Front Row

This is our most ambitious and most important podcast series yet”

- Peter Laarman, Episode 1.

Long ago, European Christians cast Jesus in the image of their imperial rulers, who wanted art portraying a fair-skinned Savior. The world still feels those consequences today.

Join Front Row host Peter Laarman and guest Grace Ji-Sun Kim, as she explores the historical and theological implications of Jesus becoming white and God becoming a white male.

Follow them on this challenging intellectual journey, which discusses how whiteness becomes centered, even among people who are not white, and the toll that white supremacy takes on everyone, even those who live under the umbrella of “white.” 

We’ll get glimpses at the ways in which the church has the capacity to challenge this modern ideology that allows for misogyny, homophobia, and a violent capitalism, based on violence and extraction.

Find Grace Ji-Sun Kim's book here.

This is our most ambitious and most important podcast series yet”

- Peter Laarman, Episode 1.

Long ago, European Christians cast Jesus in the image of their imperial rulers, who wanted art portraying a fair-skinned Savior. The world still feels those consequences today.

Join Front Row host Peter Laarman and guest Grace Ji-Sun Kim, as she explores the historical and theological implications of Jesus becoming white and God becoming a white male.

Follow them on this challenging intellectual journey, which discusses how whiteness becomes centered, even among people who are not white, and the toll that white supremacy takes on everyone, even those who live under the umbrella of “white.” 

We’ll get glimpses at the ways in which the church has the capacity to challenge this modern ideology that allows for misogyny, homophobia, and a violent capitalism, based on violence and extraction.

Find Grace Ji-Sun Kim's book here.

This is our most ambitious and most important podcast series yet”

- Peter Laarman, Episode 1.

Long ago, European Christians cast Jesus in the image of their imperial rulers, who wanted art portraying a fair-skinned Savior. The world still feels those consequences today.

Join Front Row host Peter Laarman and guest Grace Ji-Sun Kim, as she explores the historical and theological implications of Jesus becoming white and God becoming a white male.

Follow them on this challenging intellectual journey, which discusses how whiteness becomes centered, even among people who are not white, and the toll that white supremacy takes on everyone, even those who live under the umbrella of “white.” 

We’ll get glimpses at the ways in which the church has the capacity to challenge this modern ideology that allows for misogyny, homophobia, and a violent capitalism, based on violence and extraction.

Find Grace Ji-Sun Kim's book here.

This is our most ambitious and most important podcast series yet”

- Peter Laarman, Episode 1.

Long ago, European Christians cast Jesus in the image of their imperial rulers, who wanted art portraying a fair-skinned Savior. The world still feels those consequences today.

Join Front Row host Peter Laarman and guest Grace Ji-Sun Kim, as she explores the historical and theological implications of Jesus becoming white and God becoming a white male.

Follow them on this challenging intellectual journey, which discusses how whiteness becomes centered, even among people who are not white, and the toll that white supremacy takes on everyone, even those who live under the umbrella of “white.” 

We’ll get glimpses at the ways in which the church has the capacity to challenge this modern ideology that allows for misogyny, homophobia, and a violent capitalism, based on violence and extraction.

Find Grace Ji-Sun Kim's book here.

“This is our most ambitious and most important podcast series yet” - Peter Laarman

Long ago, European Christians cast Jesus in the image of their imperial rulers, who wanted art portraying a fair-skinned Savior. The world still feels those consequences today.

Join Front Row host Peter Laarmann and guest Grace Ji-Sun Kim, as she explores the historical and theological implications of Jesus becoming white and God becoming a white male.

Follow them on this challenging intellectual journey, which discusses how whiteness becomes centered, even among people who are not white, and the toll that white supremacy takes on everyone, even those who live under the umbrella of “white.” 

We’ll see how the church can challenge this modern ideology, one that allows for misogyny, homophobia, and a form of capitalism based on violence and extraction.

Find Grace Ji-Sun Kim's book here.

In the fourth part of this series, Dr. Obery Hendricks, Dr. Charlene Sinclair, and Peter Laarman continue their deep dive into what white Christian nationalists actually worship: power, wealth, and whiteness.

This FRONT ROW podcast features Dr. Obery Hendricks, Dr. Charlene Sinclair and Peter Laarman.

Dr. Obery Hendricks is a lifelong social activist, and one of the foremost commentators on the intersection of religion and political economy in America. He is the most widely read and perhaps the most influential African American biblical scholar writing today. His recent book, Christians Against Christianity: How Right-Wing Evangelicals Are Destroying Our Nation and Our Faith (Beacon Press, 2021) has gathered wide acclaim.

Dr. Charlene Sinclair is an organizer, thinker, and writer whose work centers on the intersection of race, gender, economy, and democracy. Strongly influenced by the pathbreaking thought of the late James Cone, founder of Black Liberation Theology, Dr. Sinclair is committed to fashioning strategies that embrace a liberationist approach to faith and spirituality in the context of popular struggles for racial, economic, and gender justice. 

The Reverend Peter Laarman is a retired United Church of Christ minister and activist who led Judson Memorial Church in New York and Progressive Christians Uniting in California. He is currently involved with the King & Breaking Silence webinar project of the National Council of Elders and with the development of a new formation called Social Ethics Energizing Democracy. 

This is the 3rd episode in our season on Christians Against Christianity. 

This FRONT ROW podcast features Dr. Obery Hendricks, Dr. Charlene Sinclair and Peter Laarman.

