Over the weekend on his eponymous morning show, MSNBC's Ali Velshi provided unfunny liberal comedian John Fugelsang a forum to trash conservative Christians. Fugelsang -- who once notoriously declared that he would take pleasure in seeing conservative Christians "die off"-- was promoting his new book, Separation of Church and Hate, as if waiting for the conservatives to die off is the "Church of Love."
Toward the end of the 11:00 a.m. hour on Saturday morning, Velshi set up the segment:
I'm back with my old friend, John Fugelsang, author of the brand new book, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds.
In the book's introduction, he lays out his aim. Quote, "The right has turned a movement based on compassion and love into a mean self-worshiping tax-free clique. The intolerance of right-wing Christianity is what's driving young people away from religion. ... It's time to take the Bible back from the hypocrites."
After recalling that both his parents were Catholics who taught him a "progressive" version of Christianity, he then complained:
And millions of us have grown up in America to see that that mission has been hijacked by this mean collective that fights for stuff they pretend Jesus talked about like persecuting gay people; driving away Christian refugees at our border -- I don't call them illegals; criminalizing abortion -- which the Bible never does. Abortions are legal and free in Israel right now because Jesus's religion never got around to banning them.
Garnering agreement from Velshi, Fugelsang continued:
And yet this infrastructure of right-wing Christianity for two generations now -- I mean, two generations since Falwell and Reagan hit on the pro-life movement, we've seen two generations of Christians raised to vote against the stuff Jesus actually talked about in favor of stuff Jesus never talked about. And I got tired of seeing my parents' faith used as a cover for meanness.
So in Fugelsang's theology, abortion is fine -- it's not "mean and self-worshipping" to an unborn baby -- but deportation and tax cuts are grave sins.
After the two noted that all major religions have a "fundamentalist wing," Fugelsang added:
First off, the fundamentalists -- they'll always tell you about the minority that's coming. That's Christian nationalism -- that's all authoritarian -- powerless minority going to come get us, whether it's Jews, whether it's trans kids, whether it's black people, women, whatever it is. Different decade, different scapegoat. Donald Trump was able to get the right-wing Christians and the evangelicals to go for him not by promising to do anything Jesus said.
So now it's the conservative Christians that are anti-Semitic, not the "Free Palestine" leftists? The liberal podcaster eventually concluded:
Right-wing Christians have more in common with right-wing Muslims than they do with moderate Christians. And we got to love these people -- we can't hate them back -- but, in a democracy, we have to beat them. And the great thing is that you don't need to believe in the Bible as literal fact to call these people out.
They use it as a prop. They do not fight -- Jesus commands us to welcome the stranger. On immigration alone, the God of the Hebrew scriptures commands the Israelites to treat the alien as one of your own. This is hate. I mean, I'm not just saying you should let just anybody into the country, but it's the criminalization of migrants -- calling them illegals. That shows they don't really follow this holy book they wave around like a prop.
Back on April 24, 2015 as he appeared on MSNBC's The Ed Show, Fugelsang declared that GOP presidential candidate Bobby Jindal was "wrong about Christianity" and that he "is to Christianity what Christ was to bigotry." After declaring that the New Testament does not support discrimination against gays, he added: "Bobby Jindal is having a desperate play to a dwindling demographic of bigots. It's going to be a pleasure watching them die off."
Transcript follows:
MSNBC's Velshi
October 4, 2025
11:49 a.m. Eastern
ALI VELSHI: I wasn't being flippant when I said we're going to come back and talk about Christianity. I'm back with my old friend, John Fugelsang, author of the brand new book, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds.
In the book's introduction, he lays out his aim. Quote, "The right has turned a movement based on compassion and love into a mean self-worshiping tax-free clique. The intolerance of right-wing Christianity is what's driving young people away from religion. ... It's time to take the Bible back from the hypocrites."
Great to see you, my friend, first of all. I -- I -- you have a history in this. This is not foreign to you to write about the Bible and Christianity. You grew up in an environment where that was -- that was all around you.
(John Fugelsang starts by recalling that his parents were Christians who met through church involvement.)
