coming, let me thank mark and wayne for their comments and jay richards. thank you all. [applause] .. >> a generation of future voters and also, you know, this is a time when you're in your teens and late teens and early 20s where you're most passionate

about things in your life. and you realize if you could turn that passion to politics, it would be a really incredible force. now, regardless if i agreed or disagreed with the politics of the people who served over me, i liked the fact they wanted to engage people, i liked the fact they wanted people to express and learn about their own political leanings and feelings. and every once in a while i'd jump in there and get a little bloody, but when you challenge one another, when you really learn what you believe and why you believe it, it'll make you a better person for it. >> she spoke to booktv at this year's freedom fest in las vegas. along with our schedule, you can also see our programs anytime at booktv.org. and get the latest updates throughout the week. follow us on facebook and twitter. >> we were right, in my view, to fully fund the military since 9/11, but what we did was we

deprived the state department and the u.s. agency of international development of funds. and there is, as a result, an enormous gap between the size and power of the pentagon and the size and power of the state department. i'll illustrate it with two little examples from bob gates who was an outstanding secretary of defense for president bush and president obama. he gave a brilliant speech a couple years ago, and here are two of nuggets. secretary gates, we have more mill tear personnel one carrier battle group, united states navy, than we have american diplomats all over the world. here's another, if that doesn't convince you. we have more members of the armed forces marching bands of the navy, air force, army, marines -- [laughter] true fact, than american diplomats. >> this weekend on c-span, nicholas burns on the history of u.s. diplomatic efforts in the mideast and his call for a return to diplomacy, today at 10

a.m. eastern. on c-span2's booktv, how would you define the american dream? lawrence samuel later at 7:30, and on c-span3's american history tv, why change the story when the truth is more exciting? be ray rafael on true tales of the founding fathers sunday at noon eastern. >> next on booktv, from the 2013 be harlem book fair, a discussion on the church and political activism. [applause] >> good evening, everyone. thank you, valerie, for that introduction. want to, of course, thank all of our sponsors as well as our hosts for the opportunity to moderate this panel of insightful authors, incisive of commentators and engaged leaders. i want to quickly state the aims of our panel, introduce our paneltists and open us up for

conversation. of course, this evening our event is entitled the new jerusalem: black life, the church and the struggle for american democracy. our hosts have given us the charge of thinking on the theme of the fact that religious belief, religion institutions and religious people came to be seen as essential for social freedom. and this remains the central paradox in african-american be life and political history. our discussion will examine the overlapping challenges of creating a basis for black collective activism, building independent black institutions and determining the place of men, women, politics and reapplication in leadership. religion in leadership. now, to our panelists who all have long bios, so i will simply list the titles of their booksv. first, to my most be meet right and moving further along, first is ann think ya -- anthea

butler, the forth be coming book "the gospel according to sarah palin -- the gospel according to sarah, that is, how sarah palin and the tea party are galvanizing the right." this will be out next year. edgy glaude is -- eddie glaude is next, author of "in the shade of blue." following eddie, professor glaude, is the reverend dr. james forbes who is the author of a 2010 book "who's gospel: a concise guide to progress -- protestantism." and the author of "the politics of jesus, rediscovering the true revolutionary nature of jesus' teachings, and in 2011 the universe bends toward justice.

radical reflections on the bible, the church and the body politic. maybe take aing a launch off of professor hendricks most recent title with a quote that suggests what is perhaps the most iconic and popular image of black churches and african-american religion taken from none other than dr. martin luther king. this whole host of assumptions when we think about our title which has the church squarely fitted in between american democracy and black life. we imagine black churches out on the front lines marching and forget that, in fact, dr. king represented a minority movement. want to invite you, professor hendricks and as we move through the panel, to go whatever direction you want thinking about what is the appropriate way for us to think and understand the relationships between religion in general, but black churches in particular in the larger context of american democracy. so religion, black church and democracy. how do we, how should we, how could we imagine them in this lahr moment?

>> there's some tensions that aren't t usually discussed. religion, ultimately s theocratic, so it's not democratic. most churches are not democratic, you know? they're very hierarchical and pate be around call. patriarchal. church is the most influential institution of our community that filters down. and so in a way it's disempowering to the the black masses, in my opinion. you mentioned dr. king. dr. king was trying to move to another level in his ministry, and that being fighting for

economic justice. he was trying to mount the poor people's campaign, and he called a meeting in washington -- in virginia, rather, and 124 ministers were invited, and guess how many came? none. and i think this is sort of emblematic of a sort of -- it speaks to the fiction of the church at large, black church at large as being the forefront of our struggle. so i'll just say this, the other problem is, though, in fact, it's not that until recently, the last couple generations, i think with my generation that we saw any significant critical mass of black biblical scholars, theological scholars who were able to cut through some of this dominationist dialogue, discourse that has permeated

christiandom with the result that the black church too often is held in thrall to the same kinds of misreadings of jesus and the gospels that we see in white churches. not just the patriarchy. but the -- not the unwillingness, but the ambivalence about being political, seeing jesus as a political figure, a political activist who's concerned about political egalitarianism, economic egalitarianism. so these are some of the open to to -- opening tensions that i'd like to raise. i do appreciate the deep centrality of the black church, the black life. and the black church in ways is the only thing that got us over for so long. but it's now time that we can

move to, i think, to a much more informed level and not just talk about, you know, black church so revolutionary, boy, we're in the fore front, but really start to look at it in a more incisive way and more programmatic way. >> dr. forbes if, if we could maybe extend this. dr. hendricks sets up this tension in contrast to commitment to radical democracy that king is often believed to represent. you yourself were a product of churches that are often written out of the story of the black liberal protestant establishment that king would represent, right? baptist and methodist churches. how might you see pentacostal churches, but also the local protestant tradition of a riverside as complicating that story? >> well, first of all, i think genesis helps us to look at our problem, and that is that in

genesis there is this snake that comes up and begins to engage in conversation with eve, and the snake actually participates in calling into question what god said, and the implications are what we should do. so that the major religious enterprise may be viewed as probably having distorted the nature of black being and suggested that god said one thing about who black folks are. and that the black church is good's rebuttal saying this is what i said and not what the snake said. now, snake is not in the farrakhan sense calling other people demonic in this regard.

