John Fugelsang is author of the New York Times bestselling book The Separation of Church and Hate, a comedian, actor and broadcaster who is the child of two parents who were in holy orders — and then, as he writes, broke their promise to God to love each other. Our conversation was wide-ranging, and this discussion of Turning Point USA is certainly topical, but it is the tip of the iceberg. I’m so grateful to John for this book and for our ongoing commitment to keep talking about the issues that animate the two of us.
Greg Garrett: I teach at Baylor University. And Turning Point USA is coming this month. And I’m kind of freaking out about that, John.
John Fugelsang: Why?
GG: Well, Don Jr. Is going to be there and the Homeland Securities czar is going to be there. And Erica Kirk is going to tell —
John Fugelsang
JF: White supremacist frauds, all of them.
GG: That they shouldn’t be ashamed of being white men.
JF: Oh, they need to hear that in Texas, don’t they?
Well, when your parents raised you to identify with the Confederates and not the abolitionists, some folks take talking about actual history and morality a little bit personally, but I would imagine you’ve had to deal with that kind of trifling nonsense all the time.
Charlie (Kirk) was not a fan of mine. Charlie did not like me. And when it comes to anything related to him or Turning Point USA, I just ask people, tell me one actual teaching of Christ that they fought for. Go to their website and find one thing Jesus said in the gospels they fight for. You won’t find it. They don’t fight for anything Jesus said. They’re like the rest of this movement.
“They don’t fight for anything Jesus said. They’re like the rest of this movement.”
They use him. You know this better than I do.
GG: Well, you may or may not know that I am on the Charlie Kirk Professor Watch list.
JF: I did not know that. Congratulations.
GG: And yes, I take it as a badge of honor, but it’s also, in the present environment, kind of terrifying.
JF: Yes, I hope you include that in your bio in the next book. I would be bragging about that all over. He sent me a threatening DM once and I’m still bragging about it.
You’ll regret this, he wrote to me, You’re going to regret this. “You’re going to regret this, Batman.”
He was a complete profound fraud who was very well compensated for normalizing white supremacy to college kids and people in their 20s. That was his gig.
I wrote this book because I wanted it to be geared toward asking questions rather than calling names and actually asking very specific questions about each of the issues that divide us using scripture as the jumping off point.
“He was a complete profound fraud who was very well compensated for normalizing white supremacy to college kids and people in their 20s.”
GG: There are so many beautiful things about starting and ending the book with your parents, not the least of which is you can say to any critic, “Did your mom marry Jesus?”
JF: Yes, both my parents. Sometimes you find out your parents were married to other people before each other, and then sometimes you find out they were both married to God and he got heavy visitation rights at our house. I can tell you that.
GG: So let’s start with the subtitle of the book, “A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible.” And you say early on, I’m going to use the word “exegesis” one time, which is fair. I’m a seminary-trained theologian and preacher.
JF: That was an inside joke for you. Yes.
I’ll just say I’m not a theologian. I’m not an academic. I’m not clergy. And to prove it, the only time I use the word “exegesis” will be in this one sentence, but those are the books I like to read. I wanted to acknowledge my lack of official credibility while also pointing out that I know what I’m talking about a little bit.
GG: So here’s where I want to go from exegesis. A word that doesn’t get used by a bunch of people, but it’s the counterfactual, if you will, to exegesis, the art and science of interpreting a text, is “eisegesis,” which is, “this means whatever I want it to mean.”
When we’re talking about taking the Bible back from “fundamentalist fascists and flock fleecing frauds,” what we’re seeing in so many of these cases is what we would call eisegesis: I want Jesus to mean what I want Jesus to mean. Could you talk a little bit about the idea of biblical literacy, about trying to read the Bible in such a way that it’s communicating to you instead of vice versa?
JF: That’s a great question. Thank you, Doctor. We all do recreate Jesus in our own image, I guess. And so early on, one of the first points I wanted to make in the book was thou shalt not take all this too literally, because nobody does. And anyone who tells you they believe every single word of the Bible as literal fact, either hasn’t read it or is counting on you not having read it.
And for me growing up, I didn’t really understand. I used to get terribly frustrated as a young person debating the book of Genesis because for me, I just thought, what does literal belief in a talking snake have to do with the teachings of Jesus? What does literal belief in Noah’s Ark have to do with the teachings of Jesus? Jesus talked in parable and metaphor. Why is it so hard to view the Bible as parable and metaphor?
“Folks who need certainty don’t have faith.”
As I say in the book, there’s a lot of truth in the Bible. There’s not necessarily a lot of facts. And so when you accept that and embrace that terrifying question mark and realize the opposite of faith isn’t doubt, right? Doubt is an important part of any faith journey. The opposite of faith is certainty.
And folks who need certainty don’t have faith. You know what I’m saying? Whenever someone thinks they see the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese somewhere and the news covers it and they say, thousands of faithful flock to this Kalamazoo neighborhood. And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean faithful? What do you mean faithful? They don’t have faith. They want proof.
The big thing was when it comes to Christianity, when it comes to the Bible, Christians aren’t supposed to follow the Bible. The Bible tells you how to trade your 10-year-old for a goat. Christians are supposed to follow Christ. And when it comes to following Christ, you got two schools, the ones who say it’s all for personal salvation, I’ll believe all this, so I’ll go to heaven. Well, that’s the opposite of everything Jesus says, but good for you, it’s all about you, but it’s actually following the teachings of Jesus. We can’t prove any of the miracles. And I love the miracles. The miracles are awesome and amazing. And usually the best part in all the Jesus movies they make us watch as kids. But because I can’t empirically prove the miracles, that means citing 2,000-year-old supernatural accounts is a pretty flimsy way of trying to convince people I’m coming from a place of truth.
“The teachings of Jesus have the radical power to still unite people across ideology.”
But the teachings of Jesus have the radical power to still unite people across ideology. You can understand the revolutionary ethic in a guy who’s being occupied by the Roman Empire saying the meek shall inherit the earth, the kingdom of God is within you. I mean, Jesus dropped a lot of truth, and he did it very much in the way satirists do today. He wasn’t direct about it. And he often used his imagery because he was talking to uneducated people.
If you come out and preach a sermon, they’re going to remember how you made them feel. Yes. But if you come out and actually use parable and metaphor, the Good Shepherd, the lost sheep, don’t put your light under a bushel … well, people remember that when they leave.
And so for me, when people come at me with biblical literalism, I mean, I give a handful of questions you should ask your loved ones when they claim that in the book to show that maybe not quite right.
I mean, the Bible does contradict itself quite a bit and you can make yourself crazy trying to reconcile all that, or you can go to the essence of it, the truth of it, without getting tied up in the facts of it.
Greg Garrett is an award-winning professor at Baylor University, where he is the Carole McDaniel Hanks Professor of Literature and Culture. One of America’s leading voices on religion and culture, he is the author of 30 books, most recently the novel Bastille Day and The Gospel According to James Baldwin: What America’s Great Prophet Can Teach Us about Life, Love, and Identity. He is currently administering a major research grant on racism from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation and finishing a book on racist mythologies for Oxford University Press. Greg is a seminary-trained lay preacher in the Episcopal Church and Honorary Canon Theologian at the American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris. He lives in Austin with his wife, Jeanie, and their two daughters.
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