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.

No End in Sight: White Evangelicals Stick with Trump’s White Nationalist GOP

Peter Laarman

The white nationalism of the Tea Party and Trump represents an "authentic" expression of the main spiritual current in American history, which is about subjugation and supremacy and greed.

The Christian Guilty Conscience Over the History of Anti-Semitism Isn’t Enough

Peter Laarman

At this moment being "correct" on the history and theology—and feeling guilty about Christianity's role in supporting Jew hatred—will not suffice.

Surprising New Poll on Evangelicals and Religious Exceptions

Peter Laarman

The wide-ranging poll includes disparate views on candidates facing harassment accusations, gag rules, contraception, and more.

Old Testament ‘Bad,’ New Testament ‘Good’: A Dangerous (and Mistaken) Assumption

Peter Laarman

Oops, we just threw the Jewish tradition under the bus again. So sorry. We didn't mean it. Really.

Kavanaugh, Yawn: Where’s Our Thirty-Year Plan?

Peter Laarman

When will we unite the fragments of important and useful single-issue activism under a shared understanding that we need to slay the dragon of finance capitalism joined to white supremacy?

Three Questions for Jeff Sessions

Peter Laarman

It's never been truer that even the Devil can quote Scripture for his own purposes.

[Photo: Actor Ethan Hawke plays Rev. Ernst Toller in the movie

Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” Depicts Death Struggle Between Hope and Despair

Peter Laarman

A younger Paul Schrader might have chosen to end this film, which many critics are calling his masterpiece, in apocalyptic violence. But I don’t think it’s quite right to conclude that Schrader has simply mellowed in his eighth decade.

[Photo: Father Patrick Conroy, the House chaplain walked out of a meeting]

Update #2: No Safe Place For Truthtellers: A Larger Frame For the House Chaplain Brouhaha

Peter Laarman

Pundits that play the story as merely another “unforced error” on Ryan’s part miss this crucial point about the containable rage of the exposed despoilers toward someone who is, by all accounts, a mild-mannered and well-regarded figure.

Peter Laarman

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