[laughter] but what this is, is that the god who calls all of us god's children, thereby suggesting the democratic ideal, that the black church gets caught between listening to what the snake said versus what god has clarified about who we are. and when the black church is really being the church that in a sense god uses to refute what was said by the other church, we are likely to be sensitive to the democratic ideal and engaged in activities that lead us to a more democratic society. when we listen to the other voice about who we are as black people, we play the games of one upmanship, of god's having the

outhouse and the in-house kind of folks or about postponing the gratification until the great by and by. so the real challenge today is whether the black church believes what god said about us all being god's children or whether we have lots of divine dna testing as to who is really an authentic offspring of god. and james washington, my te parted friend -- departed friend, used to say our problem was the fact that there has been posited by the others what he called pseudo-subspeechuation. some of us are less speech than others. [laughter] and when we act like that, all of the complications of the

assault against egalitarian ideals begins to operate. now, where is the black church today? my sense is we've got some folks that are really struggling hard to believe what god said and other folks are trying to square their future well being with acting like they believe what the other folks say and the issue for us today in this conversation ought to be what did god say and how do we challenge the black church to believe what the lord said rather than what the devil said. [applause] >> and that's what happens when you're the great james forbes, you know what i mean? that's what happens, you know? [applause] sister valerie, i'm really delighted to be a part of this conversation. this has been an extraordinary day, hasn't it? [applause] our brilliance on display,

elegance, sophistication and nuance in the face of weeks of tragedy, right? but i want to approach the question from a different angle, right in there's always a problematic relationship between religion and democracy, right? and it has something to do with the history of democracy in the west, the relationship between democratic languages of right, equal rights, rights discourse and the religious wars, how rights discourse emerges as a way to kind of navigate sectarian differences, right? so there's always a kind of deep-seeded skepticism about the place of religious in democratic discourse. the late richard roarty who was invoked earlier by kendall thomas actually thought of religion as a conversation stopper. these are my beliefs, these are what i hold, they're not up for debate. now, in the african-american community there's a way in which

religious discourses have always been a part of the ways in which we've engaged the political domain, right? there's a kind of complex relationship between giving voice to political demands in religious language. it's always haunted democracy. many our community religion has been a crucial, religious languages have been crucial to how we've given voice to our political aims. having a lot to do with the fact that we have been excluded from the body politic. by virtue of the fact that we entered the modern world as somebody else's belongings, that we were not included in the democratic process because we were less than. right? and so the church became this space within which we could exercise, right, our political sense of things, right? it became the site for plaque life, right? -- for black life.

so we can tell a story about black civil society out of which comes insurance companies, out of which comes schools, my own beloved morehouse, my own beloved morehouse founded in the basement of a church, right? we could just go on and on and on. so the institution has played a particular sort of role, but what is the role of the black church today? e. franklin frazier kind of peered in the future when he was writing, and he said the closer we get to being included into mainstream life, the institutions of the world of make believe will change, will transform, and some will fade away. part of what we have to do, and i'm going to be deliberately provocative -- i always am, right? -- is to try to figure out what are the demographic shifts, what have been the significant changes in the institutional life of the church that may have decentered it from

being the most important institutional space in black america today. whether or not churches are actually neighborhood churches anymore, how many of these institutions have become atm gospel. oh, i didn't say that. >> prosperity -- call it out. >> prosperity folks in a neoliberal moment. how many folks have turned their backs on a kind of prophetic approach or theology? so part of what i'm trying to suggest is it's always been a problematic relationship between religion and democracy. our institution, the black church, has been central because of the history of exclusion of black folk in the united states which has made religious discourse central to giving voice to our political demands. but given the shifts and changes, the church or churches have been decentered. and part of what we have to do is tell ourselves the story about what are the implications of that fact. if it's a fact that you're willing to concede to me.

if not, then we can have a debate. i hope that makes sense. did that make sense? [applause] okay. >> well, i'm noted for throwing the pyre bomb in the road -- fire bomb in the room, so i'm going to go ahead. the black church today is at a very serious crossroads. let me call it even better. i've been running e-mails for the last year tracking church fore close yours for the -- foreclosures for the last three years. black churches are in a space of decline. you can see the big mega church in your commitment, but the smaller 50-150 person church is dying. that's partially demographic, that's number one. number two, the problem you have is younger people do not identify with tell me to keep my skirts long and holiness, because they don't understand that because they don't have anybody to talk to them the way that they need to be spoken to right now. so you are losing younger people. there's a lot of people right

here walking outside on the street of the schomburg who would tell you my mother raised me in the church, but i don't want to go. all right, baby, i've been waiting to talk to you for a long time. hold up. [laughter] the other thing is, and this is the real serious point i want to make, because you can talk about the new jerusalem, but we ain't in the new jerusalem. we are fighting for jerusalem right now. i laughed at the title because i was like this is the crusades right now. we are fighting for our very democratic rights right now, and part of that has to do with the church. and if you don't believe that, all i have to say is trayvon martin, and you will understand. and we'll talk about that. but one of the things that people in the black church need to understand is that the religious right took a playbook. they took your playbook from the civil rights movement. this is why they have so much power right now, at least they think they have power, let me put it like that, because temporal power and spiritual power are not the same thing. they are not the same thing.

[applause] we do not wrestle with flesh and blood but against principalities and powers from the right wing, and i just want to look at this mic and tell you right now that i serve the god of abraham, isaac and jacob! and that's the god we serve as black people. but we can critique this american god that's got us in the thrall of capitalism and craziness, that has us not looking at our communities because we're looking to give the pastor a whole bunch of money for pastor's anniversary. [applause] okay? let me go ahead and call this out. see, we haven't talked about there's a bunch of women sitting in church right now giving all their money to pastors that are messing them over. we have to talk about the bad things that are happening. but we also can talk about the good things that are happening in the black church. souls to the polls. people getting people out to vote in the 2012 election. things that are happening in our

inner city commitments where churches are working to stop nonviolence. it has to be a serious discussion about where we are going, because people are walking away from these institutions. they don't care about institutions. every institution in this nation is failing right now. it's not just the church. the government is failing. people don't work. we elect leaders, and they ain't working. and if you went to your job and did what the congress did and the senate did, they don't work. so churches are doing the same thing. churches are having issues right now, and how do we build up the black church to be that institution that it needs to be within our communities and to make those bridges across religious lines? because it's not just about christianity, it's about all the rest of these religious traditions we have in the african-american tradition. and it is a moment where we have to come together, or we will fail. this democratic process is trying to crush us right now, or at least what is passing for democracy. the it's really a right-wing

