and this is a gift to the church. This is a gift to people who are interested in this podcast.
So if you are a regular listener and you like the kind of conversations we have, this book is likely going to resonate with you. And after I finished reading it, I [00:02:00] just thought I gotta reach out to John to see if there's any way he would come on the podcast. And he said yes. So today's episode is with John Fugal saying he is a comedian, a TV personality, an author, a podcast host.
I mean, this guy sounds very busy. He is on mainstream media all the time. I, I literally see him on all sorts of shows, uh, talking about this book right now, especially, and with this book, he's now a New York Times bestselling author, and it has been a number of weeks in a row that he has hit that mark and they just went to the next printing.
Of the book, it is doing incredibly well, and it is a great resource for you if you are confused about the Christian nationalist mania going on around you and the religious fundamentalism. That seems to be all the rage right now. This is a book that goes against that, that that gives you speaking points, that gives you ways to [00:03:00] engage in conversation, not.
As in us versus them to make enemies out of those on the other side of the aisle, but to help you actually engage in conversation and, and hopefully offer them a perspective that maybe they haven't considered either. So super helpful. I think you're gonna like it. John's a comedian, so you're gonna get a lot of irreverent, hilarious answers to these questions and I think you're gonna enjoy episode 58, the separation of Church and Hate.
I've never shared this with anybody publicly. There's so many things happen in this conversation right now, thousand years from now, people are gonna be looking at this podcast saying, so this was the breakthrough. If this was SportsCenter, that would be like such a hot take. Skip Bales would've no idea.
Steven A. Smith would've no idea what to say if you drop that down. That is so good. The joke I always say is like, how'd you learn so much? You gotta drink a lot. [00:04:00] The power of food and beverage to lubricate an environment, resistance to change is hurting the church. I'm not in the camp that God has a penis or a vagina or a body at all.
I mean the camp that God is at, universal Spirit. This is the strangest podcast that I've been on. I don't even know what to do. I'm kind of geeked up about this wine. So this is my second glass and it delivers a little more of a punch than I expected. So if I get a little loopy, it's your fault. You tell me to drink and I just show up.
I'll also say as a confession, I am a lightweight, so I've had like three sips of this wine and I'm already feeling it, so this is fun. You've uncovered the mystery, you've exposed the formula. You've just duct taped together a number of things that aren't normally hanging out together, and I'm here for it.
We're gonna sit down a table, we're gonna have a glass of wine and some food, and we're gonna talk about. The beauty of Jesus. Thank you for the, the hospitality that this particular podcast provides folks like myself and I know others to, to be [00:05:00] curious around their faith practices. I really appreciate this venue, what you're doing.
It is fun, and yet you dig into the deep stuff. I've heard about your podcast for a long time, and I love that you're a pastor and that you explore the world of faith through wine that's very unique. I will never forget the first time I bought a bottle of wine. By myself, which was yesterday. If you're familiar with Drunk History, I thought it's like drunk theology, so I, oh, I got a little spicy there.
It's the peach wine early. The wine is, here we are. Here we are. Beer, we are, no, it's wine. Jeremy. By the way, drinking this Pinot Grigio at three o'clock in the afternoon is making me even more direct in my communication than I normally would be. I know why you have your guest drink wine. Makes sense now.
Yeah, I get it. A little bit of liquid courage. You really unleash the beast. I think you've got a good podcast throwing the wine bit in there. That's nice, doesn't it? Cabernet and Prey. [00:06:00] Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Welcome to the podcast, John Fugelsang.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Thank you very much for having me. Hello everyone. Thanks for, uh, for, for lowering your standards this far. I appreciate it.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: We have no standards here. John, you're gonna, you're gonna learn that very quickly. excited to talk about your book. Before we do, as our listeners know, we're gonna talk about the wines that we're drinking today. I've got a 2022 radius Cabernet Souvignon from Washington. It's a big boy red, but it doesn't taste like a big boy red.
I was having a few sips of this and it's very fruit forward is what I'm getting. So I'm getting black, cherry and blackberry. Not as much like earthy flavors or uh, herbaceous notes. So, John, this is my transition for you. I think you'll like this. I felt like the word was this wine feels a little lopsided to me.
Kind of like American Christianity.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Look at you. You had me with herbaceous notes. I want you to know, uh, I'm ready to just, you know, stay here and live in the [00:07:00] wine tour. Uh,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: I
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: uh, I'm,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: got?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: I've got, I've got a, a, a Syrah, I'm not sure the brand. I'm so sorry. Um, but I, my, in my case. Um, I live with a woman I'm married to who is from Sonoma, and I live with someone who is raised in the wine country.
And, uh, one of the things about that that has been interesting is, um, we only do organic wine now in this house. So yeah, it's been really strange. My wife just began the shift a few years ago, and at this point. Uh, I am not allowed to bring home a bottle that has not got little green sticker on it. Um, for her with the sulfites, it, she doesn't get headaches and it's been much healthier for her.
And I gotta say, I, I have really been converted. I have not had a wine headache in many years, and I spent most of my twenties in a perpetual wine headache. So I am, uh, I have been converted to, uh, to, to organic. And whenever I go into a wine store, my, I'm the obnoxious guy, wanting to know where the green sticker section is, but really makes a difference for me.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Alright. Well a lot of
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: I mean, [00:08:00] being, being married, being married to someone from Sonoma, that's like doing coke with a cartel leader's daughter. I mean, to me it's like I, I, I've got a real in there.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: you've, you've made a fan out of a lot of people. I'm sure they're gonna be, they're gonna be running to the store to figure out how do I get, how do I get some of that stuff John was talking about?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Hmm.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: that's incredible.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Thank you.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: So one of the questions I'd like to start with before we get into the book, just for people who may not be familiar with you, to get a little bit of a framework of who you are and a little background of, of where you come from. And the question I like to ask is kind of a moving question. So I wanna know about your faith, but we're gonna narrow it down to the last 10 years. So if you.
were to look at the last 10 years of your life, how would you say that your faith has changed in that time?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Wow. The last 10 years of my life has been the period where I became an orphan and became a father. So I'll say that my faith has been, uh, tested and challenged and stretched [00:09:00] in ways that I could never have imagined and in ways I would never have wanted. Um. I'm the child of two x clergy. I don't wanna, well, that's, that's more, that goes a bit back a bit farther than the last 10 years.
But I think becoming an orphan at the same time you're becoming a dad, um, it, it's, uh, it's gonna take me a number of years to spiritually assess how I feel about everything I've, I've been through. But that's a great question. Wow.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Wow. I've never had anyone pair it to, to the bookends of life quite like you did. That's
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Well, I mean, I don't think faith. I, I, I don't think faith is linear and I don't, I also don't think religion owns it. I don't think religion owns God or Jesus or belief or, or faith or anything. I think we need to separate those at times. And, uh, but I think your faith journey is always evolving, right? Like they say the opposite of, well, the opposite of, uh, to me, I always say the opposite of [00:10:00] faith.
