Dear Revealer readers,

For the past several weeks, I have been wondering why the assassinations and near-assassinations of Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota did not receive more sustained attention. I worry about what this political violence says about our culture and what it reveals about our willingness to turn away so quickly from such targeted killings, especially given the alleged assassin’s connections to white Christian nationalism and the MAGA movement.

Revealer Editor, Brett Krutzsch

As you may recall, just after 2:00 AM on Saturday, June 14, the alleged assassin, Vance Boelter, knocked on the door of Minnesota Democratic state senator John Hoffman dressed as a police officer. After entering the elected official’s home, he shot the state senator and his wife, Yvette. Boelter then drove to Democratic state senator Melissa Hortman’s home, arriving by 3:30 AM. According to official reports, with lights flashing on his SUV, he banged on the front door dressed in tactical gear and identified himself as a policeman. Soon after he gained entry to the house, he shot state senator Hortman and her husband, Mark. Both died from the gunshot wounds. State senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette survived after their adult daughter who lives with them called 911 and paramedics rushed them to the hospital.

Authorities in Minnesota apprehended Vance Boelter, a white 57-year-old man, and told reporters that Boelter had a “hit list” of at least 45 elected officials, all Democrats, and additional targets, including Planned Parenthood health clinics.

According to his friends, Vance Boelter was “a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and attended rallies for Donald Trump.” He received some of his education at the Christ for the Nations Institute in Texas, which Mother Jones describes as a “Bible college popular among Christian nationalists.” Wired reports that Boelter was the former president of “Revoformation Ministries,” where he traveled to Africa to evangelize and to condemn churches that support abortion access. “God,” Boelter preached in 2023, “will raise an apostle or prophet to correct their course.”

I had hoped Boelter’s association with evangelical Christianity and MAGA would have garnered more attention. Instead, our news cycle moved on fairly quickly. I believe, though, that we need to acknowledge and reckon with Boelter’s religious and political environments.

Following horrific violence, we too often see an urge to describe the perpetrator as a deranged individual. And Boelter may indeed have mental illness. I do not know. But I do know that he developed his plans to execute Democrats within a culture that openly celebrates violence.

MAGA, after all, is a violent movement. If there is any doubt, let me provide a few examples. For one, look at the rabid excitement and the gleeful public relations surrounding “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, where Republicans boast that undocumented detainees will literally get eaten by animals if they try to escape. We have seen virtually no pushback from the Republican base; indeed, elected officials celebrate it and the MAGA movement seems thrilled by the idea that undocumented workers could get killed and eaten by “other animals.” Or, look at how Donald Trump mocked Nancy Pelosi’s husband after he was nearly bludgeoned to death by someone who was trying to assassinate the former Speaker of the House. MAGA crowds loved when he joked about Pelosi’s near murder. Or, look at the frenzied faces in MAGA rallies when Trump talks about the “fake news” media, Hilary Clinton, and several other Democrats. His violent language delights them. Oh, and let’s not forget one other example of MAGA’s violence: January 6, an insurrection where MAGA stormed the Capitol, murdered police, and where some hoped to lynch the Vice President.

While Trump posted on social media after the Minnesota murders that “such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America,” he did not attend the funeral for state senator Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. Nor did Trump offer public reflections on violence within MAGA even though Boelter’s targets were exclusively Democrats. Likewise, conservative media downplayed Boelter’s Republican connections and, instead, highlighted conspiracy theories that erroneously claimed Boelter is a Democrat. Meanwhile, most of mainstream media moved on to other stories.

We need to pause and consider at least two things. First, Boelter is part of a long history of right-wing Christians who commit violence, including murder, under the banner of protecting fetuses. We need to grapple with what is taking place in anti-abortion religious communities and consider the language they use to exalt “unborn children” over the lives of people who support abortion access. Boelter is far from the first “pro-life” man to choose murder for what he believes, and he is unlikely to be the last.

Second, and urgently, we must wrestle with how our country’s inability to stay focused on this story prevents us from seeing and naming MAGA and certain (large) sections of white conservative Christianity as harbingers of violence. By moving on so quickly from these assassinations, we fail to see how today’s mainstream religious and political environments can sanction violent acts, or how people in our own lives may endorse violence implicitly or explicitly.