theocracy. and you need to begin to think about how the message of the gospel, the pure, unadulterated message of jesus christ, was a radical message that said, you know, we're for the poor, we are for the broken-hearted, we're for the folks that don't have no money to go to the hospital. it's not this other god. so we these to really be the people who are out there say ising look at who god's supposed to be in our community and stop making it about something else. >> so if -- [applause] so if be we make that move to a more practical direction, right? on one hand, the experience of racism but also the fundamental claim around the christian gospel central to black identity, black churches could be going in any number of direction cans now. >> right. >> we think about the last month whether it's doma, voting rights act, trayvon, we're all making claims. in response to frazier, some

might say, well, now in this moment black churches are free. other folks to attend to marching, right? what is it reasonable to expect of black churches and where might we direct the relatively scarce resources that those institutions have in this moment? what issues might be most important for black churches to be mobilized? >> well, see, this is an important implication of the point i was making, right? once we decenter the black church or black churches from a kind of narrative, and we've been talking about storytell, right? the way we tell the story of the civil rights movement that begins with rosa parks not getting up, king becomes the kind of iconic figure where all of the organizing get cans buried, that story then blocks from view a much more radical tradition of black struggle. once we tell our story in that particular way, we narrow what come into way. at the center is always the church, and the churchas

undergone institutional transformation, and our expectations is that black people rise when the church rises. and the church itself functions differently. then we find be ourselves in a moment where our imaginations have been captured, right? where we can't bin to think in a different sort of way. we're blocked in some ways. so let me say this. when i say black churches have shifted, i'm not saying black churches aren't doing good work. there are some preachers and some congregations that are out there on the front line doing amazing work. right? but i want to think about the shift. the best example i could use, and i want to -- i'm going to say this really quickly -- would be the black press. it was invoked in the last panel be, right? there's a moment in our inclusion where this vaunted institutional space collapsed. remember the pittsburgh courier, right? the chicago defender. the black associated press.

in these venues black news circulated. jet and ebony emerges on the kind of margins of this extraordinary space where information, a black public space where deliberation took place. what happened? it collapsed. look at what's happening today. hbcus. i said i'm a morehouse man. at one point in black history, every black intellectual was produced there. the brain trust of the country could be found at a howard, at morehouse, at a spelman, at a tuskegee. now what's a happening? morris born, where is he? morehouse is teetering. we just saw the op-ed. could be closed in three years, although they said that's not true, right? institutional life transforming. how many people attend churches in the neighborhood where the church happens to be located?

the shift in the population. folks actually drive from where they live to the church. so what is the organic relationship of churches to the communities in which they happen to be if they haven't relocated to the suburbs? so the function of the institution is what i'm trying to get at. not that churches aren't doing anything, but how are we imagining black institutional life in this neoliberal moment? that's what i'm trying to get at. >> well, the question especially as i hear you continue to speak of the decentering of the black church, being a pentacostal by background and now much more of a, hopefully, a postmortem pentacostal -- [laughter] was it not a mistake for us to assume that because god was so near and dear to us in delivering us from the bondage

of white supremacist ideology and the negation of blackness, that was such a close thing that i remember at my church's convocation i almost thought that 500 gully street at the annual convocation was the center of the world. it felt like it. the holy ghost was -- [inaudible] happy, i mean, no evil could even come near us. that was a mistake. god never did leave the liberating activity of creation to our churches, though it felt like it. and the black church was never at the center of what god was doing to bring us into the democratic proximity. my thinking is that the holy spirit is at work in the church when we get happy on sunday morning, but that the spirit did not be leave the printing press,

did not leave the educational institution, did not leave the hospitals. so my sense is we need to come to the line possibly saying, and i am still doing stuff. but the problem is, if black church is not sensitive and does not learn how to be in coalition and in cooperation with the liberating activity taking place other places, then we will die. we will call it pruning at first, but beyond pruning it is actually the cussing the tree at the root. so that's the issue for me. decentering the black church, black church was never the center. it might have been the center of our activity, but the holy ghost, i hope, has something

else going on other than what's been happening in our congregations. [applause] >> i think what we also forget is a church is not a building, it's the people. it's the people on the inside. and i'm thinking about this sort of history of church of god and christ, they were just accommodationists. they didn't do anything. i uncovered this great history of all these women, mother lizzie robinson, all of these women were involved with social movements, they were involved with mary cloud bethune. there's a whole different way you can look at the history of the black churches because there were people who were making connections with other organizations. national council of negro women, naacp, all these things. and now what is happening is that people within these

churches have to start to make connections to outside organizations. urban league, naacp, all those organizations were made up of church people, okay? they were the people who were paying into the organizations and everything. and now when you start to see, you know, people going down on all this stuff, it's because the church people become insular. they don't want to make these outside connections. so what we have to do is begin to say we cannot live, exist be as just a church and this entity of the black church unless we begin to make connections with outside organizations and other things to revitalize ourselves, to revitalize our neighborhoods, our communities, our kids, the educational system. unless we begin to make those kinds of connections with others who are like-minded, whoever they might be, the church will fail. because if you just have this little thing where you're just shouting the praise to god on sunday, then it doesn't happen. plgz. >> no, i, i'm with you on that. but i think that there's a prior

step that has to be taken, and that is, i mean, if churches keep the same theology that they have now, you know, all these coalitions, who will they be making coalitions with? now remember when the so-called moral majority rose, right? and they were talking about can conservatives, conservatives. well, a lot of people conflated political conservativism with moral conservativism. so, you know, nobody's more morally conservative than my mother and my grandmother and my father, right? but they had nothing to do with jerry falwell and those neosegregations, right? but because it wasn't a real clear theology that gave people a mode of discernment, we saw a lot of black people supporting

folk who were anathema, the exact opposite of their interests. >> remember eve i have hill? >> that's still happening. so what we need to do is, i think it comes back to the basis, supposedly, the basis of the faith, and that is the biblical witness. and what we see is a distortion of the biblical witness. what we see is this dominationist discourse going way back to constantine, right? emperor, when the faith of the oppressed became the religion of the oppressor, the emperor of the roman empire, and since then we've had this big tradition of dominationist discourse which always, which has consistently been in lead in some way with the -- in riege in some ways with the powers that be. so what that causes, it obscures the underlying revolutionary message, particularly of the gospel. i mean, jesus -- when we talk