Isn't doubt. Doubt's an essential part of our faith journey. The opposite of. Faith is certainty. That's what fundamentalists have when you know that it's not that I'm better, it's that God thinks I'm better. And that kind of unshift way of seeing the world where you can never examine yourself because you're better than everyone else.
And if someone opposes you, then they're on the side of Satan. And since I'm on the side of true God and he hates who I hate, I'm not gonna sit down and negotiate with Satan and those folks don't evolve. Uh, but I think Jesus' whole. Message is not about control or dominance, but transformation. He's constantly saying, go beyond your own religion's rules into a deeper kind of love.
So I think there's, um, nothing that'll quite make you go through a, a whole ecclesiastical theme park of highs and lows and rollercoasters. Becoming an orphan at the same time you become a dad kind of late in life. It's been a spiritually interesting time [00:11:00] and it drove me to write this book. I started pitching this book of mine 15 years ago, and back then I was like all George, Carl and angry.
I think I had to go through all this and become a dad and learn how to turn my dial from fire down to warmth because the book I first wanted to write would've been very savage. It would not have been, uh, the book that I finally got to after having all my dreams dashed by being a dad. So I think, uh, what a great question to begin with.
Wow. I'm gonna need more wine.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Oh, we, we have, we have plenty of wine.
on this show for, for what we need. I have been watching you promote this book, and, uh, this is my, this is my plug for you and it's a shameless plug for you. I, I, I bought your book, not, not thinking I was going to interview, so a lot of times it's, you know, someone will reach out and I, I'm reading a book knowing I'm gonna interview the author.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: not my experience on this one. I, I had just heard about this book. I read it and it was an instant, love this book. Love the tone of it. Love the humor, [00:12:00] love the ire, irreverence of it. I mean, just all of the way you, you pitched it, um, and then reached out to you. You were gracious enough to come on.
And then I'm like, okay, so now we get to talk about this. I have been watching you promote this all over the place in all
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Hmm.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: forums.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Oh.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: two that I wanna point out that I thought were, were interesting. The Daily show one you did was so fantastic and I was showing this to my kids and I, I was trying to explain what the Daily show was to them.
'cause they don't have, they don't watch it, they don't have context.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: had to do that with my kid too.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: I'm like, here's a guy talking about Jesus. Like literally, you know, and I think you got like this roaring applause at one point and I said, do you hear that? Like this is, this is not a Christian audience, kids, you know, and now, so like that was such a cool moment. Then I also watched you on the P Morgan show,
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Oh dear. I did a couple of those. Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: The one I saw was it was like a panel and it was you and this other guy like going off on each other and it was very heated [00:13:00] and even
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: is this the guy who kept calling me Viper? Was this the fellow who kept calling me a Viper? Yeah. I'm doing his show tomorrow, by the way. I, I said I would go on his show. Yeah, he did not like me.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: a lot of patience because I watch that and I, I'm an intense person and I am like sitting there going, how does John. Sit in this and continue just to have this dialogue. And you know, at one point peers is like, all right, all right, you guys, you know, you're not, you're talking over each other. So you have these extremes in all of the areas you're taking this message to. I would, I would just be curious, what, what would you say is like, how would you describe the overall reactions that you're getting to this book?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Oh man, it's all over the. Place. Uh, but I'll, I'll say that if you're gonna go and argue with right wing fundamentalists about what Jesus actually said versus the stuff that right wing fundamentalists, pretend he said, and fought for you should expect a lot of hate. You should expect a lot of anger when the people who believe they own faith, they own religion, they own God and Jesus.
This is [00:14:00] my thing, not yours. When you come out there and say, well, I, I, I don't really see how the policies of Trump are consistent with anything. Jesus says on the gospels, you better be ready for rage. You know, it's like asking them, what's, what's your favorite beatitude? You know what I love to ask? What teaching of Jesus does Trump and MAGA fight for the most?
Chapter and verse, please. Most of these people haven't really read the Bible and they're counting on you not having read it. So when you're gonna be going up against those folks. Like I did on that show, you saw you, you, you gotta be ready to turn the other cheek because you have to know going in that they are gonna flip out and in many cases, lash out in anger because I'm gonna stand here and say the Bible never condemns abortion and never has any penalties for terminating a pregnancy.
But Jesus is against the death penalty. These people have never heard such things that to say that your homophobia is incompatible. With the Sermon on the Mount [00:15:00] and that you're anti-gay and anti-trans bigotry are not just un-Christian, but anti-Christ. These people have not been told this, and I'm not looking to fight anybody, but I got tired of seeing my parents' religion of service and love and, and kindness and empathy used as this cloaking device for cruelty and exclusion and meanness.
So on the one hand, you'll get. The meanest of the mean. And I'm starting to do the right wing shows now, and I'm, I'm glad about that they wouldn't have me for the first month and now we made the Times list. Enough times they're, they're gonna start having me. Uh, 'cause I, I want to be willing to go into right wing spaces knowing the kind of hate I'm gonna get, knowing what they're gonna say in the comments section.
Um, I, I'm, I'm, I'm not afraid of it, you know, I don't think it's gonna help me sell books per se, but I want to have the experience and, and challenge myself. But the other side of it is the people I wrote this book for. People who were raised Christian but or raised religious and now consider themselves spiritual in many cases 'cause they're [00:16:00] so turned off to this.
Or people who are still Christian, who are fighting really hard for the actual teachings of Christ. There's Christ, there's, there's Christian authoritarianism and there's Christ followers. And the whole history of the faith is Christian authoritarians aligning with power instead of challenging it as Jesus did.
And the Christ followers who are always resisting. That's back to the very beginnings. That's back to Rome taking over. But when I get to speak with people like yourself and people of good conscience and, and good faith who, who look at these right-wing Christians on Fox News and say, Jesus Christ, these people are the opposite of Jesus Christ.
I, I cannot tell you how much it's moved me to have so many people appreciate it, because we've all been gaslit for 45 years. American Christians have been told that. The faith is supposed to be synonymous with criminalizing abortion and being mean to gay people, neither of which Jesus ever tells you to do.
So I, I wrote this for everybody who was raised in this religion of [00:17:00] love and feels like it's been hijacked by this mean little white supremacist, tax free click. And if they're gonna stand in our house and claim that they speak for Jesus, we are allowed to quote scripture and see if they really mean it.
And I wrote this book for any believer and any non-believer. Who's ever gonna have to deal with one of these right-wing Christians? 'cause we can't hate them. We can't. But in a democracy, we have to beat them. And so the media's never gonna sit. Call them out for hypocrisy. The Democratic party's never gonna call them out.
