Dear Revealer readers,

With the end of 2022 on the horizon, I find myself reflecting on the past year. While this year has been filled with much to lament – from the overturning of Roe and legislative attacks on transgender Americans, to the rise in antisemitism and mistreatment of immigrants – I have been pushing myself to think about positive moments in 2022.

Revealer Editor, Brett Krutzsch

For me, one source of encouragement has been the Revealer’s growth and new initiatives over the past twelve months. We continue to see our readership expand, and I am pleased so many people turn to our articles and the expertise our writers offer about critically important matters. In 2022, we launched several endeavors to offer our readers new features. In March, acclaimed religion writer Kaya Oakes joined the Revealer to write her “Not So Sorry” column, where she has addressed the Catholic church’s role in overturning Roe, sexual misconduct at Christianity Today, and more. In April, we began a three-part series on “Catholic Horrors,” which compares horror films and literature with real-life atrocities committed by the Catholic church. In October, we published a special issue on “Trans Lives and Religion,” which provides incisive articles on transgender and nonbinary Buddhists, Sikhs, and Muslims; gender diversity in the Talmud; how Christians can support transgender adolescents; and what we can learn from earlier anti-queer legislation to make sense of today’s anti-trans bills. And in November, we hosted a special virtual event with Bradley Onishi, author of the popular Revealer article “God is Ultimate Masculinity: Evangelical Visions of Manhood in the Wake of the Atlanta Massacre,” so readers could hear from, and pose questions to, Onishi about rising Christian nationalism. If you missed it, you can find a recording of the event here.

Amidst these new initiatives, we continued to publish ten issues of the Revealer and eleven episodes of the Revealer podcast. Through both, we covered such diverse topics as sex workers and religion, Black Buddhists and racism, changing stereotypes of South Asians on TV, and Jewish comedy in America. Our current issue is no different and addresses a wide range of subjects about religion, media, and society.

The December issue opens with Jodi Eichler-Levine’s “Muppet Religion,” where she uses the 30^th anniversary of The Muppet Christmas Carol to reflect on the Muppet’s spiritual messages and why they have remained popular for decades. Next, in “Bodily Autonomy, Reproductive Rights, and the Christian Patriarchy Movement,” Cait West shares her experiences growing up as a “stay-at-home daughter,” where her father had total control over decisions about her body, and warns about the movement’s growing presence within the Republican party. Connected to that, in “Single Mothers, Sex, and Christian Nationalism,” an excerpt from Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism—And What Comes Next, Bradley Onishi discusses the role purity culture plays in evangelical communities and how single mothers became a rallying point for the Christian right. Next, we head to another part of the world to explore a different area of religion and sexuality. In “Sex, Scandals, and Buddhists Monks in Thailand,” Brooke Schedneck and Steve Epstein investigate how the numerous scandals involving Thai Buddhists monks are transforming Buddhist practice in Thailand. Then, our articles conclude with a focus on books. In “The False Messiahs of Space Exploration,” Catherine L. Newell offers a review of Mary-Jane Rubenstein’s new book, Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race. And, in “Winter Reading Recommendations,” we offer, with much excitement, our annual list of recommended books.

The December issue also features the newest episode of the Revealer podcast: “The Corporate Space Race and Religion.” Mary-Jane Rubenstein joins us to discuss why corporations and billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are invested in space exploration, how Christianity undergirds people’s support for colonizing the cosmos, and how some Indigenous religious traditions offer teachings that could help us reconsider our relationship to outer space and our planet. You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

As we take stock of what we have done this past year, I am pleased by the range of topics the Revealer has been able to cover about religion’s place in the world. I am grateful to everyone who has worked on the articles and podcast episodes. And I am especially appreciative to everyone who reads the Revealer and listens to our podcast! We are committed to providing you with the same high-caliber content in 2023.

May the remainder of 2022 be a good year for all of you.

Yours,
Brett Krutzsch, Ph.D.