about the poor and poverty, does anyone realize that the one thing jesus talked about anything else was poor people and the exploitation of poor people? we don't know that. we're talking about some other kind of stuff over yonder somewhere. i mean, jesus talked, and he's, you know, taken a riff off of the hebrew prophets who were very revolutionary in their moment talking about, no, we don't have divine right of kings, everybody has the same rights which is the basis of democratic ethics, in my opinion. doesn't go back to the greeks, it goes back to the biblical period of the prophetic period. so we have to start asking questions and reclaiming the radicality of jesus. why do you think he was killed? be he wasn't killed because he said he was the son of god, this was no law against that. he was killed, he was crucified as a seditionist against the roman empire. now, whether he was that

directly or not is another question. but until we start embracing the radicality and the politicalty of the basis of christianity, this we start embracing that, first, we will not have a real clear standard of discernment, number one. number two, we won't get anywhere because we'll be be doing the same old thing over and over. lastly, if we really talked about democracy in which everybody has, we have the same say so in terms of their vote, we'd have to start modeling that in our religious communities. see, i'm just so sick of hearing, well, the pastor has a vision, so we have to follow. well, i've seen that vision. [laughter] and you know what i'm talking about. all this hierarchy and -- no. we have to start being democratic throughout our lives, and democracy means egalitarianism. everybody has the same right to be all right.

it doesn't, and we're not talking about big is and little us. we're talking about egalitarianism, blessed all you power people. the power of a good samaritan. we have responsibility. not just freedom, we have responsibility. be that's the basis of the biblical business with. i'm going to leave it there, because i'm getting ready to get carried away here. [applause] >> just real quickly, i think it's important for us to understand, obery that there's an argument to be made, right? that is to say you could posit the view that the gospel is this, right? to we can do the textual analysis and show that jesus spoke about the poor x number of times and that in this particular interpretation from the right is a distortion of what the gospel says. and that's the beginning of an argument. but when we look at the odd coalition around prop 8 in california, right, mormons and

black folks as a kind of real, kind of baseline mobilization of interests, or when i'm in new jersey, you know, wyclef jean called new jersey the new jerusalem. so i was kind of confused when i saw the title, right? but the idea of that joke sell song. >> the fugees' song, i'm with you. >> but the idea of all of these black preachers standing behind chris christie who's decimating the education system, who's demonizing public teachers, who's killing black folk -- >> [inaudible] >> but they have an argument. they're headaching claims -- making claims on the basis of their christian witness. >> incorrect claims. >> what i'm saying is over the course of the last few decades what has stood in for christianity as such has been a

particular conservative interpretation of what it means to be christian. >> exactly my point. >> and in its wake, progressingive christians have acted like they can't stand on their interpretation. of what it means to be a christian and be committed to same-sex love. or what it means to be christian and to be dedicated to the poor. so in some ways the public voice of christianity has been this conservative voice that you want to say is wrong. and we witness the demobilization of more progressive voices within the christian community. and so what it seems to me what is needed is not to say that's just wrong, this is the interpretation. it seems to me that we need more progressive christians to come out and make intensive, intense arguments with extraordinary uses of social media, with the same kind of savvy that these folks who are coming out of the

mormon church -- and begin to make the argument on christian grounds that we can, in fact, support this and that and this and that. so, you know, you see what i'm trying -- >> i see exactly what you're saying because that's why i wrote "the politics of jesus." and you're talking about we're going on, i mean, we have a new generation of folk, but what we have to do -- we're not saying it's wrong that these people's political stance is wrong, what we do have to point out that in context the conflation of biblical ethics says this. the main thing in the hebrew bible, the main concept is justice. justice. we don't even talk about justice anymore. the second is righteousness, putting justice into be action. we don't even talk about that anymore h. -- anymore. so we don't have to say they're wrong, let's say they're not fully informed. [laughter] and one last thing, i sit on the board of the public religion

institute in washington, d.c., and they just put out -- we put out this great survey that says that there are, the younger generation are more progressive christians, identify themselves as progressive christians than regressive. no, than conservative christians. and what that means is we follow the same trends. we'll see a lot more progressive christians. but we do have to draw a line and say, look, we have a text that was given in particular context, and so it has particular meaning. and it's not all pie in the sky. it has particular social, political and economic meaning and indications, and we have to point that out and notembarrassed about it and not be -- be willing to say, you know, i love you but, no, show me when that is. it's not -- and much of what they say is not there. much of what they talk about is, has to do with doctrines and

orthodoxies that jesus didn't know anything about. but yet that becomes a christian. >> so i think we can recognize in the same way there are diversity of denominations and traditions that represent what we are referring to as the black church, that there have always been competing interpretations over scripture, right? on one happened there's the progressive or the prophetic or what we all seem to be wanting to celebrate or point to, but how do we also think about in a more complicated way the relationship between the culture of black churches and the multiple ways in which they participate in american public life? right? so we have in the wake of doma black preachers who are stepping up on one hand to say this is a right for all citizens regardless of race. at the same time, they're saying that's not an endorsement on behalf of my church for same-sex marriage, right? so that we can read the scripture two different ways in two different contexts. >> exactly. and i think, you know, part of the genius sometimes of the

black church is we've been able to hold tensions together sometimes. not all the times, but sometimes we've been able to hold attention. so whether it's about lgbt issues, women in the pulpit, you know, doma, gay marriage, all this other stuff, we've been able to try to hold things together. the problem becomes when we go over and decide that we're not going to hold those things together anymore, okay? so let me talk about this, because you talked about progressive christianity, and since i'm a progressive christian, i'm the person who can speak about this. i want to tell a very quick story. i wrote an op-ed in the religion dispatches hag zien this week about america's racist god. thank you, some of y'all read it. and i got attacked by the right. i got attacked by fox, sean hannity, rush limbaugh, i'm saying all y'all's names out loud, daily caller, all of them. these people called me a b, the c, everything else they could call me except a child of god,

okay? and why did they do that? because i had the nerve to critique this american god. small g now, not big g. but they were like, oh, no, you're coming after after god. but, see, i was coming after their god. i was not coming after the god of scriptures, the god that we know of abraham, isaac and jacob. i was coming after the god they worship, racism, the god they worship, white supremacy. so i know this is going to go out everywhere else and, you know, how many times can they e-mail my people, you know, thank god i got a great institution that takes care of me. i have ten your. i can't get fired. [applause] and for the people who call this week to try to get me off panel, i hope you enjoy the show. [laughter] [applause] but wait, one more thing i want to say. you see, this prophetic voice of progressive christianity is missing. we don't hear these voices anymore.