It's gonna be up to the rest of us to point out that hate is not a Christian value.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Now, does this take a toll on you personally? I mean, when you go on these shows and you get lambasted, does that. I mean, you're, you're still human obviously.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: mean, I'm a comedian. I've dealt with heckler, I've dealt with hecklers for a long time. You know, uh,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: so you
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: deals, no, it's more, it's more that, yeah. Yeah. Just, no, for me, it's more that I, I, I'm on SiriusXM till midnight every night, so. You know, like, like, uh, I'm just like, a book tour is, is all these different levels of, of, of [00:18:00] exhaustion.
It's an tonight I'm on the air until, you know, midnight and then I gotta get up at 5:00 AM to do M-S-N-B-C, and then tomorrow item, I'm on CNN until midnight. So it's a lot of that. But in terms of the hate you're gonna get from these people, yeah, it's no fun. I've been called a baby killer so many times.
I've been called a baby killer. So, and my baby's in eighth grade. Like I, I failed at baby killing. I am a rank, I mean, I blew it at baby killing. I had. I had so many chances to kill him and I just couldn't pull it off. Um, but you know, that kind of stuff, like my love is stronger than their hate, and my love is stronger than their shitty, hypocritical claim of what Jesus' ministry is.
Because if you're using Jesus to justify cruelty to trans kids, or migrants, or liberals, or foreigners, or whoever it is that you've decided, you're allowed to hate that, you know, Jesus's entire movement is about humility. The whole Christian nationalist movement of pretending that you're better than other people, than a whole groups of other people.
It's idolatry, it's [00:19:00] anti Jesus, and it's embarrassing. So I'm just proud to lend my voice to the chorus of, uh, of people who are already doing it. And I think the fact that the book is sold so well proves that this is a large portion of the American public that the media doesn't acknowledge.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: I think you're spot on with that. And
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: I hope so.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: of us, you know, doing, doing the work in different communities, trying to foster other conversations, and it feels very lonely. And that's
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: thing I hear from people is just, hey. I don't fit in this community or that community anymore, and I feel
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yep. Yep.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: then when you find other people who, who articulate these things, there is this sense of like, oh, there, there are others. You know, I'm
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: not quite as isolated as, as the media or whoever wants to make you feel. And I do love that, you know, it would be so easy and so many points in your book to, to write someone off to say, just be done with 'em. You know, set the, set the boundary and bounce, but you really, you really invite people back to legitimately [00:20:00] in good faith, having conversations and all the way through the conclusion of the book of like,
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah, you can't hate 'em.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: get rid of 'em.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Can't hate 'em. Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: how to do it. And you're modeling that into these lion's dens.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: But I mean, but look at how, but like, it's not me. It's, it's, you know, I don't even claim to be a good Christian. It's people doing ministry like you. Right. Look at how many people, how many Christians in this country alone have talked to so many parents and grandparents out of so much homophobia in the last 30 years.
I mean, I, yeah, economically we're getting worse in so many ways, but in terms of kindness, in terms of, of, uh, you know, our, our social empathy. If you had told me in the nineties that we would have a black president and same sex marriage and wouldn't be throwing people in jail for weed, I, I wouldn't have believed it.
So it's easy to be a cynic. I, I agree. But I, for every area you want to show me where people are getting worse, I'll show you an area where we're getting better. And it's always been the struggle, right? We're never gonna get there. I mean, the abolitionists [00:21:00] spent hundreds of years using the gospels to oppose slavery in this country.
And the segregationists used the Bible and it was Dr. King who opposed them. And it was the, the Quakers and the Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, the Christ followers who opposed the, the, the Confederate Christians. And I mean, look at in the Holocaust, you got Bonhoeffer, a Christ follower, martyring himself.
Uh, to, to stand up for his Jewish brothers and sisters. I mean, look at, look at the labor with the capitalist Christians aligning themselves with corporate power. But it's Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement leading the fight for an end to child labor and the two day weekend. I mean, the whole history of Christianity has been authoritarian.
Christianity aligning with power, but the Christ followers who actually do the stuff Jesus talks about resisting. That's the entire history. Going back to the Crusades 2000 years of this today, it's the same. What side do you want to be on? Do you wanna be on the side of [00:22:00] the Nazarene? Who commands us to welcome the stranger?
Or do you want to be with ice chasing brown children at a church picnic? I mean, it's just like, come on man. Come on. You know, we, you don't need to believe in Jesus. To use his words against this creeping fascism, and I think the greatest proof of his power is that his words are as threatening to authoritarianism now as they were 2000 years ago when another, uh, uh, empire based on dominance.
Arguably the only white people in the Bible, the Romans, when they shut him up. And executed him in the most humiliating of ways. His words are threatening to all kinds of authoritarians and fascists, and that's why I think we need to talk about it more. Whether you're a devotee of a faith or not.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Yeah. Can't, can't, uh, can't get enough. Jesus. He, he continues to, to intrigue a lot of us, even when the church has. Screwed up royally.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Exactly.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: to be infatuated. You have this bookend in, [00:23:00] in literally the beginning of your story, story, the end about your parents, and it's kind of this, this through line that you have and you say this, my parents chose love over religion because love is the only religion that always works. How do you see love going beyond where we tend to get stuck in religion?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Well, that's what Jesus calls us to do, and it's not some kind of, you know, passive permissive, like lazy love. The love Jesus talks about is a love of action, not affection. It's a love of doing, not getting, and it's a love of discipline, a love of courage. And a love filled with healing. And I happen to believe that love is the only thing that'll save America.
Love for Americans and love from Americans and fundamentalists of all religions. They're not fighting for love. They're fighting for power. They're the ones ruining Islam, [00:24:00] ruining Judaism, ruining Christianity. Hindus, I'm sure the Scientologists have theirs as well. Y you know the far right of all of these faiths just just.
Th they're the ones who say, uh, women are second class citizens. The more extreme conservative your faith is, the more women are second class citizens, the more you have the sex hangups. Uh, and, and gays are bad, the more you have violence is okay. If my side does it, the more you have this victimhood narrative, this persecution where we get to be cruel 'cause it was done to us.
And fundamentalists always, always have a focus on punishment rather than healing. That's not Jesus's thing. Jesus is not really into punishment. He's into saying, I don't care what you did. I'm not here to humiliate you with specifics. I know you feel bad, you fucked up. God bless, you're forgiven. Go do good deeds.
That's it like, that's it. Not this hatred and not this constant, obsessive fundamentalist need to prove that I'm better than you, or that God likes me more than you, or that my religion matters more than yours, or you are somehow inferior [00:25:00] or below me. And that's why Christian nationalism is a rejection of the Sermon on the Mountain.
