This February through March, join the Church of the Redeemer for their VOICES Series. VOICES, the Redeemer Speaker Series invites contemporary voices to challenge and inform us: artists and authors, visionaries and thought leaders, advocates of change courageous enough to hold the loveliness and sorrow of the world at once and find the wonder in both.
All events will be held in the church starting at 7:00 p.m.
February 21: Randall Balmer
Christian Nationalism and American Democracy
The popularity of Christian nationalism, the notion that the United States is and always has been a Christian nation, is based on a flawed reading of history and a misinterpretation of the First Amendment, America’s best idea. Why has Christian nationalism emerged in recent years, and what can be done to counteract it?
Randall Balmer, an Episcopal priest, is the John Phillips Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College.
He is the author of more than a dozen books, including Solemn Reverence: The Separation of Church and State in American Life, and his commentaries appear in the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Santa Fe New Mexican and newspapers across the country.
Click here for details.
February 28: The Rev. Tim Schenck
Devotions for People Who Don’t Do Devotions
Tim Schenck is the rector of the Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida. Tim grew up in Baltimore and attended Redeemer prior to being ordained. He has served parishes in Maryland, New York, Massachusetts and now Florida. Tim is the author of several books and is the creator of “Lent Madness” an online devotion series. He will be discussing his latest book, Devotions for People Who Don’t Do Devotions. These are stories about everyday life–and how we can seek and find the divine in the midst of it all.
The words are meant to be starting points, not megaphone-style declarations of certainty, and you’re invited to bring your own experience and imagination to these reflections. The hope is that they will help you see God’s hand at work in both the mundane and miraculous day-to-day interactions of our lives.
Click here for details.
March 6: Hahrie Han
Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church
Hahrie Han is the inaugural director of the SNF Agora Institute and Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins. She specializes in the study of organizing, movements, civic engagement and democracy.
Hahrie will join us to discuss her latest book, Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church to be published in September 2024.
Click here for details.
March 13: Scott Shane
Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland
Baltimore resident Scott Shane was a reporter for 15 years at The New York Times, where he was twice a member of teams that won Pulitzer Prizes, and before that for 21 years at The Baltimore Sun. Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland is a riveting account of the extraordinary abolitionist, liberator, and writer Thomas Smallwood, who bought his own freedom, led hundreds out of slavery, and named the underground railroad.
Flee North tells the story for the first time of an American hero all but lost to history. Flee North also portrays the dangerous enemies faced by Smallwood, and his allies, including Baltimore’s Hope Slatter, who ran his slave-trading business from the Inner Harbor.
Click here for details.
March 20: Joseph Hooper
Fire on the Levee: The Murder of Henry Glover and the Search for Justice After Hurricane Katrina
Joseph Hooper is a native Baltimorean, and graduate of Calvert and Gilman schools. He has made his career in New York City where, as a freelance journalist, his work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, New York, Popular Science, Men’s Journal and Elle. Joe will be joined for this presentation by Ashley Johnson. Ashley was a rookie FBI agent at the time of the murders and was largely responsible for solving the case and attempting to bring the criminals to justice along with lead author and Justice Department prosecutor, Jared Fishman.
In 2009, attorney Jared Fishman, then an inexperienced Civil Rights prosecutor was sent by the Department of Justice to New Orleans to investigate rumors that the police may have had something to do with the 2005 shooting death and disappearance of an unarmed Black man, Henry Glover, in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina.
About five years ago, Joseph Hooper joined forces with his friend, attorney Jared Fishman, to co-write the story of this most extraordinary civil rights case.
From Publisher’s Weekly: This riveting true crime saga begins in 2009 when Fishman, then working in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, came across a file on Henry Glover, a Black man whose body was found in a burned-out car atop a breached New Orleans levee after Hurricane Katrina. This launched a yearlong FBI investigation that culminated in the conclusion that Glover was killed by a white police officer and it was covered up by the New Orleans Police Department.
Click here for details.
The Ivy Bookshop, a longtime partner in our VOICES series, will maintain a display of books in their store for our spring 2024 series. They will be at Redeemer to sell books for our speaker series on February 28, March 13 and March 20. We are grateful for this ongoing partnership.