it is silent because the voice of christianity we hear is a voice of complicity with the system. and if we don't hear this voice of a radical christianity that will say that we need to be feeding the poor, that we need to care about these folks, that we need to call out this structural sin that is happening, if we don't have that radical voice because people are willing to do what the right is doing right now and to say, you know, that's fine with them whatever they believe. i'm not mad at them. i mean, i'm not mad at them like that. but i'm mad at them when they tell me i can't talk about race. we postracial, now, y'all know that's a lie. there is no postracialism anymore. but if jesus christ came down here right now and had an afro, they would fall out. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> you know it's something. but what i'm saying is this, and let me be just very brief.

progressive christianity has to have a bigger voice. if we don't hear these voices, it is not there. and so while we're doing that work, we need to have a voice. >> okay. i, i think that progressive has to deal -- it's hard because progress i haves are usually considered to be the more intellectually trained in the conversation. but we either have to have remedial kris chapty or, like they did in the south, you have to your renewal of your certificate every now and then. we need to recognize that the older religious perspective was not so much wrong as jesus said -- and this is progressive -- jesus says that i have a lot to tell y'all, but you are not able to bear it now. however, when the spirit of truth has come, he will lead you into all truth which means the

reason i can't tell you everything is because if i told you and you had not started to ask the question, then the answer would have no meaning for you. so what happens is the black church has got to deal with the real questions that we are wrestling with. so if the black church is not effectively addressing the trayvon martin situation, then we are not living up to the afro centric approach to how you be church. the old tradition did this, you hurl a chain. and the person who had the problem had to listen to the priest as the priest recites one of the poems of the tradition. and when the person heard the issue even obliquely addressed that he was struggling with, he would stop the priest and say stay right there. then together they would explore. i guess it would be called the principle of correlation. if we don't get the people

talking to the church about the problem that we are facing now, we do not live up to our african ancestors. so now my sense is we've got the trayvon thing, the church has got to say -- my sunday schoolteacher always taught class the same way, he'd read from the sunday school card and say, now what'd you get out of that? what do you get out of the bible in the light of what's been going on in the criminal justice system as it is punctuated by the zimmerman situation? so what we've got to do is i think -- let me tell you what's happened to me. i have read stuff for 50 years, but now we've got some new problems crystallizing themselves before us. i've gone back. so now what i think about the black church, we can talk all we want to and cry all we want to about trayvon, but if we do not get out of that the message that

the lord gave elijah -- this is a little preaching, y'all, just very quickly. the lord told elijah, elijah, you used to special eyes in fussing at ahab. oh, they called it prophetic because be you're speaking truth to power. when god really anointed elijah again, this is fascinating to me, the lord says, now be, elijah, whereas in the past you concentrated on speaking truth to power, i got a new job for you. i want you to return to damascus, and when you get there, i want you to anoint -- [inaudible] as king over aram and then anoint elijah in your stead. which is to say you used to spend be your time fussing at kings, now i want you to make kings. the black church today, stop crying now about trayvon so much

as to see every black boy and girl in the street as possibly the new king or queen. [applause] if we could concentrate on making kings and queens and not spending nearly as much time just if fussing at the powers that be, then we would have done remedial christianity. christianity that's appropriate for today. that's what i think we've got to do. [applause] >> i like that. remedial, huh? >> in some ways that seems to -- we have about 15 minutes before we open up for q and a, but that seems to get at the core tension between the black church as an institution as a primary space that produces american democrats through its various educational programs, right? at the same time, there's that broader claim of critiquing the way in which kings rule, right? so i wonder, i mean, all of you are invested and have some really strong, stringent

critiques of the limits of black churches and black institutions more generally, but you all also actively engage these churches. maybe before we open it up, i'd be interested to hear where do you see that site of hope? where do you see something being made out of nothing, that sort of brach tradition? where is there a possibility that if black church is dying, is there an organization that's at the forefront of bringing together collaborations? where is the prospect for moving the conversation forward in a meaningful way in this moment? >> no, it's a real good question, and in my experience there's a lot of hope in the pew. the pulpit is largely in the way. >> so a critique of clergy, but -- >> yeah. because folk know what's wrong. they know that something has to

change, but if you're raised like i was initially, you know, your your people are from virginia, and you've got this old time religion, you know something's wrong, but you don't know what to do about it. or you feel something's wrong, but you don't know what it is. so what that says is remedial christianity has to be consciousness-raising christianity. for instance, we've not touched really on democracy, but democracy's something that we just, that's not just some abstract word that's out there. i mean, it's handgun we really -- it's something we really have to discuss. what are the limits of democracy, are we in a democracy now? what do we have a right to ask for in democracy? that's just one thing. and with regard to the bible, i must say -- maybe it's because i'm a biblical scholar and i've dedicated the last 25, 30 years of my life to the history of the

language and the interpretation be of the bible, but i see, i've been teaching these students, and i see that there are even some who know something's wrong, something has to change, but until it's presented to them, things remain the same. and so there has to be, i think, this real concerted effort, much more concerted than we've had before to say, look, wait a minute, this is what it says here in context. to make it clear. and go out and make a real effort to raise, to raise consciousness in the church, in the community. and i've tried to do that in the books i've written, i've tried to do that in, you know, the lectures i give, the speeches i give, the sermons they used to invite me to give, you know? half a laugh -- [laughter] and i think that we all have to do that in our own way and see the church as a fight of struggle, a fight of struggle.

it's a place to go to be somebody and to worship and all that, but it's also a site of struggle. to empower our people and to let them see that this faith that they believe in is not just for over there. jesus said the spirit of the lord is upon me, not just the shouting preacher. the spirit of the lord is upon me to bring good news to the poor which, you know, has institutional implications. and, you know, liberation to the captives, and, you know, free folk from jail. i mean, what are we talking about now? the prison industrial complex. i mean, all these things are things on the ground. the lord's prayer is about politics and economics, make sure everybody has enough bread, make sure that, lord, please, release -- forgive our debt cans because they are beaten down by debt structures. folk don't know this. we have to raise their consciousness, met them know this is what the sate really about.