It's about placing one class of humans above all others. I mean, Satan offered Jesus that bargain and Jesus said no. Jesus said, you want to follow me? Pick up your cross and carry it every day. It's not gonna be easy. Our Christian nationalist brothers and sisters, they're ready to take the deal. All this will you give me?
Sounds great. Yeah. Dig me. Christianity real. Christianity is not that easy and it is lonely, and I know what you mean when you say that. You talk to brothers and sisters who are trying to live the gospel. And they feel like they're cut off from reality. But when Jesus says, I didn't, I came to bring a sword.
He's not talking about a real weapon. He's talking about the division that will come. When you make the choice to follow these teachings, when you decide to embrace the less fortunate and walk a path that questions authority. That questions violence and rejects all violence. That fights for the poor and fights for the needy and welcomes the [00:26:00] undesirable, then guess what?
You are going to cut yourself off from people in your life following these kind of radical love teachings. It it means you're gonna have to give something up because a lot of people are very happy putting up a tree in their house once a year and saying, I'm better than Muslims. Jesus commands a lot more than us.
And so when I say love, I don't just necessarily mean groovy, and we're having a good time and making googo eyes. I mean the work and discipline and rewards that come from love.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Ugh.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: That was a very long preachy answer to a very simple question. Thank you.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: I'm here for it. That was good. Um, okay. So I would say this, and you, you're kind of written a book in its own category in the sense of, this is hands down, the funniest theology book I've ever read.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Wow. Thank you.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: is kind of a weird sentence
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: I know.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: books are Not known for being funny.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Not a lot of dick jokes in most of them, but this one, not only is this full of dick jokes, I have the joke that St. Paul told about cutting off your own dick. I included [00:27:00] that. So take that theologians with all your credibility.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: There, there are, you take humor in places I, I didn't know it could go. And, uh, that was so good. So I'm gonna read one of my, one of my favorite humor spots. And then I want to ask you what the role of, of humor is that you see in theology. So here's one of your quotes that it literally, I, I, I listened to the audio version and so I'm like driving in my car, literally laughing to myself as I'm listening to you read this. Uh, so here's one that I loved. You say this, so ask your literalist loved ones respectfully, which is it? Did God create men and women woman at the same time, or did God put man here first? You can't believe both. So which is the literal truth, nine times outta 10, your right wing, loved one will tell you that they believe God made Adam first. Then used his rib to create Eve, and then you can let the whole table know that these very nice folks here believe that the first ever woman in all of history transitioned from a man. [00:28:00] You'll ne never be invited back, but they'll never forget you. Dude, that was like, I hit pause and just needed a moment to enjoy that. What do you see as the role of using humor when you're talking about theology and stuff like this?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Oh my God. Well, I mean, look, Jesus used parable and metaphor to get his points across. I mean, he's not all together preachy all the time. And I talk about this in the book. One of the reasons why this guy was so good at his preaching was that he knew how to use poetry. He knew how to use, really easy to remember metaphors like a light under a bushel, the lost sheep, the good shepherd where he could reach his audience, not have to preach so much, they'd have a better.
Chance remembering what his message was, if he could wrap it in a parable. And you could also get around the authority figures if you can cloak your political points in parable and storytelling for comedians. This is called satire and it's commercially also kind of hard to pull off. Um, but I, I, I have no [00:29:00] problem with using humor to discuss what's in the Bible because I know I'm not denigrating Jesus.
I'm not denigrating his teachings. Uh, I'm not denigrating God or faith or anything like that. And once, you know, that's not my agenda. I'm, you know, and if you could see the jokes that I cut outta this book, I mean, my God, I cut. So,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: those, John? Is there like
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: uh,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: you can send
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: my, my first draft of that, I had an 80,000 word contract, and my, I told him, I'm like, look man, I'm gonna deliver you way too much in the first draft.
I'm sorry, I, I want an editor to help me cut this down. And it was like 160,000 words. There was a lot of comedy cut from this book, I'll tell you that. But for me, in this case, it was more. It wasn't so much about getting a joke across, like in a set, it was about just keeping the, the comedy ball in the air.
Uh, it's, it's more witty than haha funny, I think. Um, 'cause it was, you know, it's the point of it's not about getting laughs. The point of it is, uh, is there to just tell the truth about what the Bible says. And Billy Wilder said, my favorite quote, if you're going to tell people the truth, make it funny or they'll kill you.[00:30:00]
And there are lots of very good learned earnest. Boring theology books out there. Uh, this is my contribution with my trifling inappropriate humor.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: you, you've pulled it off. The, the humor.
is fantastic. So I want to, I want to read another passage and have you react to it. Uh, we'll talk about the subject in this quote, but this is another, this is another gem for our listeners today of, of how much humor is in this. You say, take it from enlightened reformer, John Calvin quote. Woman is more guilty than man because she was seduced by Satan and so diverted her husband from obedience to God that she was an instrument of death leading to all perdition. This is reason enough why today she is placed below and that she bears with her ign, amenity and shame End quote, to which you say, my God, imagine how bad these men must have been at basic foreplay.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: That's, that's following a section of a lot of church leaders, including Augustine and Tertullian, um, and, uh, [00:31:00] Martin Luther. Good God, who were just astonishingly misogynist. Uh, towards women. They are good for breeding or whores. And that's pretty much it. And my favorite chapter of this book to write was my chapter on feminism.
It's where I learned the most. It's what opened my eyes the most, and it actually was one of my chapters I was saving for the end of the book. And my, my editor made me move it up to the front because we're, we're not taught the biblical role of women that so many of our nationalist friends would like to return to.
We're not taught that women in Jesus' time. Were basically in property. Um, there was very few inheritance rights for women. Uh, a marriage was a contract between two men, the father of the bride and the father of the groom. And when a guy got tired of his wife, he was allowed to kick her to the curb. Uh, no paperwork, no questions asked.
I'm done with you. And if that woman didn't have family to go live with, it was either prostitution or begging to survive. Women were also, uh, very [00:32:00] icky to the men who wrote the Bible. They did not understand. Female biology and they believe that menstrual blood, which gives life to all of us, was actually something foul and unclean.
And it began a long, long, long, long ancient process of weaponizing women's biology against them to shame them. Uh, there is so much in the Bible about how if a woman is menstruating, she's unclean. If she's having had a baby, she's unclean. If it's a female baby, she's unclean for twice as long. If you touch something, an unclean woman sat on, you are unclean.
This is, and women couldn't be educated. Uh, they really very few had jobs. It was like the gospel according to Ike Turner. And in the middle of this, Jesus shows up and upsets the entire status quo. Treats women as equals, breaks the law by talking to women. Breaks the law, by letting women touch him. Breaks the law by teaching women.
