Dear Revealer readers, 

What has been unfolding for the past several weeks in Minneapolis is a series of atrocities that breaks the heart and that reveals stark realities about the United States. For one, the murder of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross brought the country’s attention to ICE’s willingness to commit violence against anyone who opposes them. It also exposed that the Trump administration will lie to the American people about what we have witnessed with our own eyes. And with those lies, the government, and its media enablers, unleashed a propaganda machine to vilify Renee Good and her wife. But the unsubstantiated attempts to destroy Good’s reputation merely exposed the Trump administration’s corruption and its desire to exert power however it wants without consequence. Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, J.D. Vance, Susie Wiles, Tom Homan, and Donald Trump would rather violently round up undocumented workers and attack anyone who slows their process than re-think the chaos they are unleashing on the American people, on our economy, and in our communities. And now we know they don’t care about killing people in order to make that happen.

Revealer Editor, Brett Krutzsch

Another lesson came when ICE took five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos away from his family and locked him in a detention center in Texas. Here, the Trump administration revealed in plain sight that they were always lying about prioritizing the detention of criminals. With Stephen Miller as the architect of this mass deportation plan, the Republicans in power want to remove people who have simply gone to work, paid taxes, contributed to the economy, held up industries that rely on underpaid labor, and who have committed no crimes. The Trump administration wants all of them, including children, gone, or put in detention centers indefinitely.

The next lesson came when, while in the midst of massive public outrage against ICE, federal agents murdered another peaceful protestor, Alex Pretti. We learned that, again, the Trump administration will lie about things that everyone can see are false and that they would rather protect their agents who murder peaceful protestors than protect the American people.

Amidst this chaos and violence, one other lesson is that huge numbers of people have been willing to show up to protest ICE in freezing temperatures, to demonstrate their solidarity with immigrants, and to make visible the massive opposition to the Trump administration. Stories of protestors who have thwarted ICE’s efforts to snatch people have come in from across Minneapolis. And clergy from around the country have flown to Minneapolis to join the protestors while wearing their clerics’ collars and rabbis’ kippot to show that religious people have a moral obligation to stand up for justice now. Alongside them is a growing movement of Americans—secular, religious, and everything in-between—who are horrified by ICE and the political leaders who empower them. And that movement is only going to get bigger and more resolute.

So, where does all of this leave us here at The Revealer? For one, we are not going anywhere. We will continue our mission to provide crucial insights about religion’s place in the workings of the world, including in politics, in resistance movements, and in how religion shapes so much of life. Second, we are not going to turn away from difficult topics. As many people grow increasingly concerned about the limits of corporate media, we will continue to provide a platform for experts, journalists, and scholars, and we will continue to cover crucially important topics in The Revealer and on our podcast. To that point, this year we are starting our podcast with a series of episodes that cover pressing, hot-button topics, including on guns in America, the situation in Gaza, vaccine hesitance among religious Americans, and the women who stormed the Capitol on January 6 and the conspiracy theories they believe.

This year, I am also thrilled to welcome a new columnist, Noah Berlatsky, to The Revealer. Berlatsky is an accomplished writer who has already authored several outstanding pieces for The Revealer, including “What We Can Learn from the Right’s Attack on ‘Toxic Empathy,’” “Stephen Miller Isn’t a Kapo. He’s Much Worse,” “Authoritarian Christianity Targets Christians,” and “Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas.” His column, “Skeptic’s Corner,” will explore religion and culture broadly, from religion within U.S. politics to religion in our vast media landscape.

Our February issue opens with the first installment of “Skeptic’s Corner,” where, in “‘Un-Christian’ Trump and the Ethics of Combating Christian Nationalism,” Noah Berlatsky considers the limits of calling Trump’s actions “un-Christian” and proposes alternative ways to rebuke him that don’t center Christianity or Christian nationalism in American life. Then, in “Why Guns and God Don’t Mix,” William Kole investigates the dangerous coalition of white evangelicals and supporters for unrestricted access to firearms, and reflects on why evangelicals have wholeheartedly embraced gun ownership. After that, in “Invisible Hands in the Holy Land,” Safiyah Zaidi examines the massive migrant labor population in Saudi Arabia and how their often-exploited labor keeps pilgrimages to holy sites thriving. Then, in “The Rhetoric and Reality of India’s Relationship with Israel,” Vani Kannan reviews Azad Essa’s book Hostile Homelands and considers India and Israel’s longstanding, although often secret, relationship and how both, in more recent years, have demonstrated public support for one another as ethno-nationalism grows in both places. And, in “Andy Warhol’s Queer Catholicism,” A.W. Strouse reflects on why right-wing MAGA influencers are trying to claim that Warhol was a strictly religious celibate and what we actually know about the famous gay artist’s religious and sexual lives.

The February issue also includes the newest episode of The Revealer podcast: “Guns and White Evangelicals.” William Kole joins us to discuss why evangelicals are the religious demographic with the highest gun ownership rates in the United States, what it means when evangelicals say they have a “God-given” right to possess firearms, why mass shootings don’t prompt evangelicals to push for gun restrictions of any kind, and what we can do to address America’s gun violence problem that will get evangelicals on board so it can have a real political impact. You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

As we reflect on the past several weeks in Minneapolis, let us remember that more people oppose this administration than support it. Large numbers of groups, individuals, and religious leaders are coming together to protest in the streets, to lobby elected officials to get rid of fascist enablers like Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller, and to make visible their objections to the Trump administration’s policies, violence, and lies. Minneapolis might be a tipping point. That, of course, will be of little comfort to the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. But both Renee Good and Alex Pretti protested ICE and wanted to protect immigrants in their communities. Hopefully more of us will do the same.

Yours,
Brett Krutzsch, Ph.D.