JOHN FUGELSANG: And they married two months later and tried to raise us to be progressive, free-thinking, sexually repressed Catholics, and I was raised like so many, believing that Christianity was about the stuff Jesus in the book talks about -- love, forgiveness, acceptance. Matthew 25, he says individuals and nations are going to be judged by how they welcome the poor, welcome the stranger -- I mean take care of the poor, take care of the sick, welcome the stranger, and care for those in prison -- against the death penalty, forgive your enemies, consistently siding with the underdog and the marginalized.
And millions of us have grown up in America to see that that mission has been hijacked by this mean collective that fights for stuff they pretend Jesus talked about like persecuting gay people; driving away Christian refugees at our border -- I don't call them illegals; criminalizing abortion which the Bible never does. Abortions are legal and free in Israel right now because Jesus's religion never got around to banning them.
VELSHI Right.
FUGELSANG: And yet this infrastructure of right-wing Christianity for two generations now -- I mean, two generations since Falwell and Reagan hit on the pro-life movement, we've seen two generations of Christians raised to vote against the stuff Jesus actually talked about in favor of stuff Jesus never talked about. And I got tired of seeing my parents' faith used as a cover for meanness.
VELSHI: Yeah
FUGELSANG: It's a third-rail thing in comedy. It's a scary thing to talk about, but I've met so many people, Ali, who were raised religious and now consider themselves spiritual. They're not turned off to Jesus or God or faith -- they're turned off to all the cruelty and hypocrisy. That's why Christianity was 90 percent of the population in the '90s -- now, it's down to about two-thirds, and we're below 50 percent in this country in regular church attendance. It's not because people don't like Noah's Ark -- it's because they don't like the meanness.
VELSHI: So all major religions have these -- these factions -- these people who claim to --
FUGELSANG: Fundamentalist wing.
VELSHI: Fundamentalist wings, correct. I'm mostly -- and I'm not puzzled about Russell Vought because he says it -- he comes out and says it. I'm kind of puzzled by how Donald Trump gets people to fall for this stuff other than the fact that he made a Bible.
FUGELSANG: No, no, Donald Trump did what they all do. First off, the fundamentalists -- they'll always tell you about the minority that's coming. That's Christian nationalism -- that's all authoritarian -- powerless minority going to come get us, whether it's Jews, whether it's trans kids, whether it's black people, women, whatever it is. Different decade, different scapegoat. Donald Trump was able to get the right-wing Christians and the evangelicals to go for him not by promising to do anything Jesus said.
Have you ever heard him promise to follow the commandments of Christ and the evangelicals get happy? No. He promised them earthly power. He promised to put them first. He played into the persecution narrative that the fundamentalists of all thrive on. "Well, you're the overwhelming majority -- you control all the institutions -- but you're a put upon minority, and it's time someone stood up for you."
(...)
Spiritual people use religion to become better people. Fundamentalists use religion to prove that they're better than you. And fundamentalists of all religions -- and you've talked about this beautifully. I've found that they have the same five traits. They're basically -- they're the same, but, the more right-wing your religion is -- it doesn't matter -- Hinduism, Islam, Judaism -- women are always second-class citizens the more right-wing it gets; always the sex hang-ups unless it's for procreation; always violence is acceptable if it's our side doing it because God likes us better, and the other side represents Satan. Fundamentalists always have a focus on punishment over healing. And, finally, there's always that victimhood narrative that "we get to do what we want because we've been so put upon, so we're allowed to ignore what our holy books say and be cruel because of what was done to us."
Right-wing Christians have more in common with right-wing Muslims than they do with moderate Christians. And we got to love these people -- we can't hate them back -- but, in a democracy, we have to beat them. And the great thing is that you don't need to believe in the Bible as literal fact to call these people out.
They use it as a prop. They do not fight -- Jesus commands us to welcome the stranger. On immigration alone, the God of the Hebrew scriptures commands the Israelites to treat the alien as one of your own. This is hate. I mean, I'm not just saying you should let just anybody into the country, but it's the criminalization of migrants -- calling them illegals. That shows they don't really follow this holy book they wave around like a prop.
VELSHI: John, it's an amazing story, and thank you, and wildly relevant. I can't imagine in all the years when you were trying to get this published anybody thinking this is going to make a lot of sense in 2025.
FUGELSANG: I had so many agents tell me, "Can't you tell your parents' love story? We don't want to hear about Christians and Atheists and non-Christians working together," but, throughout history, the only thing that's worked against Christian authoritarianism has been the real Christ followers and their allies.
