Dear Revealer readers,

In December 1999 I boarded a plane bound for Tel Aviv as reporters around the world worried that the coming New Year would herald a technological catastrophe. The impending doom, dubbed “Y2K,” was based on a concern that our computers and the systems that run on them would not be able to process a date that ends in two zeros and would, to everyone’s horror, crash at the stroke of midnight at the start of the new millennium. The internet had revolutionized the world at the end of the ‘90s, and people around the globe, now reliant on computers, panicked that no one had properly prepared for the fast-approaching 21^st century and those ominous double zeros.

Revealer Editor, Brett Krutzsch

New Year’s Eve 1999 fell on a Friday, and I found myself in the Old City of Jerusalem. Y2K panic had reached a fever pitch and the Israelis were as concerned as the Americans that all computers were about to crash. But in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, the rules of Shabbat dictated that no one could use technology and so a quiet peace had settled in the neighborhood. After dinner that night, my friends and I climbed the stairs to the roof of our apartment building so we could look out over Jerusalem as the 20^th century came to an end. A small group of Hasidic Jews was also on the roof enjoying a bottle of schnapps. As I was chatting with my friends, we discovered that none of us wore a watch and had no idea if we had missed midnight. But then, off in the distance, we heard church bells ringing and saw fireworks exploding: It was the year 2000 and the city of Bethlehem was celebrating. The Hasidic Jews turned to us – secular American college students in jeans and khakis – offered us some schnapps, put their arms around our shoulders, and started dancing in a circle while singing. I had no idea if computers around the world had crashed, but the new century was, at least to me, off to an unexpected start.

The next day I learned that Y2K did not happen. The massive, relatively new, phenomenon of the internet could continue to expand around the globe, making the world more interconnected than it had ever been – giving everyone immediate access to music, information, and communities of like-minded people. A global technological revolution was underway. The 21^st century had begun.

Our interconnected world and the global phenomena that traverse the planet are the focus of The Revealer’s May issue. The articles take us from the United States to Brazil and from Malaysia to Haiti. The May issue begins with a global phenomenon that has origins in Pennsylvania but that now spans countries worldwide: Taylor Swift. In “The Church of Taylor Swift,” Shira Telushkin investigates the incredible popularity of Taylor Swift dance parties where fans come together to dance exclusively to Swift’s music, where they join in community, and where their emotions run wild – all in what looks, and feels, like ecstatic religious experience. Then, in “The Muslim Women Using Feminine Pronouns for Allah,” Hafsa Lodi explores the growing global trend of Muslim women who describe God as “She” as a way to tap into the tradition’s teachings that God possesses feminine qualities. Next, in “The Brazil Riots, Bolsonaro, and Spiritual Warfare,” Miguel Petrosky explores the significant role Pentecostals played in the January 8, 2023 insurrection in Brazil, the growing place of Pentecostals in rightwing politics, and their connections to conservative politicians throughout the Americas. Then, in “Do You Have to Hate Jews to Be a Nazi? Ask Anton Webern,” Noah Berlatsky reflects on Kanye West’s antisemitism by turning to the Austrian composer Anton Webern, a Nazi sympathizer who remained close friends with Jews, to try to make sense of how someone can fail to see how they support hateful political movements. Following that, in “Awakening Islam through Pop Music,” Shanon Shah considers the global success of Muslim pop music and how it has changed the image of Islam, often in strategic ways. And finally, in “Vodou Fashion and Faith,” Eziaku Nwokocha shares an excerpt from her forthcoming book Vodou En Vogue: Fashioning Black Divinities in Haiti and the United States, where she reflects on what clothing and “religious fashion” can reveal about Vodou practices.

Our May issue also includes the newest episode of the Revealer podcast: “Vodou, Gender Variance, and Black Politics Today.” Eziaku Nwokocha joins us to discuss Vodou practices, especially as they relate to issues of gender, sexuality, and race. We explore how Vodou transcends gender and sexual binaries, how the gods of Vodou inhabit people’s lives and influence their decisions, and how Vodou helps Black Americans and others counter racism today. You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

We live in a deeply interconnected world where global phenomena travel rapidly. As the articles and podcast episode in this issue attest, that interconnectedness can be both beneficial and dangerous. Far-right politicians, as our piece on Pentecostals in Brazil describes, share strategies with like-minded people across national borders in an effort to remake not only their own countries, but the world. But others use today’s technological advances to create international progressive communities, like those in our article on Muslim women who use female pronouns for God. And still others come together virtually and in person to share their love for someone like Taylor Swift—in ways that are also political, also religious, and also an escape from those things.

Y2K did not bring an end to the internet or the global reliance on computer technologies. Let’s hope that’s for the best.

Yours,
Brett Krutzsch, Ph.D.