Um, I've always believed there were 15 apostles and the men who wrote the book said, no, there's 12, but three groupies. [00:33:00] But Mary Magdalene, who's not never called a prostitute in the Bible, and Mary and Martha, the Sisters of Lazarus, were with Jesus everywhere. Uh, women actually funded Jesus's ministry. Uh, Susanna and Mary Magdalene are both listed as women who actually did your church ever teach you that women bankrolled Jesus's operation when he and the 12 would go kicking around who was paying for those meals and hotel bills.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: No, that
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: like,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: that was skipped over.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: he's the most outrageous feminist in the entire Bible, and so many stories in writing this book. That I had known his kid as a kid that it never occurred to me were so revolutionary talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, he wasn't legally allowed to talk to her, and she couldn't talk to him.
And, and these were the people that he was allowed to hate. And he tells her, he knows she's been married five times. He's not interested in slu shaming her. Uh, he says to her, salvation comes from the Jews, which is why the Christians never quote that line. The bleeding woman who Sam Cooke sang about and touched the hem of his garment was bleeding for 12 years, had tried everything.
Heard Jesus was coming, [00:34:00] goes into the crowd, touches his garment. He says, oh, you're healed. It's a nice story. We're never taught as kids that this woman was ritually, impure in the eyes of God, and it was illegal for her to go into the crowd, that she was endangering the purity of everyone in that crowd.
And when she touched Jesus' garment, she made Jesus ritually, impure in the eyes of God. That's the story. That's why it's so shocking, and Jesus says to her daughter, your faith has healed you. It's the only time he calls anyone daughter in the entire book. And it's to a religiously impure woman who just broke the law by touching him.
This lady violated the taboo and Jesus broke it for good time. And again, we see examples of him treating women as equals. When Martha's mad that he's Mary is sitting here learning at Jesus's feet instead of house cleaning as a kid, I'm like, well, yeah, Martha's doing all the work. They don't teach us that women weren't allowed to be taught.
It was, he was breaking the law by teaching Mary. And so when he says to Martha, Hey, Mary's made the right choice, he's [00:35:00] saying, ladies, education matters more than housework. These are not the messages we're given from this. So, and then of course, Jesus dies. Paul comes in and takes over the whole operation, and Paul's misogyny pours on the pages.
Which is why we have this hole up. It's in the Bible. So people believe that Paul's misogyny and homophobia are just as good as Jesus's commandments to love.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Well, I don't think Paul wrote half the things we think Paul wrote,
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: I think you're right.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: I think Paul might have actually been an okay guy. The the
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: In many ways, yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: they, they slapped his name on is, is, is the stuff that it's usually questionable.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: I think you're right. But again, you're so right. But you know what, in that case, like. Uh, like it doesn't matter on one degree 'cause Paul was Paul and not Jesus. But the problem is that whoever wrote Paul's letters, Paul was a lot more right wing, a lot more hangups than Jesus. And so that's why all these right wing guys will say, oh, they're, they're anti-gay in the New Testament too.
They'll go around Jesus anyway they can to hate the people they want to hate. They [00:36:00] will not listen to Jesus's very simple instructions about how you're obliged to love your gay brothers and sisters.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Yeah, and you, you, you call that out so many times in the book of, you know, I think you have a section where you talk about like, Paul probably had no idea, you know, how any of this. Would be eventually used and you
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Oh yeah, I get Paul a lot of credit too. Paul. Paul's done a lot of beautiful things, but yeah, Paul's hangups are all over the place and, you know, I, I want, and, and of course, Paul's version stuck because Paul was a Roman citizen and a Pharisee. So while all the apostles were getting murdered by Paul's old buddies back home, Paul could go around the Roman Empire and preach his version.
Of the movement of Jesus who he didn't know. And Paul's version was, well, it's like Judaism, but there's a eternal forgiveness and you can keep your foreskin and have some bacon. And it was incredibly popular. But again, Paul's version, not the apostles, they all got killed. So I say in the book, this is like if, if, if Ronnie Wood joined the Rolling Stones in 75 and then the other guys got murdered in a plane crash and Ronnie just kept the band's name to himself [00:37:00] for his solo.
This is Paul's church based on Jesus' teachings, but all the hierarchy and all the hangups and sexuality. That's all the hangups of Paul who is not Jesus
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Who's not Jesus and you? You, you point that out. Well. You
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: well.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: trying to use the Bible to justify any meanness to L-G-B-T-Q people, they've always got to go around Jesus. Being gay is natural hating gay is a lifestyle choice, and unlike being gay, homophobia is highly curable.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: It was for me, I was an awful kid and I was blessed. I, I had, I got myself straightened out when I was 13 years old by a a, a gay costume designer. That I knew in theater who straightened me, this man straightened me what we call the fuck out. And uh, and I was a homophobic kid because you're allowed to be growing up, right?
Homophobia is allowed that, that we're allowed to do. We have to, we have to be good Christians. It says somewhere in the Bible, they don't [00:38:00] teach you as the kids. Well, that's actually in the book of Leviticus, where it calls it an abomination. And Christians don't follow Leviticus. It's God's tips to the Israelites on how to keep their numbers up after they've been freed from bondage for 40 years in the wilderness.
When you, there's no record of them ever actually killing anyone from being gay. But when you look at Leviticus, it, it's all about keeping your numbers up. Don't hook up with guys, don't have bestiality, don't have sex on your period. Don't commit incest. It's, it's, it's not, not really about, you know, persecute the gay guys going to brunch.
It's about keep making babies, keep making babies, and yet people want to pretend they believe in this, which commands you to stone people to death if they work on Saturday, you know, I mean, Leviticus. Commands you to stone, adulterers to death. And a lot of Donald Trump fans, they, they just, can I just keep the part where I get to hate the gays and not worry up to stone, Mr.
Trump to death for adultery. It's picking and choosing, and you don't get to do it because Leviticus doesn't apply. Jesus brought a new covenant. That's it. [00:39:00] So you don't get to use the Old Testament to justify your hangups and still claim to be a Jesus follower. This is so simple and yet. People don't want to give up their hangups, as you know.
So they'll say, all scripture is God breathed, which Paul wrote, and Paul never knew when he wrote that, that one day that would be considered holy scripture and that his words would carry the same weight as Gods for incel and homophobes and illuminators. This is what we're up against. We gotta remind him Paul's not Jesus.
And Jesus said to love.
I mean, it should be easy, right? It should be easy. Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: when you say it's like, duh, but it clearly isn't, isn't duh. When you're having these conversations with
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: I know. Oh yeah. When the, when, when the Council of Nsea decided that Paul's letters about holy scripture were holy scripture, suddenly all of Paul's hangups became God's point of view. Rather than Paul talking about God. It became Paul talking for. And you know, as you point out, it's [00:40:00] different guys. In one, in one BA chapter, he's saying that women must be submissive and never speak in church.
