Dear Revealer readers, 

A few weeks ago, the White House issued an executive order to end “anti-Christian bias” within the federal government. To accomplish this, the White House said it would establish a task force headed by Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify and end the supposed “anti-Christian weaponization of the government.” The examples of “anti-Christian bias” in the executive order include the prohibition against colleges from discriminating against transgender students, and the arrests of people who physically blocked access to abortion clinics. The new administration, in contrast, wants colleges to discriminate against transgender students and has made access to abortion more difficult in numerous ways.

Revealer Editor, Brett Krutzsch

In my first draft of this letter, I wrote the following: “Let’s set aside that millions of American Christians support access to abortion and want to prevent discrimination against LGBTQ people, …” But in re-reading the draft, I decided we should not set aside that fact for it is not a small piece of information. More people want abortion access in this country than those who want to block it, and many of those people are committed Christians, as our special issue on “Religion and Reproductive Rights” acknowledges. And countless Christians support equality for trans and non-binary Americans. To claim otherwise, as the executive order implies, is to insist that conservative versions of Christianity are the only legitimate ones. But just because conservative Christians have a political alliance with the ruling Republican Party does not mean they alone get to represent Christianity. Nor does it mean they are victims of “anti-Christian bias.”

A well-worn strategy among dominant groups, concerned that their dominance might not hold, is to claim they are victims of persecution when they are not. This was the strategy behind the so-called “War on Christmas,” which never existed but was something some conservative Christians and Fox News pundits claimed was real—that “liberals” were trying to take away Christmas and force everyone to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” But, in reality, Christmas was thriving then and continues to thrive now. Claiming victimhood was also the tactic among those who opposed marriage equality and rights for gay Americans. Take, as one example, what former Texas governor Rick Perry said in 2012: “I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a Christian. But you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas.”

Where Perry and other conservative Christians insisted that they were targets of discrimination because gays could serve in the armed forces while their kids couldn’t celebrate Christmas (a lie, unless Perry and others were the ones banning Christmas), today’s conservatives make the same claim about transgender people. Same playbook, similar lies, different group they are targeting. And that’s the point: as they persecute transgender Americans, they claim to be the victims themselves.

Of course, religious discrimination does exist in this country. For instance, anti-Muslim hate crimes rose considerably in the United States following the October 7 attack in Israel. But, so far, neither the White House nor the broader Republican Party seems interested in drafting legislation or executive orders to provide greater protections for Muslims in the United States, a group far more likely to face discrimination and violence because of their religion than white conservative Christians.

With these thoughts in mind, The Revealer’s March issue considers conservative Christianity in today’s world and anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ bias, both in the United States and abroad. The issue opens with Diana Kruzman’s “The Rise of Oilfield Evangelism,” where she investigates the commingling of conservative Christianity with oil and gas corporations to see how religion influences the fossil fuel industry and the country’s resistance to climate change legislation. Next, we head to India where, in “The Unwritten Rules of Renting in India for Queer People and Muslims,” Anuj Behal explores rampant housing discrimination against transgender people and Muslims, and the strategies those communities are using to fight back. Next, in “Shining a New Light on Former ISIS Women through Laugh-Out-Loud Literature,” Hafsa Lodi reviews the highly anticipated novel Fundamentally about former ISIS brides and reflects on the novel’s approach to combating Islamophobia through comedy. Then, in “Are MAGA Christians More or Less Christian than Progressives?” Noah Berlatsky turns to writer James Hogg to counter the liberal Christian argument that MAGA Christians are distorting Christianity’s true teachings.

The March issue also includes the newest episode of The Revealer podcast: “The People Destroying Democracy.” Katherine Stewart, author of the article “Dismantling Democracy: Christian Nationalism’s Threat to America’s Future” and the new book Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy, joins us to discuss the organizations, people, and religious communities that are working to push the country to authoritarianism. We explore their propaganda, how things like anxiety over gender roles feed this antidemocratic momentum, and how some of these groups plan to make the country a more clearly conservative Christian nation. We also discuss what we can do to protect democracy and push back against this authoritarian movement. You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

As the White House and others make claims about “anti-Christian bias,” we should ask ourselves why conservative Christians, especially in a country where they possess tremendous cultural and political power, are claiming victimhood. When they do, we should immediately look to see if they are trying to portray themselves as innocent victims while they aggressively persecute others, like transgender Americans. And, as this strategy unfolds, let us have a clear sense of who actually needs protecting and what we can do about it.

Yours,
Brett Krutzsch, Ph.D.