Two years. In the annals of recorded human history, two years is a speck, a blip on the historical screen: it took over a thousand years to build the Great Wall of China; decades for the ancient Egyptians to build the pyramids; 14 years to complete Mount Rushmore; over ten years for James Cameron to get Avatar to the big screen.
This month is the second-year anniversary for Religion Dispatches, which launched in February 2008. While RD has not yet reached the heights and scale of the achievements just mentioned, we are off to a surprisingly great start: over 2 million page views; individual stories that routinely reach thousands of readers; a newsletter subscription list that has grown every month we’ve been in operation; thousands of Facebook fans and a growing list of Twitter followers; and stories and writers that are increasingly linked to other media outlets.
The editors at RD want to celebrate our “cotton” anniversary by acknowledging with great appreciation our readers—many of whom claim they have given up reading the Chronicle, the New York Times, or Time when they sit down at breakfast in search of exhilaration. We also have to acknowledge one of the truly remarkable, and unanticipated sources of our success: the numerous writers—from academia, from journalism, from activist communities, from the art world, and from other arenas—who support us both by submitting exceptional material and becoming effective and vocal cheerleaders for this magazine.
Two years is not a long time, certainly not long enough to begin retrospective assessments about impact, influence, and innovation. But RD and the community coalescing around the magazine (not quite an “RDNation” but certainly something more than bathroom reading) have a lot to look forward to in the coming years. We will roll out a new design and logo in the next few weeks; increase the amount of multimedia offerings in the coming months; and have a really wild, swinging party at the American Academy of Religion next November in Atlanta.
Keep those cards and letters coming and remember, if the world is indeed coming to an end, Religion Dispatches is here to be your informed, accessible resource for insight, anticipation, and dare we say, hope.
The Editors.
What a terrific resource you are. What a great boon you are. Thank you.
.....but if you started in 2007 aren't you three years old?
Whatever - it's a terrific magazine.
I see we still have a lot of work to do.
This is a great resource, very much needed. I speak for many when I say thanks to the leadership team (and the people behind them) for making it happen.
I'm glad I found you via Texas Freedom Network.
Here's to many years of breakfast table exhilaration to come!
Does monotheism have a downside that is not present in other forms of religion, and would this make a possible topic of discussion? The problem is monotheism starts from the belief that there is only one true God, and that always leads to a belief that my church (and possibly other churches with beliefs like mine) are under God's influence in a special way that others are not, and this leads to a belief that somehow I and my group must be more right that others are. Do those who subscribe to a monotheistic religion lack a certain sense of humility that is generally found elsewhere in the world?
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