And then two chapters later he's talking about how, how he, he, he made a woman a deacon. Like how, how can this be? Well, it sounds like it's been the Bible game of telephone tag for 2000 years and it's been rewritten by so many old scribes and fading eyesight by candlelight that it's just a little bit inconsistent.
So maybe we should stick to the stuff Jesus says.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: And if you want to add something new to the scripture, just say, yeah, I found this letter from Paul that you guys didn't see earlier, and
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: it's imp, but it's important. We have to be able to say, that's Paul, not Jesus. Christians are called to follow Christ. If you're a Paulist, great. But Paul usually gets around to most of the nice Jesus things. Sooner or later, Paul gets around to treating the immigrants as one of your own. You know, they'll, they'll try to quote Paul's letter to Roman saying, respect the governing authorities.
Well, they don't respect the governing authorities when it's a Democrat. But they'll say, oh no, we have to, j Trump did this in the first term. They, they, they quoted respect the governing authorities and [00:41:00] Romans to justify family separation of migrants. But it's also in Romans where Paul commands you to welcome the stranger.
These people don't read the book. They pick and choose to suit their preferences, and that would be fine if they weren't doing it to try to control our entire society. So this is just my contribution to all heathens and believers to take this book back. 'cause I'm sick of these people. They don't know it.
They don't believe it. And they're counting on you, not knowing it too. They're counting on y'all not knowing what's in the scriptures. And that's how they get away with it.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: but we got wine in a podcast, John,
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Hell yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: it.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Hell, there's always wine when Jesus is here.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: All right. You say A loving God welcomes people of all genders and sexual identities, and if you believe in the Trinity, then God identifies as they.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah, I'm gonna get in trouble with some people for that one. I know.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Oh, that was so good. I.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: I mean, show me. Show me where supporting someone's [00:42:00] gender identity is anti Jesus. And then show me where being mean to transgender people is proje. I'm pretty sure Jesus tells us, however you treat the lowest of the low is how you treat him. And when you look at the fact that trans folks have a nine times greater suicide rate than the rest of us, it seems like it's a vulnerable group that could use the help of a religion based on acceptance and love.
I I, I don't understand. I mean, to me, if you're a Christian, then you want to be as kind to all these minorities you don't understand as possible. 'cause that's the mission of Jesus. But again, that's if you are a Christ follower. The other thing is just power,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: that back to the idea of the Trinity because I have found, you know, when I teach on. Like who God is. I'll often teach on the role of God as a woman and there are
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: right?
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: that that show that.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Christians just have a knee jerk reaction
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Oh, they hate it.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: the idea of, what do you mean God could be a [00:43:00] woman?
But it's like, where do you think if, if male and female came from God, where do you think the source material is
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Well, thank you. I mean, again, there's two creation accounts in Genesis, right? And one of them is God man and woman being made at the same time in Genesis chapter one. In his image. And then you've got Paul saying there's neither male nor female in Christ take that translators. So it's really important for these people that the rest of us accept that God has a penis.
Right? We, we have, it's really important for some, their faith. Oh, oh, it okay. What Jesus says. Yeah, but it's, well, no. What really matters is that you guys acknowledge that God has a penis. Uh, when, when you get this, ask them what God uses it for. Right. Is it for sexual pleasure or to urinate after he consumes too many fluids that God uses his penis?
These people are all about control. They're all about control and, and male domination. And that's the Vatican. No knob, no job. But [00:44:00] again, man, it's like a, as you said, it's, it's, it's a movement about humility and that's really hard. And, and, and, and by the way, Jesus does it too.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: the.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: And, and the, the Jesus presents God as a woman in the parable of the woman in the lost coin, how the woman loses her coin and she rejoices when she finds this lost coin.
Uh, you know, meaning all souls mean a lot to God. Jesus presents God as a woman in a parable. They should take up their problems with him.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: I'm realizing as we're talking about this, this is not the first time we've talked about God's penis on this podcast,
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Good.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: I don't know what that means about this podcast, but I'm realizing this is, this is evidently a recurring theme. To talk about God's genitalia.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Well listen. I mean if, if, if, if it offends you, I'm sorry, but, uh, take it up with the people who insist that God has to have a y chromosome. I mean, it's really important to him, really important that that God's man, not a woman, by the way. I agree. I, 'cause I think of a woman would've pulled over and asked for directions many centuries ago.
So, [00:45:00] yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: All right. One of the lines I love, you say, science has never made me doubt the existence of a loving God, but some Christians have.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: I I
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: I mean,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: science
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: it's,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: the threat that we,
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: science is not a,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: with.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: science is not a threat to, to faith. Science is not a threat to the, the mission of Christ. Uh, science is a threat to biblical literalism. Science is a threat to Christian nationalism. Science is a threat to authoritarian Christianity that tries to control people.
But no science and faith. I mean, it goes together very well, quite well. Religion is, you know, science tells us how the world works and religion's there to tell us why it exists. Um, not really in any, and you know, not really in any kind of conflict. God, uh, gave us fire and God gave us vaccines too. Uh, it's all part of understanding God's creation to me.
So again, [00:46:00] I, I never understood what belief in a talking snake had to do with teachings of Jesus. I never understood what, why, why. It's really important we take Genesis as literal fact, and that's why I do have some fun with this, because I don't think the people who wrote Genesis intended it to be taken literally.
And if your Christianity is all about. Believing the Garden of Eden is literal fact. Well, where's the Christ part? Exactly. 'cause Jesus's ministry has not ought to do with the talking Snake Genesis is the belief that God could create the heaven and earth in six days and then couldn't find two naked people hiding in the woods.
It's a great story. It's an important story. I don't think it's meant to be taken literally.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Oh, it's a good
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: And hatred of science is, hatred of science is, you know, bad for us. It's bad for the kids, bad for education, bad for medicine. Uh, it has nothing to do with Christ.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Amen. You say, only in America can you be pro death penalty. Pro-War. Pro Drone bombs. [00:47:00] Pro torture. Pro cutting services for the poor, pro for profit, privatized healthcare, pro dismantling, usaid and still call yourself
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: You know what bothers Jesus is not really the sin, it's the hypocrisy. And, uh, if you want to use your time to try to criminalize abortion and put women in jail for ending pregnancies, abortion, which has always been around and will always be around, um, or, or incarcerate doctors for, for it, uh, then you have a right to use the court system to do that.
You don't get to pretend it's got anything to do with Jesus. He's against the death penalty. He does not mention abortion. He does not tell you to punish poor women with greater poverty. He does not tell men to force women to be pregnant against their will. For me, uh, we know for a fact medically, scientifically, statistically, that pregnancy and childbirth are both more dangerous [00:48:00] than abortion.