Dr. Obery Hendricks is a lifelong social activist, and one of the foremost commentators on the intersection of religion and political economy in America. He is the most widely read and perhaps the most influential African American biblical scholar writing today. His recent book, Christians Against Christianity: How Right-Wing Evangelicals Are Destroying Our Nation and Our Faith (Beacon Press, 2021) has gathered wide acclaim.
 

Dr. Charlene Sinclair is an organizer, thinker, and writer whose work centers on the intersection of race, gender, economy, and democracy. Strongly influenced by the pathbreaking thought of the late James Cone, founder of Black Liberation Theology, Dr. Sinclair is committed to fashioning strategies that embrace a liberationist approach to faith and spirituality in the context of popular struggles for racial, economic, and gender justice. 

The Reverend Peter Laarman is a retired United Church of Christ minister and activist who led Judson Memorial Church in New York and Progressive Christians Uniting in California. He is currently involved with the King & Breaking Silence webinar project of the National Council of Elders and with the development of a new formation called Social Ethics Energizing Democracy. 

Special Guests

This FRONT ROW podcast features Dr. Obery Hendricks, Dr. Charlene Sinclair and Peter Laarman.

Dr. Obery Hendricks is a lifelong social activist, and one of the foremost commentators on the intersection of religion and political economy in America. He is the most widely read and perhaps the most influential African American biblical scholar writing today. His recent book, Christians Against Christianity: How Right-Wing Evangelicals Are Destroying Our Nation and Our Faith (Beacon Press, 2021) has gathered wide acclaim.
 

Dr. Charlene Sinclair is an organizer, thinker, and writer whose work centers on the intersection of race, gender, economy, and democracy. Strongly influenced by the pathbreaking thought of the late James Cone, founder of Black Liberation Theology, Dr. Sinclair is committed to fashioning strategies that embrace a liberationist approach to faith and spirituality in the context of popular struggles for racial, economic, and gender justice. 

The Reverend Peter Laarman is a retired United Church of Christ minister and activist who led Judson Memorial Church in New York and Progressive Christians Uniting in California. He is currently involved with the King & Breaking Silence webinar project of the National Council of Elders and with the development of a new formation called Social Ethics Energizing Democracy. 



In the first part of this series, Dr. Obery Hendricks, Dr. Charlene Sinclair, and Peter Laarman lay out the beliefs of the ideologues who want an America ruled by a vengeful strongman. They ask if this movement can be fought by speaking in biblical terms, by seeing “loving your neighbor as yourself” as a struggle for the common good.  

Do these authoritarians care about what is right or only what serves their interest? Will their value of domination win out over repentance? Can a return to ethics and justice stave off their ascent? 

Churches have a choice: They can embrace the radical power of Jesus of the gospels or slowly lose ground to an evangelical movement that worships at the strange altar of whiteness.

 Obery M. Hendricks Jr. is a lifelong social activist, and one of the foremost commentators on the intersection of religion and political economy in America. He is the most widely read and perhaps the most influential African American biblical scholar writing today. His recent book, Christians Against Christianity: How Right-Wing Evangelicals Are Destroying Our Nation and Our Faith (Beacon Press, 2021) has gathered wide acclaim.

Dr. Charlene Sinclair is an organizer, thinker, and writer whose work centers on the intersection of race, gender, economy, and democracy. Strongly influenced by the pathbreaking thought of the late James Cone, founder of Black Liberation Theology, Dr. Sinclair is committed to fashioning strategies that embrace a liberationist approach to faith and spirituality in the context of popular struggles for racial, economic, and gender justice. 

The Reverend Peter Laarman is a retired United Church of Christ minister and activist who led Judson Memorial Church in New York and Progressive Christians Uniting in California. He is currently involved with the King & Breaking Silence webinar project of the National Council of Elders and with the development of a new formation called Social Ethics Energizing Democracy.

The Book Of Revelation has been described as the most misunderstood and misinterpreted book of the Bible and ought to come with an adults-only "reader's caution" for all its violent imagery. Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States (1801-1809), denied the divine inspiration of the Book of Revelation, describing it to Alexander Smyth (US Representative from Virginia) in 1825 as "merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams."

Despite Revelation's reputation, some, particularly Black people and other people of color, have found it to be hopeful and relevant. Revelation speaks to marginalized and powerless people, to anyone familiar with struggle. Some scholars call it the literature of the oppressed. And yet, we have seen over and over again, people going through tough times are remarkably resilient. There's something within them that keeps them hoping for life to get better, even when darkness seems to be winning. "True hope" is what preacher Peter Gomes calls a muscular hope, the stuff that gets us through and beyond when the worst that can happen happens. "Hope is forged on the anvil of adversity," Gomes famously said.

This FRONT ROW podcast features special guests Charlene Sinclair and Peter Laarman.

Dr. Charlene Sinclair is an organizer, thinker, and writer whose work centers on the intersection of race, gender, economy, and democracy. Strongly influenced by the pathbreaking thought of the late James Cone, founder of Black Liberation Theology, Dr. Sinclair is committed to fashioning strategies that embrace a liberationist approach to faith and spirituality in the context of popular struggles for racial, economic, and gender justice. 

Peter Laarman is a retired United Church of Christ minister and activist who led Judson Memorial Church in New York and Progressive Christians Uniting in California. He is currently involved with the King & Breaking Silence webinar project of the National Council of Elders and with the development of a new formation called Social Ethics Energizing Democracy. 

Charlene and Peter approach Revelation from very different positions.