Dear Revealer readers,

On the first night of Hanukkah, which falls on December 25 this year, Jews around the world will recite the Shehecheyanu prayer, a blessing for special occasions. The short prayer expresses gratitude for “life… and for reaching this moment of joy.” The Shehecheyanu is my mom’s favorite prayer, even though she is not religious. When we light our candles “together” over FaceTime or Zoom with my husband, she is always the one who recites that blessing on the first night of Hanukkah. That moment is a special one for me. With the candle lighting that follows, it ritually marks the moment as unique and reminds me to be grateful for reaching it. Occurring as it does in the winter season, it often pushes me to reflect on the past (secular calendar) year and the coming new one.

Revealer Editor, Brett Krutzsch

The past year has been one of many challenges. From the horrific war in Gaza to the U.S. election, the past twelve months have been devastating for many. At the same time, for many people, this year was also one of hope where millions believed Vice President Kamala Harris would be our next President. Now, following the election, many people feel a sense of hopelessness. And while I understand that feeling, I have been trying to remind myself why I held on to hope in the first place and why so many others did the same. After all, fascism thrives when masses only feel despair, so I am refusing to give up hope even as I know the coming years will be difficult ones.

With those ideas in mind, The Revealer’s December issue is about taking stock of the past year and preparing for the next. The issue opens with Emily Frazier’s “To Evangelical Christians, What Does It Mean to ‘Welcome the Stranger’?” where she investigates the surge in white evangelicals who have been working to support immigrants to the United States, and whether or not that work has an impact on their politics. Next, in “This Future Must Not Be Forever,” Gillian Frank reflects on how the recent battles over abortion reveal a long history of cultural misogyny and distrust of women’s freedom that remains pervasive today. Then, in “Parodying and Using Religion to Try to Save the Planet,” Kali Handelman interviews George González about his new book, The Church of Stop Shopping and Religious Activism, and what an anti-consumerism and anti-capitalism group can teach us about protecting our planet rather than worshipping at the altars of corporations. Next, in “Satanic Humor and Religious Horror,” Erik VanBezooijen explores the films Longlegs and Skinamarink, reflecting on what they might say about the real horrors of our day connected to Christian nationalism and conservative Christian conspiracy theories.

Our December issue also includes some recommendations. For the sixth year, we are happy to present our “Winter Reading Recommendations” of books by Revealer writers that we think you will enjoy. And, this year we also created a “Winter Articles We Love” list of our all-time favorite articles about the December holidays that we have published in The Revealer that remain relevant (and moving and insightful) today.

The December issue also includes two new episodes of the Revealer podcast. The first, “Public School Secularization and Desegregation” takes us on a history lesson to explore the Supreme Court decisions that outlawed prayer in public schools and racial segregation. Leslie Beth Ribovich joins us to discuss the legacies of those decisions, how religion remained in public schools, and what to make of current debates over religion and race in America’s schools. Then, in “The Limits of Forgiveness,” Kaya Oakes joins us to discuss the cultural pressures to forgive people who wronged us and Christianity’s connections to those pressures. We also explore how religious institutions, like the Catholic church and the Southern Baptist Convention, have sought forgiveness when they have harmed people. And we discuss possible models for forgiveness when one has been harmed by a religious institution or by another individual. You can listen to both episodes on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

As 2024 comes to a close, and as my family lights our Hanukkah candles, I will heed the words of the Shehecheyanu blessing and be thankful for “reaching this moment of joy” even as the moment feels complicated. Rather than focus on despair, I shall take in the joy of being with loved ones and use that strength as we head into the new year. I will also take the insights from the articles and podcast episodes we have published in The Revealer this year as I think about how best to proceed in the next. And in doing those things, like the Hanukkah candles themselves, I hope to find, and I hope you find, light in the darkness.

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!