-- the state is really about. >> you know, it's really hard when you're on the stage with a bunch of preachers. [laughter] >> what's that? >> it's hard when you on the stage with a bunch of preachers. >> what does that mean? >> you know i'm teasing you. i'm thinking about philadelphia right now because i live this, and i know what the problems are, so i want to give a concrete example of what i think we churches can be doing. a group of pastors there have been very instrumental in going out and helping people to protest the closing of the schools and the firing of all of these teachers. this is happening across the country. one of the things i have personally been thinking about is this historic role of the black church in education and now what's currently happening in the education system. we have these major cities in the nation that are, you know, firing teachers, not replacing them, closing schools. we're going to be in very bad shape in philadelphia. so one of the things i think that churches can do, and i'm thinking about my friend where her church, where she is getting people throughout to go and

protest, to go do these kinds of things we really need to do. we can't -- it has to not just be the abstract. all of us up here on the stage can be abstract all the time, but what i'm interested in is how can we build the bridge between the church and the academy? how can we be public intellectuals about religion but also work with religion to do something because i don't think it really means anything for me to get off of the stage and not, you know, advocate for those causes in the way that i can. so i do hi that something interesting -- i do think that something interesting is happening because all these industries are dying, that churches are looked at as the places to get these services, but they're not going to be able to do that if they don't have the financial means to do so. this creates opportunity, but it also creates a challenge, and we have to figure out how that's going to come together. >> really quickly, and part of the reason why the churches are being pushed forward to actually step in in social service delivery is precisely because of

this troublesome neoliberal conception of the state that kendall thomas was talking about earlier, right? where the state's sole function is simply to protect the efficient workings of the market. everything else resounds back to our own individual self-care, right? and that self-care turns out to be simply our ability to make choices, and the churches are being complicit in that. but that's really convoluted, right? and but true. and so what's interesting is we have an example of what can happen in north carolina. >> yes, exactly. >> mr. and so north carolina's off the chain. the republican takeover of the governor's house as well as the legislature has led to all sorts of fascistic behavior. and you see a mobilization of churches and civil rights organizations and grassroots organizations this that state that -- in that state that we, that some of us know about, right? because we have folks down there on the front lines doing it and we're reading the blogs. we don't see it on cnn and msnbc

a lot, right? we might see it on msnbc, but the point is we have an example. churches have a model of how to mobilize around particular issues. i just want to see this quickly because i know we're running out of time. look, it's dark out here. folks are catching hell out here 'em -- since 2008 we have experienced a great black depression. folks are losing homes, they've lost their retirements. folk can't get jobs. in february we were at 14%. right now we're at 13.be 7% unemployment, and those numbers are cooked. at the height of the summer, teenage unemployment is jumping through the roof. we don't need somebody to address negative reip forcement, they need jobs. it's 43.6%. health care delivery, we're not getting it. food december earths, we live

there -- deserts, we live there. we're sleep walking. right? and we're looking for the church to wake us up, and part of what we don't want to anytime is that some -- to admit is that some of these folk are complicitous in the evil. >> that's right. >> i'm sorry to be to hem calcar but it's dark out here. and we've got a black man in the white house, but it's dark out here. and trayvon martin has gotten so many people excited. so now the elbows are getting sharp because folks want to get in front of the march. so the brother who organized the million hoodie march when thoab was really talking about it -- when nobody was really talking about it, where is he? we see al sharpton and jesse, folk want to get in front of the microphone and talk, folk want to look at the teleprompter. now we've got ph.d. pundits that want to say about what happened to trayvon martin.

it's dark out here, and people are playing games. you see what i'm saying? .. the symbolic cash value of that is at zero. it is dark out here and what happens when it is dark? who gives us the clarion call, where are you supposed to hear the word?

i don't know. speaking of remedial christianity. the idea, i think maybe we have to start operating at an earlier level, take the situation where jesus finds the young daughter, 12 years old dead and jesus comes in and he says child, get up and he actually raises the dead. that was a time when we black churches thought we had the ministry of raising the dead, we could do that but that is too tough for us now. fascinating thing unnoticed is after jesus wakes up the girl from the dead and the mother and father say thank you, jesus for raising our daughter from the dead jesus stops and says don't be praising me so much, give her something to eat.

he has performed a miracle and then he takes time to say she has been sick, she is going to need strength. she can't go to school or play with the kids unless you give her something to weekend in the next chapter to reinforce it, 5,000 people out there have been listening to all the preaching and jesus said give her something to eat, settle down. what i would like to suggest is maybe if the black church decides we won't beat too have been to specialization of raising the dead but give folks something to eat, this is a manageable problem although unless you know the magnitude of hunger in the united states so what has to happen is we have to get near enough to say to church people when you pay your taxes, that is your lunge with five

loaves and two fishes, now you have to go and tell the congresspersons the lord needs my tax money to feed some folks and if your legislation is cutting off food stamps for some people that is all they got getting in you are in trouble. make it a religious thing. jesus needs my lunch. i just paid the taxes, you are not going to mess me up with my jesus unless you are going to arrange a hunger people in trouble. don't mess me a. if i'm in trouble you are going to be in trouble. i think maybe got a start on the elementary level again. not going to raise the dead but at least feed the hungry. all right? >> a fitting note to open it up

for questions and answers, there is a microphone here and a note. all right. we have a question, if you please state your question clearly and concisely and if you have a particular member of the panel you would like to address it to that will be yours as well. >> thank you for your performance. i find this remarkable that when we hire people to run our churches we want them to have a prophetic voice but instead we call them pastor and want them to be administrator, and instead of being a progressive voice, running an institution so progressive voices fall to the main problem of churches, symbol of religions. what will be wrong with hiring

someone for a church and calling him profit. we expect the main job was to bring together and the justice and spirit help, help us to learn salvation comes through compassion and just community struggling to find salvation. >> i think my answer would be you all should stop putting pastors up as if you think the primary focus and mission energy is found in that. james luther adams in that book called the profithood of all believers and in that, everybody who is brought into the church at that time should be told powered of being baptized into,

a prophetic tradition. each of you is called upon to fulfill a profit vocation. you get ready to hire a pastor, find a pastor whose primary task is to mobilize the prosthetic energy that is present in the people, to stimulate the people to be prosthetic with respect to their responsibility. you can't expect the preacher, the preacher is most frequently primarily a reflector of what these people as well as what god is calling them to be and let me say with what you are calling for, i think we need another great awakening. that is a revitalization of the culture so almost all the major institutions know we need spiritual revitalization so as

to achieve the goal of egalitarianism because that happens with all the great awakenings. i would like to be if you hire somebody who is going to be someone like that, many colleagues were chosen, but let's challenge the church to fulfill its past durrell, priestley and prosthetic function, let the lord picked out some specialists because our dna and personal inventory say some folks will do that and here is what we do. some folks to my agenda is to fray so the marchers don't get weary on the way. [applause] >> maybe get all these questions out here, take the questions back to back and give you a chance to respond so we don't run out of time for important

questions. >> my other quick one, very i opening, at one point the person on the end, sorry i don't know your name. >> hendrix. >> the church could be the site of struggle and that struck me, i was wondering, i feel the church could be the site of struggled but i wonder if you feel anyone on the panel, that you feel the church has to be the site of struggle and whether or not the amount of energy that has to be put into the struggle, was really worth it? and putting energy directly into political activity that is really not complicated by the mission of the church? >> that is a good question. a couple more so we have time to get them all? >> i am man partisan curator. my question on doing something with the arts.

