Monthly Archives: May 2022

Friends Association for Higher Education’s Quaker Leadings in Higher Education series presented:

Rethinking the Holy Experiment: Decolonizing Quakerism

What is the work of decolonization? How might it impact Quakerism, our testimonies, and our organizations?

Tuesday, May 24, 2022
7:30-9 pm, eastern

Presenters:
Cherice Bock
M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary
M.S., Antioch University New England
Ph.D. candidate, Antioch University New England
Adjunct Professor
Portland Seminary
Creation Justice Advocate
Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon

Christy Randazzo
PhD, University of Birmingham
Adjunct Professor
Montclair State University, NJ
University of St. Joseph, CT

Moderator:
Ada Jaarsma
Professor of Philosophy
Mount Royal University

This panel focused on addressing the necessity of reimagining Quakerism at its foundations, with an explicitly decolonial focus. This included offering a brief explanation of what the work of decolonizing entails generally, along with an examination of the potential ways that this process could be applied to Quakerism in terms of our theology, our testimony, as well as the practical impacts of such an approach on our institutions. Cherice Bock and Christy Randazzo discussed both the challenges and opportunities they encountered as they organized a recent panel on decolonizing the Quaker Peace Testimony for the Quaker Theological Discussion Group (QTDG), with an eye to offering those in attendance some potential frameworks for continuing this work within their own meetings, churches, and institutions.

Bios:

Cherice Bock lives in Oregon, on the lands of the Kalapuya (now part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde). She is adjunct professor of ecotheology at Portland Seminary, and she leads Oregon Interfaith Power & Light at Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. She began teaching in the theology department at University of Portland in the fall of 2020.  In the 2018–2019 school year, she served as visiting professor of environmental studies at The Oregon Extension. Bock holds an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary and an M.S. in environmental studies from Antioch University New England, and she is a Ph.D. candidate in environmental studies at Antioch University New England. Bock edits the Barclay Press curriculum Illuminate, edited the environmental studies journal Whole Terrain for three volumes, and curates web content for the watershed discipleship website, a ministry of Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries. She is the co-chair for the Quaker Theological Discussion group and is the social media editor for Quaker Religious Thought.

Christy Randazzo (PhD, University of Birmingham) teaches at both Montclair State University (New Jersey, USA) and the University of St. Joseph (Connecticut, USA), where they offer courses on religious peacemaking, introduction to religious studies, and the intersections between theology and peace work. They have also done ministry across multiple religious communities in diverse settings, including youth ministry, religious education, and social ministries amongst unhoused populations. They have written in a variety of both academic and popular settings, including the Quaker biblical studies series Illuminate, and two books for the Brill Quaker Studies series, including the upcoming A Quaker Ecotheology of Light. Christy is both an editor for the Politics of Scripture on the Political Theology Network, and the co-chair of the Quaker Theological Discussion Group.

Here is more information, including a link to the video of the presentation.

Friends Association for Higher Education’s Quaker Leadings in Higher Education series presented:

Toward a Quaker Testimony of Labor:  
What Do Our Experiences as Quakers Within Higher Education Institutions Tell Us About Our Lived, Embodied Quaker Theology?

Tuesday, April 26, 2022
7:30-9 pm, eastern

Presenters:
Windy Cooler
Doctoral Candidate
Lancaster Theological Seminary

Tom Hamm
Professor of History  
Quaker Scholar in Residence
Earlham College

Moderator:
Trayce N. Peterson
MA student/instructor
Human Rights Practice
University of Arizona

Bios:

Windy Cooler is an embraced public Friend whose ministry is held under the care of Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting, Baltimore Yearly. She earned an MDiv from Earlham School of Religion in 2021 and is Pendle Hill’s 2020 Cadbury Scholar. A current doctoral candidate at Lancaster Theological Seminary, her work incorporates ethnography and the Quaker tradition of discernment processes to help communities move forward in the Light. Windy a frequent guest of monthly and yearly meetings in the US where she has researched, lectured and given workshops on the connection between caregiving responses and justice in peer-to-peer ministry. She lives with her husband Erik and son Ob in Greenbelt, MD, and has an adult daughter, Maggie.

Tom Hamm is a lifelong Friend with roots that go back to the beginnings of Quakerism–one of his ancestors signed George Fox’s death certificate in 1691. He is a native of New Castle, Indiana. He went to Butler University on a debate scholarship, majoring in history. On graduating in 1979, he went on to Indiana University in Bloomington for his Ph.D. in history, which he completed in 1985. After teaching for two years at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, he joined the faculty at Earlham College. There he taught history and served as archivist and director of special special collections in the library. Now moving toward retirement, he is currently Professor of History and Quaker Scholar in Residence and holds the Trueblood Chair in Christian Thought. At Earlham, he has been actively involved in faculty governance and is currently the clerk of the faculty. Tom has written extensively on Quaker history. His dissertation became his first book, The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800-1907 (Indiana University Press, 1988), received the Brewer Prize of the American Society of Church History for best first book in American religious history. His other books include God’s Government Begun: The Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform 1842-1846 (Indiana University Press, 1995); Earlham College: A History, 1847-1997 (Indiana University Press, 1997); The Quakers in America (Columbia University Press, 2003); and Liberal Quakerism in America in the Long Nineteenth Century, 1790-1920 (Brill, 2020). He edited Quaker Writings, 1650-1920 (Penguin Classics, 2012). He has also been the author of numerous articles and book chapters, with four different chapters currently in press. He has completed a book-length manuscript on Hicksite Friends in the nineteenth century, and is currently at work on a project on Quakers and the Civil War and a collection of the writings of North Carolina Friend Mary Mendenhall Hobbs. An active Friend, Tom has served as monthly meeting clerk and as recording clerk of Indiana Yearly Meeting and the New Association of Friends. He has spoken at numerous Quaker venues, including Friends General Conference and Friends United Meeting. He was book review editor for Quaker History from 1990 to 2020, and has served on the editorial boards of Quaker History, and Quaker Studies. From 1993 to 2011, he was a member of the Indiana Library and Historical Board, serving as president 2001-2011. He has also served on the Pendle Hill board, including three years as assistant clerk. Tom and his wife Mary Louise Reynolds live in Richmond, Indiana, near the Earlham campus and across the street from West Richmond Friends Meeting, where he is now a member.

Trayce Peterson is a native of Philadelphia, PA, and grateful for her formative education experiences at Lansdowne, Media, and Providence Friends schools. She received her B.A. and her Master’s of Divinity from Earlham College and Earlham School of Religion. She lives in Tucson, AZ, and is a grad student and instructor in the Human Rights Practice program at the University of Arizona. She is an active member and on the League of Women Voters Greater Tucson board. Trayce is the co-founder of SplitSeed Productions, which uses art-based interventions to inform, educate, and explore issues of human rights. An avid film lover, she is a member of a team working on a film that profiles the work of four longtime Chicana feminist activists at the forefront of immigration rights organizing here in Southern Arizona. Among Friends, Trayce serves on the American Friends Service Committee Nominating Committee and is a General Committee member and co-clerk of the Diversity Equity and Inclusion working group of the Friends Committee National Legislation.

Link to the poster

Here is further information about this event, including a recording.