What's in Issue 2 of S(h)ibboleth?
The far-right is gaining ground, and Christians are helping. Faith-based media offer lukewarm disapproval and tend to 'both-sides' the global attack on mercy. Issue 2 shines a light on what is going on and offers an alternative view of what might be done.
No roadmap to utopia or simplistic advice, though. Sorry. We are not going to be able to low-energy-lightbulb our way out of this one.
What we can do is look at history, from Patrice Lumumba in Congo to Desmond Tutu in South Africa, and pay attention to those who opposed them, and why. We can find hope in their successes and warning in the opposition they faced. If we are to live out lives of justice and witness, we will face opposition, too. Issue 2 features essays on both of these great people, and also focuses our attention on the slaughter of Palestinians and Congolese people, along with other contemporary injustices to be fought.
How best to resist injustice is a perennial question, particularly for Christians. Luigi Mangione has offered one example, more of a symbolic overflow of rage at the systems that oppress us than one based on a deep meditation on the meaning and efficacy of violence such as that offered by Frantz Fanon, and we cover them both in this issue, along with an argument for a pacifism that is anything but passive, from regularly-arrested Christian peace activist Symon Hill.
Liz Cooledge Jenkins, our Smash the Patriarchy columnist, offers an alternative for our every-day lives in the form of the underrated trait of softness, while One Church Brighton and the Boaz Trust charity demonstrate the difference that inclusion and welcome can make (in Issue 2's Broad Churches and God's Work sections).
The theme for many of the essays and our feature interview is The Bible - a broad topic but an important one in a world where Christianity and its texts are being weaponised against women and poor, queer, black and brown people.
TikTok star and biblical scholar Dan McClellan talks in Issue 2 of S(h)ibboleth about the things we get wrong when we think about the Bible, and the ways in which it is being leveraged in the service of an identity politics that is right-wing, white and serving oppressive power. Simon Cross of the Progressive Christianity Network ruminates on the horrors of the Bible and whether a historical context can make sense of them, while Mark Woods, ex-Editor of Baptist Times, argues that the Bible can be good and helpful, even if we abandon biblical literalism.
It's not all heavy, though! Our Bible theme also includes a little experiment with AI search and the Bible (spoiler: the results aren't great) as well as our favourite funny parts of Scripture (TW: contains donkeys and red wine).
Add to that some under-preached Bible verses (some of which are heavy, tbf), a reflection on Queer Christian identity in our regular Queer I slot, an examination of Kink for Christians and a piece from legendary Heaven's Metal / HM Editor Doug Van Pelt for our Dude, Where's My Carman retro Christian music section, and you got yourself a stew, as Community put it.
There's loads of news, analysis, humour and snark, as usual, plus some beautifully designed statement pages, book, film, music, YouTube and TikTok reviews, and even a section that is definitely not a horoscope (based on which disciple you identify with) and a deep analysis of the Gen Alpha phenomenon Skibidi Toilet - which is deeper than you think.