Dr. Albert G. Miller who is affectionately known as “A.G.” is taught for 27 years at Oberlin College since 1991 as Associate Professor of Religion and African American Studies in the Department of Religion Emeritus, retiring in 2018, where he taught American and African American religious history. He also serves as the founding pastor of the Oberlin House of the Lord Fellowship since 2001. A.G. is the author of the book, Elevating the Race: Theophilus G. Steward, Black Theology, and the Making of an African-American Civil Society, 1865-1924 (University of Tennessee Press, 2003). Miller has written several articles including, “The Black Apostle to White Evangelicals” in Mobilizing for the Common Good: The Lived Theology of John M. Perkins. eds. Charles Marsh, Peter Slade and Peter Heltzel. University Press of Mississippi (Fall 2013), “The Construction of a Black Fundamentalist Worldview: The Role of Bible Schools” in African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures edited by Vincent L. Wimbush, New York: Continuum, 2000; and “The Rise of Black Evangelicalism in American Culture” in Perspectives on American Religion and Culture, published by Blackwell Publishers, Ltd. 1999; and “At-Risk Youth, At-Risk Church: What Jesus Christ and Black Teenagers are Saying to the Black Church” in The Princeton Lectures on Youth, Church and Culture, published by Princeton Theological Seminary. A.G. received B.S.W. and M.S.W. degrees in social work from Adelphi University and the M.A. and Ph.D. in religion from Princeton University and has done further study at Union Theological Seminary in New York, New York and Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.

Books By Albert G. Mil

er:

Elevating The Race: Theophilu G. Steward, Black Theology And Making Of An African American Civil Society, 1865-1924

Chris Momany is a graduate of Adrian College, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Drew University. His speaking, teaching, and writing focus on history and human rights. His primer on the Wesleyan ethic of love and justice is titled: Doing Good: A Grace-Filled Approach to Holiness (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2011). Chris’s book on ethical theory and the abolitionist movement was released in 2018: For Each and All: The Moral Witness of Asa Mahan (Nashville: Foundery Books). Chris has been active in “Historians Against Slavery” – an organization that explores history to fight human trafficking. He has also served in leadership among the National Council of Churches and between 2012 and 2020 was a member of the “writing team” that crafted an updated version of the United Methodist Social Principles. He is a lifetime member of the Toni Morrison Society. Chris led an effort to place a Morrison Society “Bench by the Road” in Adrian, Michigan. Adrian’s bench is the twenty-second in a series that reaches around the world and is dedicated to those who journeyed the Underground Railroad. Chris’s latest book profiles five Methodist abolitionists and their witness against slavery: Compelling Lives: Five Methodist Abolitionists and the Ideas that Inspired Them (Cascade, 2023).

Dr. David D. Daniels III is the Henry Winters Luce Professor of Global Christianity at McCormick Theological Seminary. David received the Bachelor of Arts from Bowdoin College, and holds a Master of Divinity from Yale University. David earned a Ph.D. in Church History from Union Theological Seminary. 1979 to 1983 he was instructor of Religion at the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH.
David has been a member of the American Academy of Religion, the Society for the Study of Black Religion, and the Society for Pentecostal Studies. He is on the steering committee of the Evangelical Theology Group and Afro-American History Group of the American Academy of Religion. He is a member of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and Pentecostal International Dialogue. He has served as commissioner for the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches U.S. A. for the 1988-91 quadrennium and has participated on consultations sponsored by the National council of Churches in the United States and the World Council of Churches in United States and Costa Rica. He has served as a lecturer and researcher and is an ordained minister in the Church of God in Christ.

Dr. Diane Cunningham Leclerc has published many articles and eight books, including Discovering Christian Holiness: The Heart of Wesleyan Holiness Theology.  She is professor of Historical Theology at Northwest Nazarene University, where she has served for over 20 years.  She has served as President of the Wesleyan Theological Society, as a member of the North American Nazarene Women Clergy Council, and serves on the Articles of Faith Theology Committee for the Church of the Nazarene.  She graduated from Eastern Nazarene College (B.A. in 1985), Nazarene Theological Seminary (M.Div in 1989) and after four years of pastoral ministry, she attended Drew University and received her and Ph.D. degree in 1998.  She pastored a Nazarene congregation in Maine, and was ordained an Elder in 1991.  She also served as the first pastor of a new church plant in Boise, Idaho, and presently serves as Pastor of Congregational Care at College Church of the Nazarene, Nampa, Idaho.  Find Diane’s Book here: The Back Side of the Cross: An Atonement Theology for the Abused and Abandoned.

