Historical Erasure in the Context of Religion

Dear Colleagues,

The historical erasure of minority groups—including but not limited to Indigenous communities, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, women, and the LGBTQIA+ community—from religious histories is not due to a lack of sources, but because evidence of their lives has been ignored, elided or dismissed as lacking official authority. When someone’s life and devotion are dismissed as an aberration, they are unlikely to be commemorated in the story of their faith community. The consequent narratives fuel ongoing marginalization and exclusion in the present.

The erasure of Indigenous culture and spirituality is a phenomenon well known to historians of settler colonialism. In the last two decades, there has been a surge in research into the impact of the loss of Indigenous spirituality in health care and spiritual care (Fleming and Ledogar 2008; Dudgeon and Walker 2015). Similarly, there has been a proliferation of research in fields of social work, spiritual care and religion demonstrating the harm caused to LGBTQIA+ people when they are ostracized or estranged from their faith (Hollier 2023; Jones 2025; Power et al. 2025). The particular historical connections between historical erasure in the past and the ongoing discrimination and trauma experienced by Indigenous and LGBTQIA+ people in contemporary religious contexts has been less researched but is a growing field of study. Too often, the erasure of such people from religious and faith histories is accepted as a logical consequence of their historical absence (due to marginalization, exclusion, or forced invisibility) from religious institutions and faith. A robust examination of the evidence, however, demonstrates that Indigenous and Queer people, racial minorities and those with disabilities have always been present in colonial religious communities, despite their lack of official recognition (Pack 2025).

Religious histories have traditionally supported heteronormative narratives that privilege ‘the project of settler-colonial nation-making’ (Evans 2022, 476). The erasure of marginalized voices in such histories is a deliberate act that bolsters grand narratives, distorts spiritual truth, reinforces systems of power, and silences generations of people and their contributions to (or struggles within) faith contexts. This Special Issue aims to draw attention to the many religious contexts in which the faithful have been ignored, forgotten, misrepresented, erased, excluded or had parts of their identity excised in the name of normative religious structures and practices.

For this Special Issue, we seek original research articles that critically engage with historical erasure in any of its forms in any religious context: ancient, medieval, modern. We especially encourage papers on queer, indigenous and non-Western experiences of erasure in religious contexts and communities. Articles may take the form of case studies, thematic analyses, biographies, or they may focus on methodologies that aid in the recovery of lost voices. We welcome contributions from different disciplines and theoretical lenses.

This Special Issue will advance current research by foregrounding marginalized voices often omitted from religious histories. Ultimately, it aims to foster greater recognition of diverse faith experiences—particularly queer, Indigenous, and non-Western—ultimately contributing to more equitable and representative histories.

Deadline for abstract submission: 31 May 2026

Deadline for full manuscript submission: 31 January 2027

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Karen McCluskey
Dr. Karen Pack
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• religious history
• queer history
• LGBTQIA+ experience
• gender
• marginalization
• Indigenous history
• history of disability