Dear Revealer readers,

At the end of Tony Kushner’s epic play Angels in America, a nearly seven-hour, two-part show about the AIDS epidemic, religion, and politics in America, the play’s protagonist looks directly into the audience and says:

“This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens.
The time has come.
Bye now.
You are fabulous creatures, each and every one.
And I bless you:  More Life.
The Great Work Begins.”

Revealer Editor, Brett Krutzsch

I found myself thinking about Kushner’s words this week as the United States both elected a new President and faced a record number of Americans infected with COVID-19. Like so many others, Biden’s victory sent me into the streets where thousands of people poured out of their homes to celebrate a new era. Finally, I thought, those who died from COVID-19 will be commemorated. Finally, I thought, scientists will be given respect so our country can take the necessary steps to curb the pandemic. Finally, I thought, this disease will not be the end of so many lives. Kushner’s pronouncement, “And I bless you: More Life” seemed like the appropriate, simple blessing for our complicated, tumultuous times.

But Kushner doesn’t end his play with a blessing; his final words are a call to action: “The Great Work Begins.” And so too for us now: we must focus our energies on the necessary work, the challenging work, the great work of improving this country. We must commit to racial equality, to ending anti-Muslim violence, to making the country safe for religious pluralism, to protecting our planet, to repairing our criminal justice system, to ending toxic masculinity, to celebrating gender and sexual diversity, to equalizing resources for Native American communities, to establishing healthcare for all, to ensuring economic security for everyone, and to much more. Yes, this is a daunting list. But this is our task and one we must accept. The Great Work Begins.

The articles in this issue start with the premise that we have much to do to make this a more equitable country. The November issue opens with Ambre Dromgoole’s “What Breonna Taylor and Sister Rosetta Tharpe Taught Me About Black Women and Friendship,” where she highlights how looking at Black women’s friendships – whether of a famous Gospel singer like Rosetta Tharpe or the unjustly murdered Breonna Taylor – can illuminate the too-often-overlooked humanity of Black women’s lives. Next, in “On Evangelical Masculinities,” Daniel José Camacho reflects on the links between evangelical Christianity, aggressive masculinity, and race by offering a review of Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s new book Jesus and John Wayne. Then, in “Elegy for Tisquantum: The Mayflower at 400,” Ed Simon offers a new way to commemorate this month’s 400^th anniversary of the Mayflower’s landing at Plymouth Rock by focusing not on the Puritans but on the indigenous Americans whose stories should be central to any narrative the United States proclaims about itself. Next, in “On France, Violence, and Religious Media” Contributing Editor Kali Handelman interviews Elayne Oliphant about the recent terror attacks in France and what responses to those violent acts reveal about race and religion in both France and the United States. And the issue concludes with an excerpt from Mark Sameth’s The Name: A History of the Dual-Gendered Hebrew Name for God where Sameth argues that, far from a modern interpretation driven by transgender politics, the ancient Israelites’ name for God reflected their belief that God was both male and female.

As the articles in this issue attest, we have great obstacles to overcome as a country. The anti-democratic forces of white supremacy and Christian nationalism are strong, their supporters are well organized, and many people are content with the status quo. But we know this can be a better nation. We know what is at stake for people of color, LGBTQ Americans, non-Christians, and many more vulnerable communities. So I say to you, dear readers, what the prolific queer Jewish playwright Tony Kushner declared to his Angels in America audiences decades ago: “The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.”

May this new era – one of great, important, and necessary work – begin.

Yours,
Brett Krutzsch, Ph.D.