So I don't think I as a man have a right to ever tell a woman that she has to endanger her life with something more dangerous than something else. Um, I don't think the government should be allowed to come and take your kidney away. To save someone else's life. So I respect male bodily autonomy. If you're a guy and wouldn't want government coming into your house and taking away your control of your body to save an innocent life, then you should leave women alone on this.
So to me, it's very simple. If you, you know, I mean, go ahead and oppose abortion. Go ahead. But they're legal and free in Israel right now. 'cause the Bible doesn't ban them. Jesus's religion doesn't
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: you
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: them. Yeah. And God asserts in Exodus 21 that a fetus is property and a woman's life has more value in his eye.
God tells us in numbers chapter five, how to perform an abortion on a wife if you think she's pregnant via adultery. Pretty gruesome, but it's really in there, the only definite abortion in the [00:49:00] Bible, and it's a guide on how to do one in in Genesis when, when Tamar is pregnant for three months and they think it's by Heartly tree, they all want a burner.
They wanna burn her alive because. The Old Testament doesn't consider a fetus to be a person in. In Jeremiah's lament, he says, I wish they had killed me in the womb because that's the thing they did back then. And yet God and Jesus and Moses and Paul, and Apostles and Elijah never get around to doing it.
Never say punish poor women with greater poverty. Never say force a teenage rape victim to be pregnant by her stepdad against her will. Y'all are allowed to fight for that. Don't you go pretending it's got anything to do with Jesus's ministry. It does not. It's not a very popular take, and you can understand why it's hard to get booked on TV shows saying these things, but I'm just going by what's in the book.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Well, you're doing a good job getting booked on TV shows, so
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Oh,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: you've cracked that
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: if you knew how many had canceled me, my friend, you'd be stunned.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Oh yeah.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Oh yeah. They're, they're scared of this.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: I, they, they should [00:50:00] be scared. you get to a conclusion and you, you offer a bit of a, of a solution In phrasing, you say, maybe we need to acknowledge as a culture that there are Christians and there are Christ followers, and that those two groups are not always the same.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: That's right.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: this language already in, in the interview. How do you see that? Do you think this terminology is helpful for more people to use?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah. This is where we're at right now. I mean, like I, you know, it's not that catchy. I'm trying to find something. More catchy than Christians and Christ followers or authoritarian Christians and, and Jesus followers. But I mean, those are the two groups. Go through history. Go back to the Crusades through Columbus, through, through doctrine of discovery, through slavery, manifest destiny.
Go back to the extinction, uh, the ethnic cleansing of the Indians and the Holocaust. It's always been authoritarian Christians doing all of these human rights abuses and using a Bible to justify their cruelty. And the resistance has always been led by Jesus followers, and we [00:51:00] see it right now. I mean, do you think ICE is doing the work of Jesus?
Like, are these tariffs doing the work of Jesus or bomb tearing up a peace deal with a Iran and bombing Iran, doing the work of Jesus persecuting trans kids that's doing the work of Jesus? Like, like just, just look at your church and see what they fight for. Look at the Sermon on the mount. Does your church fight for the things in there or does your church preach a go?
A smug little gospel of superiority over service, right? If your church is telling you who your enemies are, instead of telling you to love your enemies, you're not in a real church. And that's why I wrote this book, uh, for everybody who's been there. This is the book I wish someone had given me when I was 17, trying to understand how the Jesus that I knew.
Could be the same team as these televangelists and warmed over segregationists. I was seeing on my TV like Falwell [00:52:00] and Pat Robertson. And I've spent my whole life trying to understand it. And the fact is, uh, it's easy to waive Jesus's name around as a prop. It's not quite as easy to do the unpopular lonely duty of following his command.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Hmm, I I could imagine a lot of people that are listening to you reading the book, they're gonna go, wow, I like this version of Christianity, which is not a version that you see a lot of. What are your rhythms or practices of faith that, that you experience regularly that help ground you in, in your experience with, with who Jesus really is?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Well, I mean, you know who, where do you begin? I, I live in New York City, so I'm surrounded by. The homelessness and drug addiction and poverty all over the place. Uh, I live south of Harlem, New York, and, uh, you know, I'm, I'm called on every day to see how kind I can be. Um, for me, a lot of what I do is, uh, grounded in, [00:53:00] um, in creativity, in my work, being on stage, writing, et cetera, and something that Catholics like to call the presence of the Holy Spirit.
And what are you doing that makes you feel that connection? It can be volunteer work, it can be, it can be creation, it can be dancing, you know, it can be painting when you get in the zone and you feel you're connected to something higher when you're writing or when you're, you're drawing or, or even cleaning your house where you just feel like you've shut off your brain and you're connected to something bigger than you.
Right. Um, your, if your church is, is preaching cruelty, maybe. This is the universe or God or whomever telling you it's it's time to move on and that you've outgrown your church. And maybe if your church is preaching mean this and telling you who you're supposed to hate, maybe for a while your church is supposed to be working in a soup kitchen on a Sunday or doing animal rescue on a Sunday, or going and cleaning up garbage at the park.
You know, there's all kinds of prayer and there's [00:54:00] also a prayer of action. And your communion with God doesn't necessarily have to be with you on your knees. In a church around people community's great, service is great, but maybe if you're seeking, if you're going through a transformation, if you're trying to see where your spiritual journey is gonna lead you, you need to honor that and, and again, it doesn't mean you give up the faith of your parents.
It doesn't mean you hate where you came from. Doesn't mean you have to hurt your mom and dad. You just want to go deeper in it. That's why. George Harrison meant so much to me as a kid. He, uh, when I, when I met him, he was my hero because he had started out Catholic and then his spiritual journey and seeking led him somewhere much deeper.
So at the end of the day, it's all between you and the commander in chief. Whether he or she or them or WR is there or not. And that's why I say, you know, use the teachings of Jesus and let love be the religion. Um, then it doesn't matter what. Dodgeball team name you wanna park it in. Uh, you know, if your, if your religion's not preaching love for everyone, then your religion's not gonna really help us anyway.
'cause everyone needs love. [00:55:00] And man, do we need it fast?
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: That's well said, John.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Well, thank you. I don't,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: I
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: you ask much deeper que you ask a much deeper questions in a lot of these shows. Please. Yes.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Uh, well, thank you. It's the wine. It's the wine
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Uh, there you go. That's it.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Okay. I wanna, I wanna transition a a handful of questions that we like to ask each guest, and then we get to compare your answers to everyone else's answers. So
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Okay, let's do it.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: we'll see.
We'll see where you take these. If I were to ask you, and I'm curious, we're gonna take this based on your previous comment. is the best glass of wine you've ever had in your life? Is there a moment that comes to mind? Is there a bottle? Is there a, a setting who you were
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: like
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: the best it could ever be as you've ever experienced it?
What? What comes to mind to you?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: A really cheap, cheap, cheap bottle of Barringer Zinfandel that we used to get for under 10 bucks when my wife and I were first dating in the nineties and were too poor, uh, to [00:56:00] afford anything. And we'd get a pizza and a very cheap bottle of pink z uh, pink Barringer wine. Uh, and it was, uh, that was what we did in our, in our twenties and we were too poor for anything else.
And, um. Um, to this day that cheap, awful wine is, uh, the sweetest I've ever had. Yeah, I, I attach a lot of it to emotion. I would never drink that again now because, uh, my wife has converted me to, uh, to organic.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: time you had that?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Not in the last 10 years. It would, I'm older. I get a, I'd probably get a, a ferocious headache if I tried it now, but it, but I mean, I've never been asked that question, and honestly, that's, that's the most honest answer I could give you.
I could tell you all fancy kinds to try to impress you, but that's, that's the bottle it meant the most.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: No, I love that. And I, I, I get stories like that where it's often the surprising moment or who they're with or
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: what that emotion, you know, brings to mind. And
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: of the
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yes,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: about wine and I love the way it, it ties us into a deeper part of our humanity.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: [00:57:00] sir.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: On that note, which member of church history would you trust to pick out a bottle of wine for you, who would you not trust and why?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Um, I would trust St. Francis of Assisi because that guy had really good instincts and was able to put his faith in a higher power. I mean, Francis quit the Crusades and walked unarmed through a war zone to host peace Talks between a Muslim. Warlord and the armies of the Crusades. So for me, uh, I'll trust that guy with a lot of judgment calls.
And, um, who would I not trust? Uh uh ooh, from all of, from all of church history? Oh, there's so many to choose from. Um,
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: there are a lot to choose from.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: yeah. Let me just say the Roman Empire. I'll just say the Roman Empire in general, because they know how to screw up an order. Let me tell you, you can write them very, very direct directions of what you need them to do.
And they will throw it out and do whatever the hell they want. So I probably tell [00:58:00] them that I wanted a, you know, a nice organic s and they come back with a schitz knowing them. So, yeah, I wouldn't trust those guys.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: All right, good. I like it. What's something you used to believe that it turned out later you were wrong about?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Um, hell, I think I was about 15 years old where I was like, wait a minute. So fire can hurt a ghost. And boom, it, it broke. Broke. Broke. That's how it broke. Broke. Wait, they're, they're ghosts, right? They're spirits, but there's fire. And the, the fire hurts. A goat broke. The logic broke for me. I was like, that makes no, I, no, I'm sorry.
God gave us reason. No, that makes no sense. And then you learn about the ancient Hebrew concept of shoal, separation of God and what, you know, their vision of the afterlife, absence the divine was. And yo, that actually makes a lot more, makes a lot more sense than, uh, a place where all the bad people are.
As much as I love hell for, for jokes, oh, I, and I love hell for comedy, [00:59:00] believe me. Uh, let me, let me believe in a little while longer, please, until we change presidents at least Please.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Nice. what do you see as the main issues facing Christianity in America today?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: That they're losing young people, and young people are not turned off to Jesus or God or Noah, a or Santa Clause. They're turned off to the meanness and the cruelty. In the nineties, it was 90% of us were Christian. Now only 25 years into the century, it's, it's, it's down the two thirds, like after centuries of 90% we're down to two thirds.
And 2022 was the first year ever where, uh, religious participation dipped below 50% in terms of weekly worship. So, I mean, young people are leaving. And to me, if the church wants to last, well, they can keep on doing what they're doing and be mean to gay people and trans people. But you know, you, you try finding a, a young person today who hates gay people.
They think it's crazy that we were so homophobic in the 20th century, which tells you in [01:00:00] 20 years they're gonna be shocked at how mean we were to their trans brothers and sisters. Way back in the, why were you guys so mean in the twenties? Good God. We're getting kinder. Young people aren't gonna keep the prejudice of their Fox news addicted parents.
It doesn't work. So, so if the church wants to survive, you can keep on catering to these haters and these racists in the ugliest part of the 21st century. But as I say in the book, caring about the environment and stewardship of the earth, caring about poverty, caring about families, being able to afford to feed their kids, caring about the rights of workers, caring about justice, caring about leaving people alone and not interfering in their private lives.
These are all very popular topics with young people that align quite nicely with the teachings of Jesus and an activist church. That's about how do we help others? Not about how are we better than others, but how do we make the difference? Well, that's gonna be a very appealing to the good people and the shitty people will always be able to find some, somewhere that'll tell 'em, [01:01:00] you're better than everybody else.
That's fundamentalism. That's always gonna be there. We have to present an alternative, and I do believe conservatives can do this because. I, I've been picketed by Westboro Baptist Church and I know I gotta run, but, but like, they, they picketed me, but I, I give them credit in the fight against homophobia because so many conservatives saw the Westboro Baptist Church and thought, well, I'm not altogether on board with gay marriage, but I definitely don't wanna be on the side with those jerks.
And I think their hatred actually did a lot of good in the long run because it was so repellent and so antithetical to the gospel.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Wow. That's an
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Yeah. Well, you got, you want me to drink wine for this interview?
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Alright. if someone is just resonating with this and they're like, man, I, I dig this. What's the easiest way for them to find you to connect with your book? What would
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: you.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: would you send them?
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: My book is called Separation of Church and Hate. A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back The Bible from Fundamentalist Fascist and Flock Fleecing Frauds. That's on sale now. [01:02:00] We are in our second printing, so it's. It's a wait on, uh, on Amazon, but if you go to your local bookstore or a less evil website, uh, you might be able to get it.
The ebook is out there and the Kindle and all that, uh, they we're, they're shipping a lot more. They told me they're coming next week. Um, I'm also, I do a show every night on SiriusXM on the Progress Channel 1 27. If you don't have SiriusXM, it's, uh, the highlights are a podcast every day called the John Fugelsang podcast.
And I'm on Substack and all the socials. I'm sorry that you have to be able to spell Fugelsang to find me.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: I'll put the link in
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Thank you.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: notes for everybody
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Thank you.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: if spelling is hard for you.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Brilliant. It is for me.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Well, John, this has been such a delight. I loved reading your book. I love the ideas and I, I so appreciate you taking time to sit down and unpack this with us. Thank you so much for all the work that you're doing.
john-fugelsang_1_10-14-2025_160350: Thank you for all you're doing and thank you for having me.
jeremy_1_10-14-2025_130350: Well. All right, everybody, go and get the new second printing of separation of church and hate, and we will see you all on the next [01:03:00] episode of Cabernet and Pray.