in terms of the title of this panel, the struggle for american democracy in the church, i have observed, i grew up in the church of god and christ, the foundation is still there, still part of me, and i feel passionate about it but i am also an artist. if the board had given me some years the goal was go to the church, instruct the church, show the church alack of using the arts in the struggle, the lack of using the arts to bring people into the church some my question is looking back at the harlem renaissance and that is the first movement addressing social, educational, cultural change in america, how do you see the church being part of the struggle or is it not part of the struggle today? >> another great question. >> thank you again as well for the panel, very enlightening. i have a quick question.

my question was taking the bible as a blueprint of our religion or religious beliefs, the little bit of research i have done, africa had values, writes, religion, everything like that, why have we abandoned that? could there be some answers for african-americans in the african religion? >> outside of christianity? >> yes. i have been a deacon in my church for the last 12 years and i find -- i don't make a distinction between religious and politics. it is the same social movement. my question is the black community has churches all over the case, you can go in every corner. how do we effectively get the involved? i am telling you if you have all black church is moving in one

direction it would be powerful. >> i would like to also thank all panelists for what has been an insightful conversation. what i am hearing is that there's a crisis in the black church. i appreciate and support hendrix, leading the panelists who have us think about the envisioning the black church doctrine around radical social democracy. i support that as well but i don't -- i would like us to go a little bit further and think about why we don't see ourselves as black people in the church and why hasn't the u.s. black church been able to incorporate something that one of the questionnaires already asked african cultural traditions, other communities in the

diaspora in the caribbean in latin america have been able to synchronize. what about the black church reconditioning the theology? taking a more critical examination of the historical theology so that we can as a radical element see ourselves in the sacredness of the church? it has been done elsewhere, it can be done, perhaps this may make the black church in the u.s. a little more legitimate to people like me that look like me. >> one more question. >> good evening. i enjoyed the panel so much and i think religion in the black community right now is very important and as the person brought up baptist, i still have that belief, but i just wanted

to stress the fact the we all believe in the division of church and state. we had some great ministers who became politicians and the like. one of the things i was concerned about was our youth because the church now as congregation gets older and dying out and not raising young people into the church and we need to be concerned about our youth. find a way to bring them back to our churches, going to church that do have capacity in our church and after that, not guilty, presuming we were older and so was i. and cried aloud about it and not there but assistant pastor richardson, one thing that was so profound and take it to heart, it wasn't that there was an evil face that killed him but an evil system

and the stand your ground must be stopped. >> i will restate quickly we have a question about use mobilization of all the churches, relevance of other religious traditions to these churches, the art and viability of the church as a sign of struggle, more minutes if you want to weigh in that the church is the site of struggle. what i meant is as a basis, does it make more sense, i don't mean stay in the church and struggle in the church but briefly are empowered to go forth and do what must be done not just spiritually and powered but politically and the second half

[inaudible] >> creatures have to the pastoral and prophetic, nurture people, they have to do the profittaking and try to change the world. that is the responsibility. not all church is still the responsibility. with that said, we have to go beyond institutional, get empowered to go outside the walls of the church and it must be that we want to change society and change the world and not just save souls and go back to the church and do what you do. it has to be a real basis of movement to really be the church jesus envisioned. >> the work in the church is preparation, socialization, learning the tools, the skills to engage in broader civic activity. when we engage and struggling local institutions in civil society those are training grounds for when we step out of those institutional spaces. it has some utility.

>> i would like to respond to the question about getting black churches together. it was my privilege to participate some years ago in what was called the congress of national black churches and it brought together the major black denominations, heads of major black denominations to be in collaboration with one another. this organization was founded by a foundation and as long as the foundation money kept coming we were able at least to strengthen the institution but then the point came when it was asked that each the nomination make a contribution to the coalition and beyond that, they were asked, give us your mailing list so that we can appeal to your

people. the bishops and the major leaders, president of these organizations were fined as long as somebody else was funding it. but they were all at a survival level within their own institutions and carefully guarding their mailing lists last somebody bring about the vision of the resources. so my thinking is that until black institutions have economic viability sufficiently to think about being sacrificial for a larger movement beyond institutional as asian is not going to happen so that is a good problem, say that marginal economic existence is the bane of most of our institutions and that none of us can be what god wants us to beat until our

community is lifted above the mere survival level. you don't have to teach us to be political. we have to as churches say, we can't be all that jesus wants us to be if poverty continues to be the defining reality regarding most members of our church. it is necessary for every church not only to ask how do we keep the institution going but how do we manage to do the hard work of getting our share of the resources and god calls us to do, given the resources to somebody, must be boarding and the word redistribution which was the major problem with the president because when he said that word some folks say he is thought -- not our man. we have got to recognize we cannot be the questions we ought

to be apart from redistribution of precious resources so that we can say yes to the board in substantive ways. >> we are about to leave. this is not a direct answer to one of the questions that has to do with the church's capacity. churchs around the country need to focus on one of three issues, they need to figure out how to mobilize the congregation around education, the criminal justice system, the problem of jobs. if you are organizing around the criminal justice system, how do you engage in preventing how folks come out and go back into jail or mobilize around undermining mandatory minimums. what i am saying is every church should organize itself around a particular issue, focused around education, criminal justice system or jobs. if we can then focus our resources in one of these areas

around a particular issue in one of these areas the churches can do some serious work that can make a tangible impact in our current law. >> the two questions that had to do with african traditional religions within the church, it will be very hard for some churches, not all but some to embrace this because they have deep-seated theological issues. having said that i think the place to look for this kind of vitality are in african immigrant church is that in this country who are doing phenomenally well. if you want about what you want to see you need to go to an african church from an immigrant perspective from the caribbean or africa itself so that has a lot of vibrancy but i will say this. what is important is we need to think about how we incorporate our ancestors? how do we live as if this is the

cosmologies that we don't see that separation? we have gotten to think about western thinking and this is the problem and when we let go of western thinking, more possibility for spiritual life and listen to the voices of our ancestors telling us and showing us what we need to be doing. the struggle may not be over but we don't have to struggle all the time. we need to take that struggle elsewhere. the church needs to be a place of life, fruitless, where people can be built up instead of torn down and you know what i am talking about. to the sister who talked about the art, we can talk about this after word. this is a hugely important without the plays and all these things that happened whether it was a drawing or sculpture or music and all these things that have been produced out of the black church we need another renaissance. we need another renaissance because we can't keep singing the same old thing and expect the youth to be there.

they are not coming. >> give our panel one final round of applause? [applause] >> all right. we want to quickly just recognize we have reached the end of a great day of programming and we want to thank all of our sponsors including columbia university, and c-span which has been broadcasting all day and a host of other sponsors who have been in the room and on the street in the reception area all day long and most importantly i want to thank you for sticking around for this conversation, please give yourself a hand. with that note, good night to our panel, to you all. all right. >> this event was part of the fifteenth annual harlem book fair. for more information visit

q.beare.com. >> here are the latest headlines around in the publishing industry that this past few weeks. author and political panelists jack german spent 48 years in political journalism working at the baltimore sun, papers and the washington star. he had just completed work on his forthcoming novel a short story from page 3 shortly before his death. he appeared on booktv to discuss his book fat man in the middle seat, 40 years of covering politics and you can watch the program on line at booktv.org. on wednesday amazon publishing announced a new biography series called icons will be available through its kimball devices later this year. and a press release amazon said it is working to hire celebrated authors to write about significant can monocle figures ranging from joseph stalin to edgar allan poe. the first publication jesus said to be released in december of

2013 with the other nine titles being released by monthly in 2014. according to estimates released by the u.s. census bureau bookstore sales dropped 9.5% in june. monthly book store sales in 2013 have been running close to sales of 2012 until the recent drop last month. attorneys representing apple, the department of justice and consumer classes will return to court on august 27th to discuss penalties against apple for e-book price-fixing. presiding judge said she is ready to issue an injunction for the attorney's consideration against apple but said she is concerned any injunction could inhibit innovation in the rapidly evolving e-book market. stay up-to-date on breaking news about authors, books and publishing by liking us on facebook at facebook.com/booktv. follow up on twitter at booktv. or visit our web site booktv.org and click on news about books.

>> now joining us on booktv is da lissa warren, vice president of capo press books which is an imprint of the perseus book. there we go. tell us about some of your upcoming 2013 books. >> we have wonderful book by a veteran writer called mr. president. it is about george washington and many of us think washington was given power when he became president. washington polk powers when he became president. if you want to refer to him as your excellency, what would you like us to call you, just call me mr. president but give me the power to declare war, the power to to etc. etc. he got a lot of push back but he knew what he needed in that office to make america safe. he did what he needed. that is what the book is about. >> when harlow under publishes a book is automatically a best seller? >> takes work like any book does but he is one who always sells

well and we tend to publish and around holidays. a lot of people getting harlow under books for hanukkah and christmas and he is an amazing story teller. >> another author, stanley weintraub, how long has he been white writing? >> probably 50 years or so. many of them are added to our list. we did a paperback edition of his book pearl harbor christmas and a new book of his coming out called young mr. roosevelt that looks at fdr's years as assistant secretary of the navy during world war i and fdr with world war ii, was president at that time, he got his start in world war i as secretary of the navy. >> what do we learn about fdr as assistant secretary of the navy? >> he was very disillusioned, his time in the navy taught him that but then you see he learned to play the game and went on to

do so well and make his way in that world. his introduction to politics, and his introduction to life, when he and eleanor were having problems and a year later developed polio. you hear the personal story and professional story. >> what is the history of capo press? >> we have been around 25 years, started as music books and then our publisher took over and expanded the list exponentially. we do a lot of history, military history, even have an imprint called lifelong books, parenting and cookbooks. >> based in boston. >> we were in cambridge and data across the river. >> how long have you been part of perseus? >> about a dozen years. it is great. we have our own department for editorial, marketing, publicity, but we are able to combine forces with the perseus books

like foreign rights, domestic rights and sales. >> one other book i want to ask about this fall -- >> tim brady. a good world war ii story but one focused on one man who got killed in battle and won journalist and one film maker who decided to report on what happened to him and it brought the war home to living rooms in america for the first time. before that it was just bodies on a field and names of people you had never met and couldn't relate to in any way but by following this one man and focusing on his story and what happened to him it made people see the sacrifice america was making in that war. >> it is coming up when? >> a couple issues. >> in the fall. >> november 1st. >> we have been talking with da lissa warren about mr. president

by harlow under and young fdr by stanley weintraub. this is booktv on c-span2. >> visit booktv.org and visit any of the programs you see here on line. tight the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can share anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> here is a look at best-selling nonfiction books, independent booksellers across the country according to indybound.org. topping the list this week is zealous, the book is a biography of jesus of nazareth. second is let's explore diabetes with holes. a collection of essays from her a humorous david cedaris. and the political inner workings

of washington d.c. in his book this town. he will be on c-span's q&a program discussing his book and you can watch it sunday august 18th. than his book william shakespeare's star wars. cheryl sandburg, chief operating officer of facebook offers her career advice to women with been in, women, work and will to be. that book is fifth. number 6, francesca attempts to capture the psyche of cats in his collection of poetry i could he on this followed by internet celebrity grumpy katz, a grubby book. francesca appears on the list again at number 8 with his fall what poetry book for dog lovers, i could chew on this. ninth, scott anderson provide an in-depth look into the arab revolt with his book lawrence in arabia, work, deceit, ind. folly and the making of the

modern middle east. finally daniel james brown recounts the story of the 1936 american olympic rowing team in the boys in the boat. you confined more on these customers by going to in thebelt.org and clicking on in the best sellers. in this hourlong presentation be author of coca-cola explores the soft drink's origins history of the great american soft drink and the company that makes it". >> i never had the opportunity to do this before. this is the committee can. i am quite proud of the knee can. it is actually larger than the old 6 counts bottles i grew up with. and i like them