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Religion Dispatches - Religion Dispatches Religion Dispatches
  • Racial Justice
    • Survival of the CrossFittest: After a Schism Over Racism Can the Fitness Empire Shed its Culture of Whiteness?
      Survival of the CrossFittest: After a Schism Over Racism Can the Fitness Empire Shed its Culture of Whiteness?
    • How U.S. Conservatives Conjured the Jesus of Their Dreams
      How U.S. Conservatives Conjured the Jesus of Their Dreams
    • Are Churches Making Americans More Racist?
      Are Churches Making Americans More Racist?
  • Politics/Law
    • ‘Defund the Police’ Isn’t the Problem
      ‘Defund the Police’ Isn’t the Problem
    • Robbing Peter to Give Charity to Paul: The Dirty Secret Behind American ‘Giving’
      Robbing Peter to Give Charity to Paul: The Dirty Secret Behind American ‘Giving’
    • How Did Hasidic Jewry Become a Stronghold of Trumpism?
      How Did Hasidic Jewry Become a Stronghold of Trumpism?
  • Religious Liberty
    • A Hidden Amy Coney Barrett Answer on COVID That Should Scare Every American
      A Hidden Amy Coney Barrett Answer on COVID That Should Scare Every American
    • Pulitzer-Prize Winning Historian’s Latest Reveals the Problem with Today’s ‘Religious Freedom’
      Pulitzer-Prize Winning Historian’s Latest Reveals the Problem with Today’s ‘Religious Freedom’
    • Exclusive: Why Did Chicago Public Schools Just Quietly Drop Transcendental Meditation?
      Exclusive: Why Did Chicago Public Schools Just Quietly Drop Transcendental Meditation?
  • Sex/Gender/Justice
    • It’s Time for Democrats to Read the Bible Verses on the Wall and Stop Courting White Evangelicals
      It’s Time for Democrats to Read the Bible Verses on the Wall and Stop Courting White Evangelicals
    • We Can Finally Put the Lie to Trumpism: 5 Myths Debunked By a Biden Victory
      We Can Finally Put the Lie to Trumpism: 5 Myths Debunked By a Biden Victory
    • 11 Election Tweets to Amuse, Infuriate, Enlighten, and Amuse You
      11 Election Tweets to Amuse, Infuriate, Enlighten, and Amuse You
  • New Books
    • Watch: Is The Religious Left a Mirage or Are Journalists Just Missing the Story?
      Watch: Is The Religious Left a Mirage or Are Journalists Just Missing the Story?
    • Pulitzer-Prize Winning Historian’s Latest Reveals the Problem with Today’s ‘Religious Freedom’
      Pulitzer-Prize Winning Historian’s Latest Reveals the Problem with Today’s ‘Religious Freedom’
    • ‘God Made Them Male and Female…and Eunuch’: Why the Biblical Case For Binary Gender Isn’t So… Biblical
      ‘God Made Them Male and Female…and Eunuch’: Why the Biblical Case For Binary Gender Isn’t So… Biblical

Peter Laarman

Peter Laarman is a United Church of Christ minister who served as senior minister of New York's Judson Memorial Church and then as executive director of LA's Progressive Christians Uniting before retiring in 2014. He remains deeply involved in national and regional social justice projects touching on race, class, and religion.

(A)theologies, Archive, OMFG, Politics/LawDecember 2, 2020

Robbing Peter to Give Charity to Paul: The Dirty Secret Behind American ‘Giving’

By Peter Laarman

Just about every year at this time we’re invited, even hectored, to participate in the…

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(A)theologies, ArchiveNovember 24, 2020

Why America’s Whitewashed Thanksgiving Needs to Go: A Short Study in the Power of White Christian Mythmaking

By Peter Laarman

Readers of RD don’t need to be told that the image of “The First Thanksgiving”…

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Archive, Politics/Law, Sexuality/GenderNovember 4, 2020

Record Numbers Voted for More Death and More Racism; Can We Really Just Come Together as a Nation?

By Peter Laarman

In July I wrote in these pages about the necropolitics revealed by the actions of…

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Archive, Politics/Law, Sexuality/GenderOctober 29, 2020

Even if Biden Wins Will We Reckon With ‘Virtuous Republic Syndrome,’ the Persistent Belief that America is a Blessed Nation?

By Peter Laarman

Most white Americans of a certain age hew to a civil religion that holds that…

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(A)theologies, Archive, New Books, Politics/Law, Racial Justice, Sex/Gender/Justice, Sexuality/GenderOctober 20, 2020

How U.S. Conservatives Conjured the Jesus of Their Dreams

By Peter Laarman

It seems that when Donald Trump and his Republican enablers are able to seat a…

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Archive, OMFG, Politics/Law, Racial JusticeSeptember 3, 2020

And the Violent Bear It Away? Disciplined Nonviolence and the Coming Election Emergency

By Peter Laarman

A few weeks back I reached out to around 60 friends and colleagues whom I’ve…

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Archive, New Books, OMFGAugust 24, 2020

The Revelation of Kurt Andersen: With ‘Evil Geniuses’ a Media Mandarin Discovers Plutocracy

By Peter Laarman

When I showed up at New York’s Judson Church in 1994 at least some of…

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(A)theologies, Archive, OMFGJuly 22, 2020

The Non-Mask of the Red Death: A Deadly Necropolitics Hits Home

By Peter Laarman

The shade of Edgar Allen Poe will perhaps forgive me for misappropriating the title of…

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(A)theologies, Archive, Racial JusticeJuly 8, 2020

Corporation as ‘Citizen’ is the Next Anti-Black, Anti-Democratic Model that Needs to be Torn Down

By Peter Laarman

When Claudia Rankine was asked by The Guardian why she decided to give the title…

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(A)theologies, Archive, OMFGJune 25, 2020

The Economy is Racism: Ending Race-Based Economic Violence is the Real Challenge of This Moment

By Peter Laarman

Please feel free to ignore the economists and pundits who like to say that Wall…

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Religion Dispatches

Religion Dispatches

Religion Dispatches is your independent, non-profit, award-winning source for the best writing on critical and timely issues at the intersection of religion, politics, and culture.

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