Many conflicting narratives about Jesus of Nazareth continue to spark heated debates. According to the Gospels, Jesus, or Yeshua bar Yosef, was a Palestinian Jew living under brutal Roman military occupation. He spent three years as a traveling preacher before being executed by the state for political sedition. He was anti-wealth, anti-death penalty, and explicitly anti-public prayer, as it’s stated in Matthew 6:5. He also never mentioned abortion, never condemned gay people, and never spoke English. If all of this surprises you, there’s a lot more to learn.

Millions of Americans grew up with a radically different Jesus. But, first of all, Jesus wasn’t white. The “whitewashing” of Jesus is clearly seen in Western art that has historically depicted him fair-skinned and blue-eyed. Secondly, Jesus’ personality and whole belief system are often changed to fit a certain agenda. He is often invoked to justify wealth accumulation, military aggression, or hostility toward immigrants. This alternate Jesus is not found in scripture.

A central piece of Jesus’ ministry was the Sermon on the Mount. In this spiritual manifesto, Jesus laid out his foundational values: humility, mercy, and peacemaking. You will not find these words on the walls of courthouses or classrooms championed by right-wing Christians. What you will find, instead, is the Ten Commandments, a set of laws Jesus himself reduced to two: love God and love your neighbor.

John Fugelsang traces his own awakening to this contradiction to his childhood. He is the son of a former nun and a former Franciscan brother. However, they left religious life, married, and raised their children in a Christianity defined by service and forgiveness. So, Fugelsang does not argue that religion is the source of the world’s hatred and violence. The real driver is the extreme fundamentalist wing of religion, which hijacks the faith and turns it into a vehicle for power.