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PETER LAARMAN

A Brief Biographical Sketch

Rev. Peter Laarman, was the Senior Minister of New York's historic Judson Memorial Church for ten years, starting his pastorate there in January 1994 and concluding it at the end of January 2004. As the sixth Senior Minister at Judson, Mr. Laarman continued the traditions of social activism associated with his distinguished predecessors in the Judson pulpit, most recently, Howard Moody and Robert Spike.

Peter Laarman graduated summa cum laude from Brown University in 1970 with a degree in English and American literature. Radicalized through involvement in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, Mr. Laarman abandoned his plan to teach college-level English and decided to work instead as a grassroots community organizer in Brockton, Massachusetts, for three years. He went on to enjoy a successful career as a strategist and communications specialist with two leading U.S. trade unions, serving as Director of Public Relations for the American Federation of Teachers (1975-1982) and Director of Public Relations and Publications for the United Auto Workers (1982-1990). At age 43, Mr. Laarman decided to train for ordained ministry at the Yale Divinity School. Upon accepting the call of Judson Church, Mr. Laarman was ordained by the United Church of Christ at Yale's Battell Chapel in November 1993.

In New York, Mr. Laarman challenged himself and Judson to develop new and creative programs to expose and to counter the growing wealth gap in American society and the social, spiritual and psychological consequences of the pervasive corporatization of values and behaviors. In 1997 Mr. Laarman helped to initiate a citywide Workfare Campaign of Resistance designed to expose the unjust and fraudulent nature of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's workfare program. The campaign enlisted over 250 faith-based and other non-profit organizations around a pledge to refuse to participate in the program and actively work to end it. Mr. Laarman's opposition to the city's "Work Experience Program" was highlighted on the front page of The New York Times and on ABC's 20/20 news program.

Mr. Laarman serves on the boards or steering committees of New York Jobs with Justice, the New York State Labor-Religion Coalition, The Employment Project, Planned Parenthood of New York City, and the Campaign for the Abolition of Sweatshops and Child Labor. He is a founder of the Progressive Religious Partnership, a new national effort to restore a prophetic religious voice to public discourse around key social and economic issues facing the United States. Following the Sept. 11, 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center. Mr. Laarman volunteered to coordinate a special relief fund for the hundreds of restaurant workers who were displaced when their workplace-"Windows on the World"-was destroyed. Responding to the Bush Administration's bellicose response to 9/11's aftermath, Mr. Laarman has also helped pull together a new interfaith peace coalition (The NYC Forum of Concerned Religious Leaders).

Mr. Laarman lectures and writes extensively on the challenges facing communities of faith in a culture in which the gospel of wealth and the divine right of corporations function as cardinal organizing principles. Mr. Laarman spent the first four months of a Spring 2001 sabbatical as a Merrill Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School, where he helped develop a course on contrasting models of community and did most of the research for a projected book on political demobilization and the eclipse of the republican ideal in America.