The March 2022 issue of the Revealer explores the shift away from places of worship as central to religion, how people engage with religion outside of institutions, and how religion functions beyond the walls of traditional worship spaces. In his editor’s letter, Brett Krutzsch contemplates how one way this shift manifests is in the United States’ rabbi shortage.
The issue then opens with the first installment of Kaya Oakes’ column “Not So Sorry,” where she considers how the pope’s declaration that childless couples are “selfish” will drive people away from the Church, and she suggests how Catholics should respond.
Next, in “The Buddha and the Bellagio,” Corey Wozniak reflects on the abundance of religion within Las Vegas, from the Buddhist and Hindu statues that populate Vegas nightlife to the devotion to City of Sin celebrities like Britney (a.k.a. “Godney”) Spears, and what all of that reveals about religion in the twenty-first century.
Next, in “Prophetic Except for Palestine,” Martha Schoolman describes how Reform Judaism, the largest branch of American Judaism, has promoted social justice activism as a key value for decades except when it comes to addressing the treatment of Palestinians.
Then, in “Religious Sisters Respond,” Renée Roden interviews Catholic sisters to get their perspective on how the media portrays them and to understand how they view their work in connection to, or outside of, the institutional Catholic Church.
And the issue contains an excerpt from Erika Gault’s new book Networking the Black Church, where she describes growing up as the daughter of a Black preacher, leaving the church, and finding her way back to it through hip hop, a path that she discovered is shared by many other Black Christians.
The March issue also features the newest episode of the Revealer podcast: “Black Christians and Hip Hop.” Erika Gault joins us to discuss how hip hop and social media have helped people who feel ostracized by traditional churches, the connections between Christian hip hop and racial justice activism, and what the prevalence of Christian hip hop tells us about the future of Black Christianity in America. You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Our issue also contains an “In the News” roundup of the best stories from around the web about religion in Ukraine and religion’s place in the Russian attack on the Ukrainian people.
