Hickory – In honor of the life and legacy the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Lenoir-Rhyne University’s Office of Multicultural Affairs and Institute for Faith and Learning (IFL) will present a commemorative lecture by Dr. Obery M. Hendricks, Jr. on Monday, January 16 at 10 a.m. in P.E. Monroe Auditorium. Dr. Hendricks will speak later in the evening at LRU’s Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina at 7 p.m. in Stavros Lecture Hall.
One of the nation’s most provocative and innovative commentators on the intersection of religion, politics and social policy in America, Dr. Hendricks will address the politically and racially charged issues that are dividing and hindering peace throughout our country.
Dr. Hendricks is the author of the bestselling book The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted. The book was the featured subject of the C-SPAN program “Class, Politics and Christianity.” As a widely sought lecturer and media spokesperson, Dr. Hendricks has also been featured on PBS, National Public Radio, al-Jazeera Television, NHK Japan Television, Air-America, Radio One, Fox News, the Discovery Channel and the Bloomberg Network. He is also a featured writer for Godspolitics.com, an editorial advisor to the award-winning Tikkun magazine, a contributing editor to The Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, and a principal commentator in The Oxford Annotated Bible.
Dr. Hendricks has been a member of the Faith Advisory Council of the Democratic National Committee and the National Religious Leaders Advisory Committee of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. He is an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for American Progress and serves on the board of the Public Religion Research Institute.
A former Wall Street investment executive and past president of Payne Theological Seminary, the oldest African American theological seminary in the United States, Dr. Hendricks is currently Professor of Biblical Interpretation at New York Theological Seminary and Visiting Scholar in both the Department of Religion and the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University. 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.
Immediately following the presentation, attendees are invited to participate in the annual NAACP March sponsored by the Hickory Branch of the NAACP. The march will begin at 11 a.m. in front of P.E. Monroe Auditorium and extend approximately two miles to the Ridgeview Recreation Center. The event will conclude with entertainment and light refreshments at the recreation center.
Both the lecture and march are free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Emma Sellers, Director of Multicultural Affairs at 828.328.7288 or [email protected].
This important presentation by Dr. Hendricks is scheduled as part of the 2016-17 IFL Speaker Series. The series will conclude with guest speaker, Holly Taylor Coolman, on Thursday, March 23 at 7 p.m. in Grace Chapel on LR’s Hickory campus. For more information about the speaker series, visit lr.edu/publicevents or contact Jonathan Schwiebert, LR Professor of Religious Studies at [email protected] or 828.328-7184.
About Lenoir-Rhyne University:
Lenoir-Rhyne University was founded in 1891 and is a private, Lutheran, coeducational university with its primary campus in Hickory, NC. Academic programs include more than 50 undergraduate majors and 26 graduate programs. The website is www.lr.edu.
PHOTO: Dr. Obery Hendricks, Jr.
