The Politics of Jesus: A Conversation with Dr. Obery Hendricks

April 5, 2007, 12:30pm – 2:00pm

About This Event

Religion increasingly inhabits the political sphere in our country and is claimed as a motivating source by conservative and liberal leaders alike. Many of these leaders are Christian and profess that their policies follow the teachings of Jesus. And yet their policies are often diametrically opposed, promoting very different views of morality and how one should live.
Please join the Center for American Progress for a provocative conversation that explores these issues with one of our country’s leading public theologians.

Featured Participants:
Dr. Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., Author, The Politics of Jesus and Professor of Biblical Interpretation, New York Theological Seminary
Melody C. Barnes, Executive Vice President for Policy, Center for American Progress

Location

Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005

Biographies

Dr. Obery M. Hendricks, Jr. is among the most radical and innovative biblical scholars in America. The Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation calls his work "the boldest post-colonial writing ever seen in Western biblical studies." His study, "The Problem with Gospel Music Today," has been anthologized as one of "the greatest writings on the music of the African American church in the last century."
"[E]ssential reading for Americans” is what Jon Meacham, the managing editor of Newsweek, wrote in The Washington Post about Hendricks’ latest book, The Politics of Jesus. Social critic Michael Eric Dyson calls it "an instant classic" that "immediately thrusts Hendricks into the front ranks of American religious thinkers." His novel, Living Water, was chosen as Best Christian Fiction of 2003 by Black Issues Book Review.
A widely sought speaker, lecturer, and media commentator, Hendricks is a featured writer for Faithfuldemocrats.com and Godspolitics.com. He is a member of the Faith Advisory Council for the Democratic National Committee and an Ordained Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
A former Wall Street investment executive and past president of Payne Theological Seminary, the oldest African American theological seminary in the United States, Hendricks is currently Professor of Biblical Interpretation at New York Theological Seminary. He holds the Master of Divinity with academic honors from Princeton Theological Seminary and both the M.A. and Ph.D. in Religions of Late Antiquity from Princeton University. He is a principal commentator in The Oxford Annotated Bible, one of the most widely used academic study Bibles in the English-speaking world, and a contributing editor to The Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion.
Hendricks' trailblazing contributions to American religious discourse are summarized by Cornel West: "Obery Hendricks is not just on the cutting edge, he is the knife!"

Melody C. Barnes is the Executive Vice President for Policy at the Center for American Progress, where she coordinates and helps to integrate all of the Center's policy work from the policy departments, fellows, and the Center's network of outside policy experts.
From December 1995 until March 2003, Ms. Barnes served as chief counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) on the Senate Judiciary Committee. As Kennedy's chief counsel, she shaped civil rights, women's health and reproductive rights, commercial, and religious liberties laws, as well as executive branch and judicial appointments. Ms. Barnes' experience also includes an appointment as Director of Legislative Affairs for the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and serving as assistant counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights. During her tenure with the Subcommittee, she worked closely with members of Congress and their staffs to pass the Voting Rights Improvement Act of 1992, which was signed into law.
Ms. Barnes began her career as an attorney with Shearman & Sterling in New York City and is a member of both the New York State Bar Association and the District of Columbia Bar Association. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of The Constitution Project, EMILY's List, The Maya Angelou Public Charter School, and The Moriah Fund. She received her law degree from the University of Michigan and her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from which she graduated with honors in history.

The Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative of the Center for American Progress works to identify and articulate the moral-ethical and spiritual values underpinning policy issues, to shape a progressive stance in which these values are clear, and to increase public awareness and understanding of these values. The Initiative also works to safeguard the healthy separation of church and state that has allowed religion in our country to flourish. In all its efforts, the Initiative works for a society and government that strengthen the common good and respect the basic dignity of all people. The Initiative informs the wide-ranging efforts of the Center for American Progress to promote a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all.

 

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