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.

Articles

Religion Dispatches

The Economy is Racism: Ending Race-Based Economic Violence is the Real Challenge of This Moment

Please feel free to ignore the economists and pundits who like to say that Wall Street is not the ‘real’ economy. That old saw is false in at least two ways. Members of the investor class wouldn’t…

Peter Laarman

June 25, 2020

Article

Religion Dispatches

Hope & Change in a Racist Nation: A Necessary Disillusion

I now live in a tiny state whose motto is “Hope.” When the pandemic struck, our governor reached out to RISD grad Shepard Fairey with a request to produce another of his patented images. He promptly…

Peter Laarman

June 1, 2020

Article

Religion Dispatches

'We're all in this together': The Perils of Kumbaya Rhetoric

Talk is cheap, and sentimental talk cheapens public discourse in dangerous ways at a time when total sobriety is required. Eight weeks into a public health and economic catastrophe, the facts before…

Peter Laarman

May 12, 2020

Article