Staff
Rev. Peter Laarman, Executive Director,
is a graduate of Brown University and Yale Divinity School with a background in community organizing and in media work for the U.S. labor movement. Before joining the PCU staff in 2004, Laarman served for ten years as senior minister of New York City's historic Judson Memorial Church, during which time he focused the church's public ministry on support for low-wage workers and popular education addressing rising social and economic inequality in New York and the nation. At PCU Peter has worked on developing more vital local networking opportunities for progressive Christians, nurturing young leader development via PCU's campus program, upgrading PCU's communications and web capacity, building a stronger board of directors, and paring program emphases down so as to sharpen PCU's identity and effectiveness. An ordained UCC minister, Peter also writes and blogs extensively. In 2006 Beacon Press published a book of essays Peter gathered and edited under the title Getting on Message: Challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel. Contact him at
director {at} pcu-la {dot} org.
Casey Crosbie, Associate Director, holds a M.A. in Religion and Public Policy from Claremont School of Theology. His academic work has focused primarily on organizing theory and the ethics of business practice. Before coming to PCU, Casey worked with organizations such as CLUE, Sojourners, and various unions as a community organizer. Locally he has worked on campaigns to unionize security and healthcare workers in Los Angeles and on promoting public education on the business models of companies such as Wal-Mart in the Inland Empire. Before coming to the big city, Casey was raised in a self-described “village” in rural South Dakota and attended Concordia College in Moorhead MN. He has also worked in the social service sector in Minnesota before attending graduate school. Being from the Midwest, he is, of course, Lutheran. Contact him at
crosbie {at} pcu-la {dot} org.
Erin Weller is Program Director for Progressive Christians Uniting, with a particular emphasis on PCU’s environment and food justice program, Eighth Day Project, as well as PCU’s Orange County Chapter. Erin received her degrees in Peace Studies and Dance Performance from Chapman University. Prior to PCU, Erin worked extensively at Pilgrim Pines Camp, a UCC summer camp that seeks to nurture faith and self-confidence, build consciousness, and foster community for youth & young adults. She also taught at Saint Joseph Ballet in Santa Ana, an organization that empowers low-income youth through dance, academic and family programs. It is from her schooling, her experiences with these two incredible organizations and her travels to Southeast Asia, Africa and South America that Erin feels called to the field of social justice and to PCU. Currently, Erin dances professionally with modern dance company, Backhausdance, based out of Orange County. You can contact Erin eweller {at} pcu-la {dot} org.
Rev. John Forney, Chapter Organizer for the Pomona Valley and Inland Empire and coordinates Special Projects, is a graduate from Cal. State U. Los Angeles and Claremont School of Theology, where he received a Rel. D. degree. He has done additional work at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and earned teaching credentials at Mills College in the School of Education. He is an Episcopal priest resident in the Diocese of Los Angeles. His ministry has been mostly in local parishes, serving both United Methodist and Episcopal congregations over 20 years. He has taught in settings from preschool through university level, serving as the chair of the Religious Studies Department at Alaska Pacific University. He has also run his family’s real estate business and a waste water treatment plant which enables him to do microdevelopment work in Ghana, Africa. He believes that the formation of vital small group processes will
provide the necessary support, spiritual growth and practical action to build a new Christianity that will truly embody the radical teachings of the “Jesus of dangerous memory.” Contact him at
jforney {at} pcu-la {dot} org.
Virginia Classick, Regional Coordinator for the San Fernando Valley, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and has worked primarily in the fields of mental health and domestic violence for nearly 40 years. She grew up on the campus of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, where her father was a professor. She received her B.A. in theology from Valparaiso University in Indiana, took courses in the M.A. in Religion program at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and received her MSW (Masters in Social Work) from Washington University in St. Louis. She serves as Secretary of the Board of Directors of Peace Action West, is a member of the Christian-Muslim Consultative Group of Southern California and is a member of the board of directors of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture Action Fund. She lives in Woodland Hills, and is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and a General Member of All Saints-Pasadena. Contact her at
vclassick {at} pcu-la {dot} org.
Founders
Rev. Dr. George F. Regas retired as Rector of All Saints Church, Pasadena, in May 1995 after serving 28 years in that position. The primary focus of his ministry at All Saints was peace and justice. He led his congregation to oppose the Vietnam War, the escalating nuclear arms race, and the first Gulf War. He also established many programs to respond to human needs in the Los Angeles area: the AIDS Service Center, a medical program for uninsured children, a shelter for the homeless, and others. Always deeply committed to interfaith work, Dr. Regas founded Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace in the immediate wake of the 9-11 attacks. ICUJP has since become the primary meeting ground and generator of creative ideas for committed interfaith activists in Los Angeles. Dr. Regas continues to write, preach, and lecture widely. He is without question one of the most prominent figures in the national constellation of progressive faith leaders and is well known internationally as well through his work in behalf of the Desmond Tutu Foundation and in combating nuclear escalation and military adventurism on the part of the United States. This year George Frank Regas is celebrating the 50th anniversary of his graduation from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA. He later studied with John A.T. Robinson in Cambridge, England, and he received his doctorate from the Claremont School of Theology here in California.
Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr. was born of Southern Methodist missionary parents in Japan in 1925. Most of his childhood was lived in Hiroshima and the Kobe area, where he attended Canadian Academy. Furloughs were spent in his mother’s parents’ home in Newnan, Georgia. Because of the approach of war, he returned to Newnan around Christmas 1940, finished high school there, and then went to a junior college of Emory University, located in Oxford, Georgia. Before completing junior college he joined the army to attend the Japanese language school at the University of Michigan, completing that program at Camp Savage, Minnesota. His subsequent military service was mainly translating captured military documents at Camp Ritchie, Marlyand. Soon after Japanese surrender he became part of the army of occupation.
After discharge from the army he went to the University of Chicago where he entered the Humanities Division. After a year there he transferred to the Divinity School, where he received the MA and PhD degrees. He joined the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church. His appointment for the first year was part-time teaching at Young Harris College and part-time pastoral responsibility for six churches. He founded a seventh. The next two years he was full time at the college from where he went to Emory University for five years (1953-58). The rest of his teaching career, until his retirement in 1990, was at the Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University. He has been guest professor at the University of Mainz, Rikkyo University, Iliff School of Theology, Vanderbilt Divinity School, the University of Chicago, and Harvard Divinity School. He also served as a fellow at the Woodrow Willson Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
In 1947 he married Jean Loftin and they had four sons. They now have five grandchildren. Jean served as office manager at the Claremont United Methodist Church and as a librarian at the Claremont School of Theology. On retirement they moved to Pilgrim Place.
