Woolman Peacemaking Forum
This year’s Woolman Forum features two exciting opportunities to engage with internationally renowned peacemakers who have each spent decades actively working to bring shalom to the Holy Land. We hope you join us for this important and timely discussion.
The following events are free and open to the public.
Afternoon Panel: The Israel / Palestine Conflict and Prospects for Peace
Jonathan Kuttab, Todd Deatherage, Mark Braverman
Tuesday, February 13, 2024, 3:30 - 5:00 p.m.
- Jonathan Kuttab, Executive Director of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)
- Todd Deatherage, Executive Director of The Telos Group, former Chief of Staff for the State Department
- Mark Braverman, Executive Director of Kairos USA and Advisory Board member for Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions USA
Evening Lecture: Is there a Balm in Gilead? Prospects for a Palestinian / Israeli Peace
Jonathan Kuttab, JD
Executive Director of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)
Tuesday, February 13, 2024, 6:00 p.m.
The lecture will be followed by a Q&A and reception
Location for Both Events
Hoover 105 (Building #26 on campus map)
George Fox University: Newberg Campus
414 N. Meridian St
Newberg, OR 97132
Livestream for Both Events
Can't join in person? Watch the livestream.
Speaker Information
Jonathan Kuttab
Executive Director of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)
Jonathan Kuttab is Executive Director of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) and co-founder of Sabeel Jerusalem. Kuttab has also helped found Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, Nonviolence International, and Just Peace Advocates Mouvement pour une Paix Juste, a Canadian based international law human rights nonprofit. A well-known international human rights attorney, Kuttab practices in the US, Palestine, and Israel. He serves on the Board of Bethlehem Bible College and is President of the Board of Holy Land Trust.
Kuttab was the head of the Legal Committee negotiating the Cairo Agreement of 1994 between Israel and the PLO and has authored Beyond the Two-State Solution, suggesting that any solution be predicated on the basic existential needs of the two parties.
As a Christian Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, Kuttab brings personal perspectives in addition to professional insights from decades of experience as a human rights attorney. A question and answer session will follow the lecture.
Todd Deatherage
Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Telos Group
Todd Deatherage spent sixteen years in senior positions in the legislative and executive branches of the US government including a decade in the US Congress. From 2005 to 2009, he was Chief of Staff in the Secretary of State's Office of Policy Planning at the US State Department. He also spent two years as Senior Advisor in the Department's Office of International Religious Freedom, where he specialized in religious freedom in the Middle East. He co-founded the Telos Group in 2009, where he serves as Executive Director.
Mark Braverman
Co-Founder and Executive Director of Kairos USA
Mark Braverman is a Jewish American who has written on the theological and interfaith issues related to the search for peace in Israel and Palestine. He is closely involved in the international church movement to support Palestinian rights and is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Kairos USA, a movement to unify and mobilize American Christians to take a prophetic stand for a just peace.
History of the Woolman Peacemaking Forum
The John Woolman Peacemaking Forum was established in 1986 as a way of articulating peacemaking issues to the George Fox University community. Its purpose is threefold: to provide a forum for those involved in peacemaking to offer insights and challenges; to inspire and equip us to invest our energies in the diligent pursuit of peace; and to enrich the ongoing work of the Center for Peace and Justice, both through contact with leading peacemakers and through greater public awareness of our programs.
The forum is named for John Woolman, an 18th-century American Quaker who called attention to the evils of slavery and challenged fellow Quakers to abandon the practice. Woolman also worked for fairer treatment of First Nations Indigenous Americans. In his journal, he recorded his developing opposition to war and other forms of violence and his struggles to purify his lifestyle from anything that might encourage or promote violence. His journal has become a devotional classic for its sensitive expression of the lifelong development of one person’ s conscience toward peace.
John Woolman
(1720-1772)
May we look upon our treasures, and the furniture of our houses, and the garments in which we array ourselves, and try whether the seeds of war have any nourishment in these possessions or not.
Recent Woolman Peacemaking Forum Topics
- 2023 - What Makes for Peace? Lessons from the Road to Jericho
- 2022 - Letter from Birmingham Jail, by MLK Jr.; A culmination of discussions
- 2021 - "Learn-Pray-Join: Immigration Justice, Radical Hospitality"
- 2020 - "One Like the Sea: Frederick Douglass' Global Search for Democracy and Equality, 1886-1887"
- 2019 - Promised Land; Film screening and discussion
- 2018 - "Martin Luther King, Jr: The Inner Life & Global Vision"
- 2017 - "Peace: Personal & Global"
- 2016 - "Fostering Peace & Justice Through the Lens of Service"
- 2015 - "Past, Present and Future: Promoting Peace & Justice at George Fox University and Beyond"
- 2014 - "People of Peace: Effective Faith-Rooted Advocacy"
- 2013 - "Shalom – Holistic Peace for a Fragmented World"
- 2012 - "New Neighbor: An Invitation to Join Beloved Community"
- 2011 - "Reconciling All Things"
- 2010 - "Are We Achieving Racial Justice and Reconciliation?”
Previous Woolman Forum Speakers
Previous speakers have included men and women with a wide variety of strengths and experiences. Among the previous speakers are:
- Todd Deatherage
- Scott Finnie
- Dina González-Piña
- Verdis Robinson
- Tony Johnson and Vasant & Sarah Saledo
- Clayborne Carson
- Michelle Lloyd-Paige
- Stuart Willcuts
- Jason Fileta
- Alexia Salvatierra
- Lisa Sharon Harper
- Leroy Barber
- Emmanuel Katongole
- John Perkins
- Naim Ateek
- David Augsburger
- Landrum Bolling
- Tony Campolo
- Mark Hatfield
- John Paul Lederach
- Lisa Schirch
- Ron Sider
- Walter Wink
- Tom Getman
- Chip Zimmer
- Elise Boulding
- David Rawson
- Tom & Christine Sine
- Jim Wallis
- Ron Kraybill
The Woolman Peacemaking Award is given annually to someone in the region who exemplifies peacemaking.
Beyond the Woolman Forum, peacemaking is featured at George Fox through multiple means that include: chapels, classes, student groups, various campus media and through special collections of peacemaking books, journals, videos, and other resources kept at the Center for Peace and Justice and in the university library.
Publications by John Woolman
Listed below is a collection of books and other publications by John Woolman, which includes his Journal, the only piece of Colonial American literature continuously in print since publication.
(Originally Published in 1774 by Cruckshank)
John Greenleaf Whittier introduction ed. Published 1871
The Works of John Woolman in Two Parts
(includes the Journal of John Woolman)
Published in 1774 Joseph Cruckshank
Published in 1768
John Woolman
from Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes
There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind; which in different places and ages hath had different names. It is, however, pure, and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression.