Like John Fugelsang, I was raised strictly Catholic. However, a lot of variation falls under the umbrella of “strictly Catholic,” and the unique backstory of his parents early in his book “Separation of Church and Hate” is worth the purchase price alone.
Furgelsang definitely put in his time promoting the book, and I’d heard him speak in the course of a number of media appearances before I finally picked up a copy a little over a week ago. I was about halfway through when Donald Trump posted his lengthy tirade trashing the pope and posted an AI slop image depicting himself as Jesus Christ.
Trump’s blasphemous social media posts didn’t especially bother me. I abandoned Catholicism about 13 years ago, and even if I hadn’t, I am far more indignant about Trump’s real-world outrages than his disgusting presence in cyberspace. When the president has already sent unaccountable masked goons to murder American citizens in the streets, what’s yet another display of distasteful idolatry on the internet?
Legal Is Changing. And NeoSummit Is Where The Future Is Being Built.
Legal and operational leaders are gathering May 6–7 in Fort Lauderdale to confront the questions the industry hasn't answered—with a keynote from Amanda Knox setting the tone.
That being said, I went to a Catholic law school, almost all of my family members are still Catholic, and I understand anyone of any religion being upset about a sitting president mocking one current and one former head of their church. It’s not difficult to empathize with those who were displeased to see Trump baselessly attack the pope and compare himself to Jesus.
“Separation of Church and Hate” was the perfect thing to be reading as this latest Trump controversy unfolded. It has been easy to be resentful of the highly religious among us for causing this mess to begin with. Churchgoing Catholics went for Trump over Kamala Harris 55% to 43%. Protestants voted for Trump 62% to 36%. Fugelsang made it a lot easier for me to accept that a relatively small number of zealots who don’t actually practice what Jesus taught are largely responsible for these margins.
I’ve read the Bible. Yeah, all of it. While this puts me far ahead of most people who claim to believe in this stuff, it’s a hard holy book to follow. The Bible is so full of contradictions, nonsense, rules that don’t and were never meant to apply to 21st century Christians, irrelevant measurements, and exhaustive lineages that it really self-dilutes the part that matters: the teachings of Jesus.
Fugelsang does great work in separating the wheat from the chaff in the source material and in explaining why it makes sense to do so even (maybe especially) from a believer’s perspective. Jesus was a radical. He preached nonviolence. He championed the poor, questioned authority, and was definitely anti-wealth. He was against the death penalty. He was pro-woman 2,000 years before it finally just barely started to become cool.
Keeping Law School Accessible When Federal Loans Fall Short
As federal borrowing caps tighten financing options for law students, one organization is stepping in to negotiate the terms they can't secure alone.
He never mentioned abortion. He never said anything anti-gay. In fact, in one story Jesus went out of His way to heal a young man who, based on the context and the historical conventions of the time, was likely the homosexual lover of a Roman.
Any Christian would benefit from reading “Separation of Church and Hate.” But so would any nonbeliever. Like it or not, we all have to share the world with people of many different faiths, or no faith at all, and whatever you believe, Jesus makes a lot of good points simply as a philosopher.
When I finish “Separation of Church and Hate,” I’m not going back to Mass. But it’s already reminded me that, when you stop selectively focusing on the parts of the Bible that are clearly wrong as applied to modern life and faith (much of the Old Testament isn’t a healthy place to dwell) and instead focus on Christ’s actual deeds and teachings, Jesus clearly had so much staying power for a reason.
Treat others as you would like to be treated — doesn’t get much more profound than that. Now if only we could get a few more self-identified Christians to really try to live by it.
Whether you’re Christian or not, pick up a copy of Fugelsang’s book if you want to counter the poison that is Trump’s self-deifying social media presence. I guarantee that Fugelsang’s actions as an author are a lot closer to what Jesus would have done under present circumstances than whatever it is Trump is doing lately.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at [email protected].