Comedian John Fugelsang brought some sober truth to participants at the 2026 Summit for Religious Freedom sponsored by Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
While cracking joke after joke, he highlighted the dangers of Christian nationalism and offered ideas on how to move beyond Project 2025 and the destruction of democracy. He spoke April 26 at the conference held in suburban Washington, D.C.
Fugelsang is the author of a new book, Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists and Flock-fleecing Frauds.
He called the AU gathering the “smart moral person convention” and the “anti-Turning Point rally.”
And he quipped: “It’s always great to be in a room with so many atheists doing the Lord’s work. So thank you, atheists. Some of the best Christians I know are atheists and some of the most godless heathens I know are believers.”
Fugelsang said he’s “come to view Jesus the way I’ve come to view Elvis. I love the guy, but a lot of his fan club terrifies me.”
Christian nationalists, he warned, are “trying to eliminate the wall between church and state to realize their dream of turning America into a second-rate theocracy like Iran, but with Kid Rock music. And the Ten Commandments are being required in classrooms by Christians who are blindly obedient to a man who’s broken all 10. The speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, America’s creepiest youth pastor, says, ‘We were founded to be a Christian nation.’”
“The only way you can follow both Donald Trump and Jesus, friends, is if you’ve never read either of their books.”
He lamented that “government officials tried to get people fired for quoting Charlie Kirk’s exact words. All in service of this guy, this reality show, racist clown, sex-abusing pest. The only way you can follow both Donald Trump and Jesus, friends, is if you’ve never read either of their books. Because the only thing Donald Trump has in common with Jesus is they both spent a lot of time around prostitutes and they both use ghost writers and that’s it.”
Fugelsang joked that “every time Donald Trump talks about God, an angel coughs up blood.”
And Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is “brazenly, petulantly pontificating on government property to a spiritually diverse volunteer army about his fervent devotion to this gun-toting alpha bro Christ who does not exist in the actual Jesus parts of the Bible. And while these pious posers pontificate, as we all know, they are blowing up schools full of children in Iran. They are blowing up people in Venezuelan fishing boats and lying that it’s about fentanyl, I mean cocaine. They’re cutting services for the poorest of the poor. They are protecting wealthy abusers of children. They’re cutting taxes and regulations for the wealthy, and masked cowards with badges are chasing brown kids around church picnics.”
This may seem new but it’s not, he said. “We have to remember something: The constant play of authoritarian Christianity for 1,700 years ever since Rome co-opted the startup, which is step one, they used Jesus, his name, his movement, to gain power.
“Step two, once they have that power, they do the opposite of everything the character of Jesus says in the book. And step three, when someone points this out, scream that they’re persecuted. That’s been the play and it’s worked for 1,700 years.”
“None of these groups fight for the teachings of Jesus, and that’s important.”
He quipped that “religious fundamentalism and Christian nationalism are not the same, but they’re close enough to be illegally married cousins. None of these groups fight for the teachings of Jesus, and that’s important. None of them fight for the teachings of the star of that book they wave over their head so bombastically. They don’t fight for the Lord. They don’t fight for the gospel. They’re not fighting Satan. They don’t care about religious liberty. They care about conservative Christian power and conservative Christian control over society. That is their only true religion.”
And this is fueling an exodus from the church, Fugelsang said. “Young people aren’t leaving church because of Jesus or God or Santa Claus. They’re leaving because of the cruelty and hypocrisy of so much of organized religion.”
Statistically, while the share of Americans who are religious keeps shrinking, “the percentage of Christians who believe we were founded to be a Christian nation is increasing. In other words, as the religious population shrinks, the fringe is growing. And sometimes the fringe is armed and crazy and thinks Jesus really likes wrath.”
The irony, he continued, is that “mixing extreme conservative religion with authoritarian power is literally what killed Jesus.”
In the Bible, Jesus opposed public prayer, he noted. He was “never once anti-gay. Never once mentioned abortion. Never once said government should force citizens to be pregnant against their will. Never once said men should force teenage rape victims to stay pregnant against their will.”
“We live in a time when people are groomed to believe a talking snake is literal fact, but love your enemies was just Jesus being all metaphor.”
Today, “we live in a time when politicians and preachers got millions of white Christians to vote against everything Jesus ever talked about by talking about abortion, which Jesus never talked about. We live in a time when people are groomed to believe a talking snake is literal fact, but love your enemies was just Jesus being all metaphor.”
Just as Christian nationalists ignore the clear teachings of Jesus, they also contort the clear wishes of America’s Founders, Fugelsang said. “These guys wrote it down more than once. And like Jesus, they left very firm instructions for when they were away. Separation of church and state isn’t just a single rule. It’s a framework that connects everything. It is baked into our system like caffeine is baked into coffee beans.”
That’s why it’s time to change the language away from speaking of Christian nationalists and fundamentalists, he suggested. “Start calling them fake Christians.”
He doesn’t mean “ordinary folks who have been hoodwinked, bamboozled and led astray,” he said. “I’m not talking about your racist cousin who thinks vaccines turn you gay. But we have to start focusing on the politicians and religious leaders who manipulate them and always have throughout history. Name it, call it out. If we don’t call out the fake Christians, then we are allowing them to frame all religion as authoritarianism. … If we don’t label the fake Christians, then we’re letting them put MLK in the same basket as the KKK. … If Christianity is defined by the teachings and example of Jesus, then these two things cannot be morally equal expressions of the same thing.”
The way to stop “fake Christians” is for real Christians to speak up in alliance with people of other faiths and no faith, he advised.
Related article:
In conversation with John Fugelsang | Opinion by Greg Garrett