Dr. Douglas M. Strong is the Paul T. Walls Professor of Wesleyan Studies at Seattle Pacific University (SPU).  Previously, he was the Dean of the School of Theology at SPU (2007-2021); Professor of the History of Christianity and Associate Dean at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC; and Pastor of Aldersgate United Methodist Church in East Brunswick, NJ.  Educated at Houghton College, NY (BA) and Princeton Theological Seminary, NJ (MDiv, PhD), Doug is ordained as a clergyperson (elder) in the United Methodist Church.  He is the author of 4 books and numerous articles on Wesleyan/Holiness Christianity, revivalism, and the abolitionist movement and other social reforms.  He is a past president of the Wesleyan Theological Society.  Doug came to SPU in order to establish a graduate program in theology, which opened in 2009 as Seattle Pacific Seminary.  He is married to Cynthia Luxon Strong, an academic librarian, and the father of two sons, Tim and Nate. Find Doug’s Books below:

Perfectionist Politics: Abolitionism and the Religious Tensions of American Democracy

They Walked in the Spirit: Personal Faith and Social Action in America

Reclaiming Our Wesleyan Tradition: John Wesley's Sermons for Today

Dr. Esther Chung-Kim is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California.  Her research and teaching focus on the history of world Christianity, especially the early modern period. Her most recent book, Economics of Faith: Reforming Poor Relief in Early Modern Europe (June 2021) examines the role of ministers and lay leaders in poverty alleviation. She currently serves on the Committee on Faith and Order in the United Methodist Church. She resides in California with her husband and two teenage boys.

Books by Esther Chung-Kim:

Economics of Faith: Reforming Poverty in Early Modern Europe

Inventing Authority: The Use of the Church Fathers in Reformation Debates over the Eucharist

Dr. Estrelda Alexander, a sociologist, political theologian and educator, is president of William Joseph Seymour Foundation, an institution she founded in 2010. She also serves as the executive director of the Pan-African Pentecostal Archive and executive publisher of Seymour Press. In 1998, she was called to be Associate Dean of Community Life at Wesley Theological Seminary and served in that capacity until 2002. She left Wesley to serve on the theology faculty of Regent University School of Divinity until 2013, rising to the rank of full professor. She received her B.A. in sociology from Howard University, her M.A in sociology from Columbia University, where she was a Ford Foundation fellow, her M.Div. from Wesley Theological Seminary, and her Ph.D. in political theology from The Catholic University of America. She has authored eight books and more than thirty essays and journal articles on Pentecostal history, theology, race, gender and social justice.

Books by Estrelda Y. Alexander:

Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism

The Spirit of the Lord: Renewal Spirituality, Biblical Justice and the Prophetic Witness of the Church

The Other Pentecostalism: Alternative Themes in Contemporary Renewal Spirituality

The Women of Azusa Street

Limited Liberty: The Legacy of Four Pentecostal Women Pioneers

The Letters to the Seven Churches: A Study in Revelation 1-3

An ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, Dr. Joy Jittaun Moore, Professor of Biblical Preaching, serves as Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Academic Dean at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dr. Joy is an “Ecclesial Storyteller” seeking to encourage theologically framed, biblically attentive, and socially compelling interpretations of Christian Scripture in order to understand the critical issues influencing community formation in contemporary culture (all that means is she tells community-forming stories from the Bible as a follower of Christ!).

Moore has focused on cross-racial ministry in urban, rural, and suburban congregations. Her last parish, an African American congregation, served as a Help Center in Flint, Michigan during the Water Crisis. As a pastor, she has called local congregations to recognize their vocation of glorifying God as a peaceable community—practicing hope, hospitality, and honesty.

Currently President of the Wesleyan Theological Society, Dr. Joy is an avid fan of books by David Baldacci and John Hart and, when not teaching, she enjoys traveling, watching reruns of NCIS, and reading. Currently, she is reading the works of Octavia E. Butler and Lord Jonathan Sacks.

Dr. Matthew Sigler holds a PhD in liturgical studies from Boston University, where his work focused on Methodist identity and liturgical praxis. He serves as Assistant Professor of Wesleyan Studies at Seattle Pacific University and Seminary. Prior to becoming a professor, Dr. Sigler served for 12 years as a music minister in the church, and has written on contemporary worship as well as lyrical theology. He is a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church and is particularly interested in how the faith practices of communities of the past can serve as resources for renewal in the church today.

