Dr. Tredwell is a graduate of Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota, having majored in Political Science and Sociology. He achieved his Master’s degree in Theology and Biblical Interpretation from United Theological Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota. He is a graduate of the Joint PhD Program of the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, with a concentration in Religion and Social Change. His research focuses on the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, and the biblical text.

Tredwell has worked in several major business sectors, including international grain trading for Cargill, the largest privately held corporation in the nation. In the Governmental Sector, he created an adoption program that dramatically increased the adoption of Black children in foster care in the state of Minnesota. In 2000, he founded a Community Development Company and created 130 units of affordable housing. For nine years, he pastored Christ Temple of Brooklyn Park, MN., and provided spiritual guidance to over 100 Liberian and African American families. Additionally, he has served as Senior Pastor in Austin, Texas, and in College Park, Maryland.

Dr. Tredwell’s most recent accomplishment is the publishing of his first book beyond his dissertation: “Black, Queer and Blessed: My Story and the Biblical Story Churches Don’t Teach.” In the first section of his book, Tredwell provides an overview of the first thirty years of his life and reveals the inner tensions of family life where the matriarch is second-generation Black middle-class and the patriarch has origins from the poorest street in the city. Tredwell’s father, Leon, from the age of fourteen, was the secondary breadwinner for his fatherless household of mother and three younger sisters. Leon went on to serve in active duty in WWII, ultimately suffering from undiagnosed Post Traumatic Syndrome, subsequently succumbing to alcoholism.

The second part of the book advances theological reflection on the biblical narrative of the rescue of the prophet Jeremiah by Ebed-Melech. A Black, queer man whom Yahweh persuades, calls, and jointly works alongside of to save the second most revered prophet of the Hebrew Scriptures. Once their mission is accomplished, Yahweh blesses him in a most profound manner. This is the story that churches don’t teach!