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Religion Dispatches - Religion Dispatches Religion Dispatches
  • Racial Justice
    • Chauvin Verdict isn’t a Turning Point in Equal Justice, But it Does Suggest a New Political Norm
      Chauvin Verdict isn’t a Turning Point in Equal Justice, But it Does Suggest a New Political Norm
    • Beyond White Reasonable Doubt: Why I Cannot Fully Celebrate the Verdict Against [Let His Name Be Erased]
      Beyond White Reasonable Doubt: Why I Cannot Fully Celebrate the Verdict Against [Let His Name Be Erased]
    • What’s the Matter With Jewish Studies? Sexism, Harassment, and Neoliberalism For Starters
      What’s the Matter With Jewish Studies? Sexism, Harassment, and Neoliberalism For Starters
  • Politics/Law
    • Chauvin Verdict isn’t a Turning Point in Equal Justice, But it Does Suggest a New Political Norm
      Chauvin Verdict isn’t a Turning Point in Equal Justice, But it Does Suggest a New Political Norm
    • Beyond White Reasonable Doubt: Why I Cannot Fully Celebrate the Verdict Against [Let His Name Be Erased]
      Beyond White Reasonable Doubt: Why I Cannot Fully Celebrate the Verdict Against [Let His Name Be Erased]
    • As a Minister I’m Fed Up With Anti-Trans Legislation Written by Adults to Pick on Children, All in the Name of Religious Freedom
      As a Minister I’m Fed Up With Anti-Trans Legislation Written by Adults to Pick on Children, All in the Name of Religious Freedom
  • Religious Liberty
    • As a Minister I’m Fed Up With Anti-Trans Legislation Written by Adults to Pick on Children, All in the Name of Religious Freedom
      As a Minister I’m Fed Up With Anti-Trans Legislation Written by Adults to Pick on Children, All in the Name of Religious Freedom
    • Alabama Yoga Debate Focusing on the Wrong Question
      Alabama Yoga Debate Focusing on the Wrong Question
    • Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith Spouts Christian Nationalism Defending Racist Voter Suppression
      Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith Spouts Christian Nationalism Defending Racist Voter Suppression
  • 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
    • I’m Not Here to Fix Evangelicals, But to Show Them Who They Are: An Interview With the Author of ‘White Evangelical Racism’
      I’m Not Here to Fix Evangelicals, But to Show Them Who They Are: An Interview With the Author of ‘White Evangelical Racism’
    • How the Study of Evangelicalism Has Blinded Us to the Problems in Evangelical Culture
      How the Study of Evangelicalism Has Blinded Us to the Problems in Evangelical Culture
    • 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?

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/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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(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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Religion Dispatches

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