Book by Matthew R. Sigler:

Methodist Worship: Mediating the Wesleyan Liturgical Heritage (Routledge Methodist Studies Series)

Dr. Gnonhossou (who goes by either Sègbégnon or Mathieu) is an Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Seattle Pacific University. He previously served as an Adjunct Professor of African/African-American Studies Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky and the organizing pastor of African Ministries at All Nations United Methodist Church in Nicholasville, KY. He received his PhD in Public Theology from The University of Manchester in England and his DMin from Asbury Theological Seminary. Dr. Gnonhossou conducted a field research in Benin for each of his master’s degree and of his two doctorates in Benin. He serves as an affiliate professor in Wesleyan Missiology at the School of Theology of West Africa Protestant University in Porto-Novo, the capital city of Benin. He has two upcoming publications, “Conversion as an Act of Reclamation: John and Charles Wesley’s Interactions with Two Enslaved West Africans” and “West African Endogenous Christianity as a Fruit of Thomas Birch Freeman’s Missionary Method.” Dr. Gnonhossou is fluent in the Benin languages of Goungbe, Fongbe, and Torigbe, as well as French and English.  

Dr. Stephen Michael Newby currently holds The Lev H. Prichard III Endowed Chair in the Study of Black Worship and Life, Professor of Music and serves as Ambassador for The Black Gospel Music Preservation Program at Baylor University. He formerly served as Minister of Worship at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA, as Director for the Center for African American Worship studies at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, TN, and he held a tenured Professor of Music post at Seattle Pacific University, where he also served as Director of University Ministries, Director for the Center for Worship, and Senior Advisor to the University President for Missional Excellence. He has more than three decades of University level teaching and administration to his credit. He is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and received his Bachelor of Arts in Vocal Music Education from Madonna University in Livonia, Michigan. He received a Master of Music in Jazz Composition and Arranging from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He returned to Michigan to complete his Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and served as an Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Computer Arts. He received his Master of Arts in Theology from Seattle Pacific Seminary. For more than 35 years, he has served in various church music ministries in Michigan, Massachusetts, Washington, California and Georgia. His voice and works have earned awards and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (Continental Harmony Grant), the King County Arts Commission of Washington, The Rackham School Fellowship for Ethnomusicological Research in Dakar, Senegal, and the John Wesley Work III National Composers’ Award. For more than nine years, he served as national anthem conductor for the Seattle Sounders FC. He created concert music for The Cascade Youth Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Ann Arbor Symphony, Canton Symphony Orchestra, New Haven Symphony, Savannah Symphony, and the New World Theater Orchestra, among others. His concert music works are recorded by Albany Records. His gospel music works are recorded and published by Maranatha Music and Newby’s Witness Music. His scholarly works are published by Rowman & Littlefield, and his worship and praise choral compositions are published by Fred Bock. He is currently co-authoring with Robert Darden, Baylor University’s Emeritus Professor of Journalism, the book, “Soon & Very Soon: The Transformative Music and Ministry of Andrae Crouch, to be released early 2024 with Oxford University Press. Stephen is married to Stephanie Ashe Newby and they have one adult son Silas Michael Newby.

Books by Stephen Michael Newby:

Plough Quarterly No. 31 – Why We Make Music

Musical Landscapes in Color: Conversations with Black American Composers

Worship Outside The Music Box: Theology of Music & Worship and Multi-Ethnic Ministry

Dr. Jemar Tisby is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the Church's Complicity in Racism. His latest book is How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial Justice. Jemar has been a co-host of the "Pass the Mic" podcast since its inception seven years ago. His writing has been featured in the Washington Post, The Atlantic, and the New York Times among others. He is a frequent commentator on outlets such as NPR and CNN's New Day program. He speaks nationwide on the topics of racial justice, U.S. history and Christianity. Jemar earned is PhD in history and he studies race, religion, and social movements in the 20th century. You can follow his work through his newsletter, Footnotes, and on social media at @JemarTisby. 

Dr. Stephen Rankin, who has been involved in higher education for more than 20 years, as a professor and a campus minister at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, and now, as a Chaplain to the community at Southern Methodist University in Dallas Texas. Prior to this work, he served as a pastor in three United Methodist congregations, and provided leadership for an expatriate congregation in Rome, Italy. As Chaplain, Steve’s passion is helping students, professors and campus ministers engage in thoughtful practices that integrate faith and learning. Steve and his wife Joni have four grown children and one grandson and one granddaughter.

Book by Stephen Rankin:

Aiming at Maturity: The Goal of the Christian Life

Erin Morrow earned her BA in Graphic Arts from Appalachian State University. Erin has served as a graphic designer for several companies across the United States before settling into Project Coordinator roles in the corporate sector and in ministry/missionary spheres. She now serves as a Project Manager to multiple grant projects at Seattle Pacific University, including Dialogue on Race and Faith Project.