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Religion Dispatches - Religion Dispatches Religion Dispatches
  • Racial Justice
    • Racialization Meets Purity Culture: Abortion Criminalization Cases Confirm That It’s Always Been About Controlling Women’s Bodies And Protecting the ‘Ideal’ American Family
      Racialization Meets Purity Culture: Abortion Criminalization Cases Confirm That It’s Always Been About Controlling Women’s Bodies And Protecting the ‘Ideal’ American Family
    • Embryo Men — Decades of Conspiracy, Christian Nationalism, and Fear Led Us to The End of <em>Roe v. Wade</em>
      Embryo Men — Decades of Conspiracy, Christian Nationalism, and Fear Led Us to The End of Roe v. Wade
    • Has American Conservatism Abandoned the Christian Right?
      Has American Conservatism Abandoned the Christian Right?
  • Politics/Law
    • Progressive Christians: Don’t Look to the Bible For Abortion Rights Arguments — Women’s Autonomy is Not a Biblical Value
      Progressive Christians: Don’t Look to the Bible For Abortion Rights Arguments — Women’s Autonomy is Not a Biblical Value
    • Americans Must Stop Thinking of the United States Supreme Court as a Court of Law
      Americans Must Stop Thinking of the United States Supreme Court as a Court of Law
    • As Problems for Pregnant People Increase, Catholic Bishops Claim They’re Heroes For Ending Abortion Rights
      As Problems for Pregnant People Increase, Catholic Bishops Claim They’re Heroes For Ending Abortion Rights
  • The End of Roe
    • Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity
      Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity
    • Progressive Christians: Don’t Look to the Bible For Abortion Rights Arguments — Women’s Autonomy is Not a Biblical Value
      Progressive Christians: Don’t Look to the Bible For Abortion Rights Arguments — Women’s Autonomy is Not a Biblical Value
    • As Problems for Pregnant People Increase, Catholic Bishops Claim They’re Heroes For Ending Abortion Rights
      As Problems for Pregnant People Increase, Catholic Bishops Claim They’re Heroes For Ending Abortion Rights
  • Christian Nationalism
    • Progressive Christians: Don’t Look to the Bible For Abortion Rights Arguments — Women’s Autonomy is Not a Biblical Value
      Progressive Christians: Don’t Look to the Bible For Abortion Rights Arguments — Women’s Autonomy is Not a Biblical Value
    • Americans Must Stop Thinking of the United States Supreme Court as a Court of Law
      Americans Must Stop Thinking of the United States Supreme Court as a Court of Law
    • Racialization Meets Purity Culture: Abortion Criminalization Cases Confirm That It’s Always Been About Controlling Women’s Bodies And Protecting the ‘Ideal’ American Family
      Racialization Meets Purity Culture: Abortion Criminalization Cases Confirm That It’s Always Been About Controlling Women’s Bodies And Protecting the ‘Ideal’ American Family
  • Russia Invades Ukraine
    • With This Largely Overlooked Shakeup is the Russian Orthodox Church Looking to Westernize? Yes and No
      With This Largely Overlooked Shakeup is the Russian Orthodox Church Looking to Westernize? Yes and No
    • Moscow Suffers its Most High Profile Defection Yet
      Moscow Suffers its Most High Profile Defection Yet
    • Putin Theo-Propaganda Minister Kirill Invokes 600 Years of History to Lay Claim to Ukraine — Here’s What it Means
      Putin Theo-Propaganda Minister Kirill Invokes 600 Years of History to Lay Claim to Ukraine — Here’s What it Means

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, 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, Christian Nationalism, Media Analysis, New Books, 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, Christian Nationalism, New Books, 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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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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