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Religion Dispatches - Religion Dispatches Religion Dispatches
  • Racial Justice
    • The Death of a Black Man at the Hands of Black Officers Unveiled Something More Complex Than Whiteness
      The Death of a Black Man at the Hands of Black Officers Unveiled Something More Complex Than Whiteness
    • Don’t Sleep on Trump’s CPAC Speech Calling For ‘The Final Battle’: This was Southern Strategy as Apocalyptic Promise
      Don’t Sleep on Trump’s CPAC Speech Calling For ‘The Final Battle’: This was Southern Strategy as Apocalyptic Promise
    • Did You Read About Conservative Judaism’s Anti-Black Antisemitic Smearing of Hebrew Israelites? Neither Did I
      Did You Read About Conservative Judaism’s Anti-Black Antisemitic Smearing of Hebrew Israelites? Neither Did I
  • Politics/Law
    • Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
      Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
    • Communicators for Christ: How Homeschool Debate Leagues Shaped the Rising Stars of the Christian Right
      Communicators for Christ: How Homeschool Debate Leagues Shaped the Rising Stars of the Christian Right
    • Trump’s Arrest ‘Prediction’ Inflames Holy War Narrative and Sanctifies Violence — Welcome to Trump ’24
      Trump’s Arrest ‘Prediction’ Inflames Holy War Narrative and Sanctifies Violence — Welcome to Trump ’24
  • Sex/Gender/Justice
    • Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
      Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
    • Don’t Sleep on Trump’s CPAC Speech Calling For ‘The Final Battle’: This was Southern Strategy as Apocalyptic Promise
      Don’t Sleep on Trump’s CPAC Speech Calling For ‘The Final Battle’: This was Southern Strategy as Apocalyptic Promise
    • 2023 CPAC Lived Down to Expectations, But Don’t Buy the Narrative: The GOP is Not as Divided as You Might Think
      2023 CPAC Lived Down to Expectations, But Don’t Buy the Narrative: The GOP is Not as Divided as You Might Think
  • Christian Nationalism
    • Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
      Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
    • Communicators for Christ: How Homeschool Debate Leagues Shaped the Rising Stars of the Christian Right
      Communicators for Christ: How Homeschool Debate Leagues Shaped the Rising Stars of the Christian Right
    • Trump’s Arrest ‘Prediction’ Inflames Holy War Narrative and Sanctifies Violence — Welcome to Trump ’24
      Trump’s Arrest ‘Prediction’ Inflames Holy War Narrative and Sanctifies Violence — Welcome to Trump ’24
  • Russia Invades Ukraine
    • 2023 CPAC Lived Down to Expectations, But Don’t Buy the Narrative: The GOP is Not as Divided as You Might Think
      2023 CPAC Lived Down to Expectations, But Don’t Buy the Narrative: The GOP is Not as Divided as You Might Think
    • Espionage Allegations Against Russian Church Raise Religious Freedom Issue in Ukraine
      Espionage Allegations Against Russian Church Raise Religious Freedom Issue in Ukraine
    • As Tensions Escalate in the Balkans, the West Could Hand Putin a Valuable Weapon
      As Tensions Escalate in the Balkans, the West Could Hand Putin a Valuable Weapon

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.

Archive, BooksDecember 29, 2022

When ‘Church Business’ Yields a Real Page Turner

By Peter Laarman

I have to admit that Michelle Huneven’s new novel was almost too delicious for me,…

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(A)theologies, Archive, Media Analysis, Politics/Law, Racial JusticeSeptember 1, 2022

Evangelicals Clutching Pearls Over Student Debt Relief: Lord Have Mercy!

By Peter Laarman

What with Ukraine, Mar-a-Lago, Jerome Powell, and what-not, I suppose we can be forgiven (ha!)…

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Archive, Books, Christian Nationalism, New Books, OMFG, Politics/Law, Racial JusticeAugust 3, 2022

Breaking Up With Marilynne Robinson Over Her Refusal to Acknowledge the Dark Side of Puritanism

By Peter Laarman

Breaking up is hard to do, and I am not at all prepared to discard…

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Archive, Racial Justice, Religious Liberty, Sex/Gender/JusticeMay 9, 2022

The End of Roe May Have Something Important to Tell Us About the Decline of Mainline Protestant Churches

By Peter Laarman

As we gnaw on the paws of our grief and foreboding regarding the Supreme Court…

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Archive, Christian Nationalism, Media Analysis, OMFG, Racial JusticeApril 12, 2022

Douthat, Do Tell! Some Questions for a Columnist Longing for the Good Old Days of American Religion

By Peter Laarman

Sometimes it’s as necessary as a bowel movement to point out how some very smart…

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Archive, OMFG, Racial JusticeApril 4, 2022

Honoring and Renewing Dr. King’s Other, More Challenging, Dream — 55 Years Later

By Peter Laarman

Fifty-four years ago—on April 4, 1968—Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Exactly one…

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Archive, Books, Christian Nationalism, Media Analysis, New Books, OMFG, Racial JusticeFebruary 10, 2022

The Missing Element in the Conversation on Christian Nationalism and Freedom: Whiteness

By Peter Laarman

A new report released Wednesday by a trio of groups, both Christian and secular, on…

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(A)theologies, Archive, OMFGJanuary 28, 2022

Response: Is Proselytizing Offensive? Sure. But I Won’t Give Them the Satisfaction of Martyrdom

By Peter Laarman

My colleague Chrissy Stroop’s powerful excoriation of evangelical Christian proselytizing pushed the predictable buttons among…

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(A)theologies, Archive, OMFG, Politics/LawDecember 28, 2021

Will Religion Finally Give Peace a Chance? Rising to the Challenge of Nonviolence as Armageddon Looms

By Peter Laarman

So here we are, some of us, still calling out “peace on earth, goodwill to…

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Archive, Books, Christian Nationalism, New Books, OMFGOctober 14, 2021

A New Book By Esteemed Sociologist Robert Wuthnow Struggles to Show ‘Why Religion is Good for American Democracy’

By Peter Laarman

At a time when Christian Nationalism is finally being recognized as a threat to democracy,…

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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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