Dear Revealer readers,

In many ways, 2025 was an unsettling year. A year of acknowledging that much is not okay. In the United States, we witnessed violent abductions of immigrants, as well as ICE agents physically attacking religious leaders who tried to protect them. We saw the influence of Christian nationalism in various levels of government, including, as we reported in The Revealer, in public education and in the Republican-led attacks on colleges and universities. And, we watched horrific violence unfold in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan, as well as rightwing movements gaining power around the world.

Revealer Editor, Brett Krutzsch

Amidst, and partly because of, these ongoing concerns, here at The Revealer we started 2025 with a podcast episode entitled “Religion Is Everywhere and Why That Matters.” In it, our guests Megan Goodwin and Ilyse Morgenstein-Fuerst discuss the prevalence of religion throughout society, including in our politics, laws, education systems, calendars, and more. As Morgenstein-Fuerst says about the pervasiveness of religion: “It is in the floorboards.” Such an observation underscores a core perspective here at The Revealer: religion is central to the workings of much of the world, and understanding that is an essential tool if we hope to improve society.

And, so, this year we have explored such varied topics as religious communities that support the fossil fuel industry, taboos against divorce in Hindu communities, religious leaders fighting for abortion access, how Christian nationalism harms many Christians, the destruction of Muslim homes in India, Sydney Sweeney’s bath water as a religious relic, Gen Z men becoming more religious and more politically conservative, progressive activism among religious communities, and much more.

For this, our final issue of the year, we are continuing this trend of focusing on how and where religion manifests around the globe. The December issue opens with Noah Berlatsky’s “What We Can Learn from the Right about ‘Toxic Empathy,’” where he considers why so many MAGA supporters, and especially conservative Christians, have been arguing that empathy is a bad thing that leads people to stray from their moral principles and MAGA’s policy agendas. Next, in “A Radical Reimagining of ‘Never Again,’” Niyati Evers, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, reflects on what the post-Holocaust Jewish declaration of “Never Again” means in the context of the horrific violence Israelis have committed against Palestinians in Gaza. Then, in “The Solution is Jesus” Liam Greenwell reviews the documentary Apocalypse in the Tropics about the rise of Christian nationalism in Brazil and compares that with Christian nationalism in the United States to reflect on why so many people in both countries have been drawn to anti-democratic movements. After that, we head to India where, in “The Myth of Pregnancy Tourism in Ladakh, India,” Numan Bhat travels to a village that people believed—in recent decades—that European women journeyed to so they could get pregnant with “Aryan” children, a myth that still lingers today. Then, in “Sacred Intersections and Civil Disobedience with Intersex Priest Sally Gross,” M. Wolff profiles an intersex person who had to leave the Catholic priesthood after she discovered she was intersex at age 40, and who then went on to become a prominent intersex activist. And finally, in our annual “Winter Reading and Podcast Recommendations,” we suggest books and a podcast series that we think you will enjoy.

The December issue also includes the newest episode of The Revealer podcast: “Intersex and Religious.” M. Wolff joins us to discuss how religious communities have responded to the presence of intersex people, how the Catholic Church reacted to an intersex priest, what intersex activists want from religious communities and the medical field, and what everyone can do to be more inclusive of intersex people today. You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

As I look back on 2025 and reflect on the volatility of democracies, of peaceful societies, and of social norms, I feel as much of a commitment to the work we do at The Revealer as ever. Offering sound analysis about religion’s place in the world is of vital importance today. And, as articles in this issue demonstrate (and as we’ve been showing all year), there is still plenty of room for hope as people and organizations in the United States and around the globe work to make our world a more equitable and safer place.

May 2026 bring more equality, more peace, and more protections for all of you, and for the most vulnerable among us.

Yours,
Brett Krutzsch, Ph.D.

P.S. We do not publish a January issue, so we will be back in early February with a new issue of The Revealer!