Dr. Obery Hendricks – activist, intellectual, social commentator, political analyst, and profound religious thinker – has emerged as one of the nation’s most radical and innovative voices on the intersection of religion, politics, and social policy in America.

Whether the subject is unjust wars, racial and gender injustice, healthcare, workers’ rights, corporate greed, or the demise our environment, Hendricks is sure to offer razor-sharp critiques and fearless prescriptions for change. He brings to his oratory a unique blend of tough-as-nails street smarts, Ivy League erudition, a burning passion for social justice, and the deeply held belief that the only true evidence of spirituality is struggling to free our neighbors – at home and abroad – from the scrounges of oppression, hunger, unnecessary disease, economic exploitation, and undue insecurity. With an in-depth knowledge of Christianity, Judaism and Islam – including Islam’s African American off-shoots – Hendricks is also an important voice for bridging the painful religious divides in this nation.

A widely sought keynote speaker and media spokesman, Hendricks has been featured on C-SPAN, PBS, NPR, al-Jazeera Television, Air-America, Radio One, the Bloomberg Network and hip-hop radio stations around the country. He is a featured writer for Faithfuldemocrats.com and Jim Wallis’ Godspolitics.com, a contributing editor to Trumpet magazine and The Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, and an editorial advisor to the award-winning Tikkun magazine. His searing critique of contemporary gospel music, “The Problem with Gospel Music Today,” has been anthologized as one of the most important writings in the last century on the music of the African American Church.

The political insights of Hendricks’ best-selling recent book, The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Teachings for Jesus and How They Have Been Distorted, have generated a firestorm of interest. The Washington Post called it “essential reading for Americans.” The Politics of Jesus has been embraced as a guide for successfully combining spirituality and effective political activism and was the featured subject of the C-SPAN program “Class, Politics, and Christianity.”

A former Wall Street investment executive and past president of Payne Theological Seminary, Hendricks is currently Professor of Biblical Interpretation at New York Theological Seminary. He holds the MA and PhD in Religion from Princeton University and has studied at the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies in Israel.

Hendricks is a member of the Faith Advisory Council of the Democratic National Committee and an Affiliated Scholar in the “Faith and Public Policy Initiative” at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think-tank in Washington, DC, where he writes about religion, worker justice, and the new union movement.

Although Hendricks is an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, he prefers “freedom-fighter” to “Reverend.” His unique blend of intellectual acuity, social outrage and political courage is summarized by Cornel West: “Obery Hendricks is not just on the cutting edge, he is the knife!”

Topics

Flow Like You Know: The Power and Potential of the Hip Hop Generation to Change America

Not Every Veil Hides a Frown: Islam and Christianity in the Age of Terrorism

Corporate Greed vs. Human Need: Saving Our Environment from the Pirates

What Would Jesus Do? The Radical Politics of the Man from Galilee

Enough is Enough: Reclaiming Our Government from the Auction Block

How Then Shall We Be Saved? The Responsibility of the Church in the Age of Halliburton

Who Would Jesus Join? Liberalism, Conservatism and the Conundrum of Christianity

Diversity, Faith & Religion, Diversity Topics, Leadership, Political,