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Religion Dispatches - Religion Dispatches Religion Dispatches
  • Racial Justice
    • Satanic or Systemic? Promise Keepers Are Back and Looking to End Racism Via ‘Trickle-Down Racial Reconciliation’
      Satanic or Systemic? Promise Keepers Are Back and Looking to End Racism Via ‘Trickle-Down Racial Reconciliation’
    • How Far Will White Christians Go to Maintain Power? An Interview with Robert Jones
      How Far Will White Christians Go to Maintain Power? An Interview with Robert Jones
    • ‘Cult’ Is an Inaccurate, Unhelpful and Dangerous Label for Followers of Trump, QAnon, and 1/6
      ‘Cult’ Is an Inaccurate, Unhelpful and Dangerous Label for Followers of Trump, QAnon, and 1/6
  • Politics/Law
    • As White Evangelical Vaccine Refusal Reminds Us, Sometimes Religion is the Problem
      As White Evangelical Vaccine Refusal Reminds Us, Sometimes Religion is the Problem
    • The January 6 Select Committee Cannot Ignore This Christian Movement
      The January 6 Select Committee Cannot Ignore This Christian Movement
    • UPDATED: Turning Catholic School’s Anti-Mask Theology Into a Faith Argument is Just Fine With Religious Right (Even if it is Based on Garbage Theology)
      UPDATED: Turning Catholic School’s Anti-Mask Theology Into a Faith Argument is Just Fine With Religious Right (Even if it is Based on Garbage Theology)
  • Religious Liberty
    • As White Evangelical Vaccine Refusal Reminds Us, Sometimes Religion is the Problem
      As White Evangelical Vaccine Refusal Reminds Us, Sometimes Religion is the Problem
    • UPDATED: Turning Catholic School’s Anti-Mask Theology Into a Faith Argument is Just Fine With Religious Right (Even if it is Based on Garbage Theology)
      UPDATED: Turning Catholic School’s Anti-Mask Theology Into a Faith Argument is Just Fine With Religious Right (Even if it is Based on Garbage Theology)
    • Sacrificing Children on the Altar of Religious Freedom: A Flood of Mask and Vaccine Lawsuits are Warping ‘Religious Freedom’
      Sacrificing Children on the Altar of Religious Freedom: A Flood of Mask and Vaccine Lawsuits are Warping ‘Religious Freedom’
  • 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
    • The Breaking of Biblical Womanhood: The Problem With the Hot New Book Taking Aim at the Subjugation of Women in Evangelicalism
      The Breaking of Biblical Womanhood: The Problem With the Hot New Book Taking Aim at the Subjugation of Women in Evangelicalism
    • 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

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, 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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(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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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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