That, for me, is the most alarming thing about our country moving on swiftly from these murders: too many Americans have not accepted that MAGA is a violent movement made up of people who find a thrill in violence against people who are not like them. And that means people in many of our families who love Trump and who are perfectly fine with masked ICE raids could also be people who are happy with “Alligator Alcatraz,” and with violence against people who they do not consider worthy Americans. They may even be among the large subsection of MAGA Christians who believe God blesses Trump’s policies.

Given MAGA’s size, our ability to understand how religion operates in today’s culture is as important as ever. It is necessary when thinking about the political violence in Minnesota, the MAGA movement more broadly, and the issues shaping our everyday lives.

With that thought in mind, The Revealer’s Summer 2025 issue explores how religion functions in our culture right now, from pressing political issues to seemingly mundane topics that nevertheless reflect important cultural trends. The issue opens with Noah Berlatsky’s “Stephen Miller Isn’t a Kapo. He’s Much Worse.” In the piece, Berlatsky considers why so many American Jews call Trump’s advisor and architect of mass deportations a “kapo,” a functionary in Nazi concentration camps who was often Jewish. Berlatsky shows why this analogy fails and what we need to know about Miller and other white men like him who seek power through hate. Then, in “How to Monetize Your Sex Scandal: A Guide for Disgraced Pastors,” Suzanna Krivulskaya explores the downfall and rehabilitation of celebrity pastor Carl Lentz and what his new podcast platform says about once-disgraced ministers, the “manosphere,” and religion in America. After that, in “The Death and Life of Ivan Illich,” A.W. Strouse reflects on the renegade Catholic priest’s teachings and how they offer inspiration to resist authoritarianism and fascist supporters today. Then, in “Horny Relics: Sydney Sweeney’s Bathwater and the Longing for Real Presence,” Corey Wozniak explores a soap that contains actress Sydney Sweeney’s bathwater and contemplates how this item functions as a modern-day relic, something that gives people a connection to a figure they desire or worship—especially in a time of increased disembodiment and loneliness. Following that, in “In Defense of Organized Religion,” Jillian Cheney reviews Kelsey Osgood’s new book Godstruck: Seven Women’s Unexpected Journeys to Religious Conversion and considers why women, especially at a time of declining religious affiliation, might choose to convert to conservative forms of religion. And, as the final article in our Summer 2025 issue, in “From Good Christian Boys to White Nationalists,” an excerpt from Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood, Angela Denker looks at how large numbers of young, Christian men are getting pulled into white nationalism.

The Summer issue also includes two new episodes of The Revealer podcast: In the first, “The Rightwing Radicalization of White Christian Boys,” Angela Denker joins us to discuss the rightward movement of Christian teen males. We explore the messages adolescent boys receive from social media influencers, youth pastors, and politicians about masculinity. And we discuss what people can do to try to reverse this rightwing movement among white Christian boys in the United States. In the second episode, “Protestant Sex Scandals in America,” Suzanna Krivulskaya joins us to discuss why sex scandals have been such a common feature of Protestant leadership in the United States. We explore what these scandals say about our culture, masculinity, and Protestant Christianity’s dominance in America. You can listen to both episodes on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

As this summer of heat waves and Epstein files controversies continues, I hope we do not forget about the political assassinations and near-assassinations in Minnesota. While I cannot know for sure, I suspect that if the alleged shooter had targeted Republicans, both conservative and corporate media would have stayed with the story much longer. Imagine if the alleged murderer had not been a white, Christian man, but a person of color, transgender, or a devout leader of another religion with a hit list of elected Republicans. Cable news programs would have booked as many pundits as possible and newspapers would have run a stream of op-eds and investigative pieces for days, maybe even for weeks and months. That isn’t what happened here. But we still have time to learn from these horrifying acts of political violence in Minnesota. And, as the articles and podcast episodes in this issue attest, we can still gain a more complete picture of how substantially religion is shaping our culture and our lives today. And perhaps that will inspire many of us to think of new and better ways to address the pressing issues facing us.

Yours,
Brett Krutzsch, Ph.D.