Do Christian nationalists want to bring back compelled orthodoxy and the resulting persecution?
Well, the question of whether God is one, two or three has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths throughout history. In 16th-century England, one could only discuss religion, especially the Christian religion, at his or her peril. William Tyndale—an English scholar fluent in multiple languages, whose translation work acquired the enmity of such notables as (later) Saint Thomas More—was strangled and then burned at the stake for his religious doctrines and for translating Hebrew and Greek texts into his Bible, which became the basis for what is still my favorite translation, the King James Version. Tyndale may have had more influence on the English language than Shakespeare. Earlier, John Wycliff, who produced the first complete English translation of the Bible, managed to die on his own, but his bones were exhumed and burned about 43 years after his death by religious nationalists.
Today we do not burn at the stake—yet—but there are those who want to go back to public firing squads. And some of that group probably have John Fugelsang (whose last name translates to “Birdsong”) in their sights for his—horror of horrors—best-selling book Separation of Church and Hate. Fugelsang freely admits to being the filial product of lapsed Catholic clergy, a former nun and a former monk: Sister Damien (christened before The Omen became strangely popular) and Brother Boniface. But whatever their breach of youthful vows to the Roman Church, his parents taught their son about the sort of repairing the world that Jesus proclaimed, and the love that Fugelsang’s Christian name John (“the apostle that Jesus loved”) evokes. In the most famous Greek Bible scripture, John 3:16, a lesson Jesus gave privately to the curious Pharisee Nicodemus: “God so loved the world …”
Not kinfolk and neighbors, but the world. Fugelsang likes love; I actually think he loves it.
Separation stakes its territory on a non-literal reading of his Bible, which indeed does not speak with one voice. This idea that the Bible is not “univocal” is not at all controversial with many, probably most Biblical scholars, since the Bible was authored by numerous men and women over thousands of years. And literal reading of the Bible creates problems as early as reading Genesis chapters one and two, as these chapters—assuredly written by different authors, and certainly written for different purposes—clearly disagree on the order of biblical creation. The most lyrical book in the Bible, Psalms, is somewhat unique in that it does not consist of God’s purported words to mankind, but rather man’s purported words to God. Man does not always get it right.
On hot-button issues, Fugelsang sings a decidedly progressive tune. The Jesus he sees is a radical “who hung around lepers, hookers and crooks,” was “anti-wealth and anti-death penalty;” his Jesus is not “even slightly anti-gay,” “never mentioned abortion,” and most radical of all to the “View from Versailles” crowd, he “supported paying taxes.” Fugelsang asserts that his Jesus was a long-haired, community-organizing, authority-questioning, anti-slut shaming, brown-skinned, Palestinian, unarmed, homeless Jew—“but only if you believe what’s actually in the Bible.” Fugelsang seems to wonder why certain self-proclaimed Christians and their fellowships would extol the importance of posting the Ten Commandments on schoolhouse walls, but not allow discussion of our leaders’ admitted violations of those very commandments. Are some things best left unsaid? Unposted?
Fugelsang wonders how Christian nationalists see the Beatitudes, with their non-testosterone call to acknowledge and bless the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the righteous, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the falsely persecuted. Why do they not seek to post this short part of the Sermon on the Mount on schoolhouse walls?
Most Christian nationalists do not acknowledge shared faith or values with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Christian Scientists or Unitarians, and they advocate to Jews that salvation is exclusively available through faith in Jesus Christ. Many would, I suppose, like to either expel these and other religions, or make them second-class citizens. Fugelsang perorates that “Authentic Christianity doesn’t seek dominance, but transformation. Jesus is telling you to go beyond your religion’s rules into a deeper kind of love.”
He might have said it better by paraphrasing St. Paul, a Christian author his book has some issues with: “The letter of the law kills, but the spirit gives life.”
This admittedly light-hearted book will change few minds, but at least for now, you can read it without being burned at the stake, immediately or later. I think I will choose cremation, just to get it over with.
This article appears in Fall Flavors.