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  • Election 2024
    • Even if Voters ‘Get What They Asked For’ it’s More Likely to Cause a Fascist Death Spiral Than a Lesson Learned
      Even if Voters ‘Get What They Asked For’ it’s More Likely to Cause a Fascist Death Spiral Than a Lesson Learned
    • Loyalty and Chaos Play a Role in Trump’s Nominations, But This Schoolyard Tactic May Provide a Better Explanation
      Loyalty and Chaos Play a Role in Trump’s Nominations, But This Schoolyard Tactic May Provide a Better Explanation
    • Progressive Christian Election Response ‘Give us Barabbas’ May Be Well-Meaning — But Functions as Anti-Jewish Dogwhistle
      Progressive Christian Election Response ‘Give us Barabbas’ May Be Well-Meaning — But Functions as Anti-Jewish Dogwhistle
  • Racial Justice
    • Phoning It In: ‘Heathen’ Isn’t a Neutral Religious Description — It’s Also a Significant Force in the Creation of Race in the US
      Phoning It In: ‘Heathen’ Isn’t a Neutral Religious Description — It’s Also a Significant Force in the Creation of Race in the US
    • No image
      With no Viable Alternative on Ballot, Anti-immigrant Movement Claims Victory and Releases Wish Lists
    • New Doc Claiming Columbus was Jewish May Have Some Accuracy Issues — But There’s a Far Bigger Issue We Need to Reckon With
      New Doc Claiming Columbus was Jewish May Have Some Accuracy Issues — But There’s a Far Bigger Issue We Need to Reckon With
  • Sex/Gender/Justice
    • With Election Takeaways Like ‘Too Transgender’ or ‘the US is Shifting Right,’ Dems are Determined to Learn the Wrong Lesson
      With Election Takeaways Like ‘Too Transgender’ or ‘the US is Shifting Right,’ Dems are Determined to Learn the Wrong Lesson
    • Packed with Threats of Political Violence, Media Largely Ignore the NAR’s ‘Million Women’ Rally in DC
      Packed with Threats of Political Violence, Media Largely Ignore the NAR’s ‘Million Women’ Rally in DC
    • New Doc Strives for Christian Unity—But What if Unity is the Problem?
      New Doc Strives for Christian Unity—But What if Unity is the Problem?
  • Christian Nationalism
    • Phoning It In: ‘Heathen’ Isn’t a Neutral Religious Description — It’s Also a Significant Force in the Creation of Race in the US
      Phoning It In: ‘Heathen’ Isn’t a Neutral Religious Description — It’s Also a Significant Force in the Creation of Race in the US
    • Trump’s Fervent Christian Zionists Poised to Lead the Military — And US-Israel Relations
      Trump’s Fervent Christian Zionists Poised to Lead the Military — And US-Israel Relations
    • Meet Pete Hegseth, the Man Who Will Lead the Entire US Military — A Man Deemed an ‘Extremist’ by the US Military
      Meet Pete Hegseth, the Man Who Will Lead the Entire US Military — A Man Deemed an ‘Extremist’ by the US Military
  • The Ashes Initiative

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, 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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Archive, Politics/Law, Racial JusticeJuly 20, 2021

How Far Will White Christians Go to Maintain Power? An Interview with Robert Jones

By Peter Laarman

Robert P. Jones is CEO and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and…

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Archive, OMFG, Politics/Law, Racial JusticeJune 7, 2021

UPDATED: The Coup That Never Ends: ‘Whitemanism’ and the Perils of a Flimsy Liberalism

By Peter Laarman

  The following piece has been updated with an adendum titled: Is a Fixation on…

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(A)theologies, Archive, OMFG, Politics/Law, Racial JusticeMay 4, 2021

How the Right’s War on ‘Critical Race Theory’ Taps into the Powerful Religion of American Innocence

By Peter Laarman

I would never pick a fight with the formidable Michelle Goldberg, but I must pick…

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(A)theologies, Archive, OMFG, Politics/Law, Racial JusticeMarch 31, 2021

The Radical Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Left’s Challenge Today

By Peter Laarman

A dream shared by many will finally come to fruition Sunday night when the April…

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(A)theologies, Archive, Politics/Law, Racial Justice, Sex/Gender/JusticeJanuary 20, 2021

Today’s Inauguration Was a Reconsecration of Sacred Space

By Peter Laarman

C’mon, admit it: you had the Kleenex handy while you watched the swearing-in of the…

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(A)theologies, Archive, Politics/Law, Racial JusticeDecember 27, 2020

Not Breathing Much Easier … But Still Breathing: A Modest Plea For Hope to End 2020

By Peter Laarman

Especially for people deemed “too political” (a label I’ve worn proudly for decades), this has…

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(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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