TBC Pre-Event: What if There is More? Queerness, Fugitivity, and Sanctuary

Hosted by The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology

Thursday, October 18, 2025 | 10am–4pm

In an era marked by injustice and upheaval, where can we turn for grounding—for sanctuary?

What if queerness, contamination, and fugitivity aren’t threats to stability but pathways to resilience? What if embracing these lived realities could help us navigate—and even thrive—amid the uncertainty ahead?

Join a provocative gathering of theologians, psychologists, and cultural thinkers for an interactive workshop that weaves together theory, practice, and imagination. Together, we’ll explore how alternative ways of being can help us create sanctuaries—not just for survival, but for subversive transformation.

Featuring:

• Tamice Spencer-Helms
• Billie Hoard
• Paul Hoard
• Dwight Friesen
• and special guests.

Come with your questions, your grief, your hope. Leave with new frameworks—and new companions—for the road ahead.

Ticket: $99 Note: This ticket does not include admission to the main Beer Camp event and is designed to be an optional add-on for those arriving early. Lunch not included.

SPEAKER BIOS

Tamice Spencer-Helms is a nonprofit leader, scholar-practitioner, pastor, and theoactivist based in Richmond, Virginia. For over two decades, their work has been driven by a singular purpose: to confront and heal what they call diseased imagination—the spiritual and social dis-ease that stifles agency, creativity, and collective flourishing. As a pastor to spiritual fugitives, Tamice grounds their work at the intersection of social transformation, soulful leadership, womanist and queer liberation theologies, and cultural critique.

A recognized voice in theoactivism, Tamice bridges the intellectual with the embodied, weaving rigorous scholarship with lived experience and spiritual practice. They hold two master’s degrees (in theology and leadership) and a doctorate in Social Transformation. Their signature frameworks—such as the R.E.S.T. Mixtape and Soulful Leadership—are research-informed interventions designed to foster courageous truth-telling, radical belonging, and liberating leadership for our times.

Whether facilitating retreats, speaking on stage, consulting with organizations, or curating digital sanctuaries, Tamice offers both refuge and revolution. Their enduring commitment is to help individuals and communities heal, reimagine, and co-create spaces where every person is seen, known, and free—where diseased imagination gives way to new possibilities.

Paul Hoard is a licensed counselor and associate professor of counseling psychology at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. He completed the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program at the Greater Kansas City Psychoanalytic Institute. A “third culture kid,” he was raised in Ankara, Turkey, and has provided mental health counseling and clinical supervision in the United States, Ukraine, and Turkey. His research and scholarly work primarily focus on the intersection of perpetration trauma, eucontamination, white-body supremacy, games, and psychoanalytic theory.

Billie Hoard is a trans woman, a high school history teacher, an author, and something of an Anabaptist radical. A consummate generalist, she holds an MA in liberal arts from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, and she writes on topics ranging from disgust theology and eucontamination to fairy tales and C. S. Lewis. She and her brother are currently writing a book on disgust and eucontamination.

Dwight J. Friesen [he . they] is Professor of Practical Theology at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology where his research and teaching focus on discovering, learning with, and training leaders for the “church” emerging after Christendom. He is a founding board member of Parish Collective with its Inhabit Conference, and works internationally with the Urban Shalom Society in service of UN-Habitat; mobilizing the world’s religions to engage the United Nations “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) as faithful expressions of their respective faith and cultural traditions. Dwight is author and contributor to a number of books, including: 2020s Foresight, The New Parish, and Thy Kingdom Connected.