Announcing the panelists for the Quaker Theological Discussion Group 2022! We will gather on Zoom on December 2–3, 2022, to hear from the following presenters. Register here, and find the time in your time zone. These sessions will be simultaneously interpreted into Spanish; promotional materials in Spanish are coming soon.

Download a PDF of these posters to share with your networks.

Panel 1: Quakers, Space, and Sense of Place, December 2, 2022 | 8–10am PDT / 11am–1pm EDT / 4–6pm GMT

Cherice Bock (she/her) is a recorded Quaker minister in Oregon. Bock holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary and an MS in environmental studies from Antioch University New England, and she is a Ph.D. candidate in the same field. She teaches at the college and seminary levels at the intersection of religion and environment, and she leads Oregon Interfaith Power & Light. She edits Barclay Press’s Friends Bible study curriculum, Illuminate. With Stephen Potthoff, Bock co-edited Quakers, Creation Care, and Sustainability. Forthcoming works include A Quaker Ecotheology of Light (with Christy Randazzo), and A Quaker Ecology: Meditations on the Future of Friends, based on her Bible Half-Hour lectures at New England Yearly Meeting in 2020. Pertinent to this panel, she published the article, “Faith Communities as Hubs for Climate Resilience.” Her other writings, publications, and media can be accessed at http://chericebock.com.

Dwight Dunston (he/him) is a West Philly-based facilitator, hip-hop artist, educator, and activist who has brought his creativity, care, and compassion to schools, community centers, retirement homes, festivals, and stadiums all over the country and internationally. He is a 2006 graduate of Friends’ Central School in Wynnewood, PA, and has worked in Quaker education for most of his adult life. Dwight is a Level II certified Kingian Nonviolence trainer, completing over 50 hours of training through the organization “On Earth Peace.” You can hear Dwight in conversation with spirit-led artists and activists on Pendle Hill’s new podcast, The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope.

Christy Randazzo (they/them) is a convinced Friend, theologian, and teacher, whose work seeks to bridge the contemplative nature of theological writing with the active, lived theology of congregational life. Christy teaches courses on religious peacemaking, introduction to religious studies, and the intersections between theology and peace work, most recently at Montclair State University (NJ). They have written in a variety of both academic and popular settings, including the Quaker biblical studies series Illuminate, the Politics of Scripture project for the Journal of Political Theology (which they also help edit), two books for the Brill Quaker Studies series, as well as an upcoming project developing Quaker systematic theology in dialogue with the Christian ecotheological tradition. Amongst several other responsibilities in both the Quaker and academic worlds, since 2015 Christy has served as the co-chair for the Quaker Theological Discussion Group, helping to shepherd QTDG into a new focus on expanding access for all people to the conversations about Quaker theology which have traditionally only occurred in academic settings.

Chagala S. Ngesa is an itinerant minister and a fourth generation Friend from Maragoli Hills in western Kenya. He received an MDiv from the University of Redlands, Graduate School of Theology, at San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, CA. He completed an MA in theology from the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana. Publications include the article, “Maragoli Shamanism Marries Quaker Christianity.

Panel 2: “Unnamed Rules”: Exploring Quaker Power Dynamics, December 3, 2022 | 8–10am PDT / 11am–1pm EDT / 4–6pm GMT

Windy Cooler (she/her) calls herself a “Good Quaker Pirate” and in 2022/23 is the convener of Powell House and Ben Lomond Quaker Center’s seven part Testimonies to Mercy series on the future of Quakerism. She is also the convener of the Quaker discernment on abuse project, Life and Power. Windy is an embraced public Friend and the assistant clerk of Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting, Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Her ministry has long centered on caregiving in times of crisis and in group discernment: finding the wisdom in communities to address sticky issues. Windy holds a master of divinity from Earlham School of Religion and is a doctoral candidate at Lancaster Theological Seminary. She lives with her spouse Erik and son Ob near her adult daughter Maggie in Greenbelt, MD.

Greg Woods (he/him) is a disabled Quaker minister, theologian, and writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife Jenn and daughter Margaret, along with their puppy Sofie, a cat Tuesday, and four chickens. He currently serves as a Program Consultant with Beacon Hill Friends House where he co-leads vocational discernment workshops. Greg is passionate about disability liberation theology and how it intersects with Quaker concepts of worship and the Inward Light of Christ. Greg holds a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and a BA from Earlham College.

Oscar Lugusa Malande is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Vihiga Yearly Meeting in Kenya. He has a Master of Arts and Certificate in Entrepreneurial Ministry from Earlham School of Religion, and currently teaches at Friends Theological College Kaimosi. He has majorly contributed to publications in Quakerism. He is in the third year of the doctoral program in Theology and Religion at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Center, University of Birmingham. He is married to Zipporah Adema and they are blessed with four children: two girls, Axtel and Georgia, and two boys, Samuel and Jayriggs.

Rhonda Pfaltzgraff-Carlson, founder of Working Wisdom, LLC, supports leaders who seek to integrate faith and spirituality into their leadership and organizational life. She has a PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from The Ohio State University, an MA in Theology from Xavier University, a certificate of spiritual nurture from The School of the Spirit, and is a certified coach. She published a framework for organizational spiritual formation in the Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion in 2020 and has been practicing spiritual direction since 2019. Rhonda lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is married, has two teenage children, and a cat. She is a convinced Friend who attends Campus Friends Meeting in Wilmington, Ohio and enjoys being vegan, working in her native forest garden, crocheting, walking and reading.

Register here, and find the time in your time zone.