Emmanuel Faculty

Contact: jennifer.bright@mail.utoronto.ca

Jenny Bright is a registered psychotherapist (qualifying) with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) and an Associate Member of the Canadian Association of Spiritual Care (CASC/ACSS). She has a PhD in the Study of Religion (Tibetan Buddhism and medicine) with a Collaborative Specialization in Women’s Health through the Dalla Lana School of Public Health from the University of Toronto. Dr. Bright works as a spiritual care clinician in the Intensive Care Unit at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and teaches courses on Buddhism and psychotherapy at Emmanuel College in the Master of Pastoral Studies program and in the Buddhism, Psychology, and Mental Health minor at the University of Toronto. Dr. Bright’s research interests include spiritually-integrated psychotherapy, spiritual health and moral distress, and Buddhist spiritual care. Jenny’s spiritual community is the Toronto Buddhist Church where she serves as a member of the executive board of directors. In her spare time, Jenny likes to take long hikes and play outside with her family.

Contact: david.kimcragg@utoronto.ca

David Kim-Cragg received his PhD in history from the University of Saskatchewan with a major in Modern East Asian history and two minors in Indigenous and Canadian history.  His soon-to-be-published book entitled Water from Dragon’s Well: The History of a Korean-Canadian Church Relationship (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022) covers the story of the Canadian church’s early mission to Korea and the resulting influence of Korean Christian leadership upon the United Church of Canada.  His research interests include historical intercultural encounters with and within the United Church and its predecessors.  David has taught Modern Canadian History and has published articles in Touchstone, Historical Papers and the Journal of World Christianity.  He is a contributor to Broadview Magazine and a member of the Canadian Society for Church History.  He serves as an ordained minister to St. Matthew’s United Church in Richmond Hill.  David is excited about teaching that draws out the full range of expertise and experience within a group of learners and about sharing the journey of discovery with others.

David is teaching “Leading Congregations through Conflict and Change” (EMP 1021 HS)

Contact: ian.manson@utoronto.ca

Teaching and Research Interests

Ian Manson holds a Th.D. in the History of Christianity and is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada.  In addition to his work as a Sessional Lecturer at Emmanuel, he has taught at the University of Winnipeg, served several congregations in Manitoba and Ontario, and supported the work of various Toronto-area churches as Presbytery staff.  His research has focused on the social gospel tradition in Canada, and on the history of the United Church. 

In recent years, he’s been exploring the dynamics of mainline Protestant decline in North America, the ways Canada’s churches are working to renew themselves, and the new models of governance that faith communities are developing.

Selected Publications

“The United Church and the Second World War,” in Don Schweitzer, ed., The United Church of Canada: a History.  Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2012.

“‘O Day of God, Draw Nigh’: R.B.Y. Scott, the Church and the Call for Social Reconstruction,” in Airhart, Legge and Redcliffe, eds., Doing Ethics in a Pluralistic World: Essays in Honour of Roger C. Hutchinson.  Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2002.

“George Pidgeon and United Church Evangelism in the 1930s,” Toronto Journal of Theology    12/2, 1996: 213-221.

Course Offered

EMP2731 Ministry of Governance and Administration

Sessional Instructor

Contact: esther.reiser@mail.utoronto.ca

Research Interests

Esther Reiser (she/her) is a PhD candidate at Emmanuel College. She is currently working on her dissertation, which is a comparative study of salvation in the work of Origen of Alexandria and Ahmed Ibn Taymiyya. In her thesis, she explores the connection between Origen and Ibn Taymiyya’s (potentially) universalist ideas on salvation and how to place it within their overall theological ethics of punishment and rehabilitation. She also has four years of experience as a Scriptural Reasoning (SR) facilitator. Her other interests include the intersections between soteriology, ethics and theories of justice. She is further interested in how these connections can be understood and explored in an interreligious context.  She is passionate about finding ways to engage in honest and constructive interfaith dialogue, accounting for both agreements and disagreements between different religious traditions, communities and individuals.   

Contact: jane.smith.eivemark@utoronto.ca

Jane Smith-Eivemark is a Registered Psychotherapist (Jungian Analyst) and has trained as a Clinical Pastoral Educator within CASC. Her Doctor of Ministry focused on the arts as a vehicle of learning within the church – her specific focus was on the development of a theological reflection method for feature film. Jane is engaged in private practice as a registered psychotherapist and serves Trillium Health Partners (Mississauga, Ontario) as the Professional Practice Leader within the Spiritual and Supportive Care Department.  Jane has served as a practitioner and educator in three health systems, as a director of mission, values, and spirituality within a Roman Catholic Health System and as a manager of spiritual care within a healthcare system.  Her work in depth psychology began as a result of the overarching theme within CASC training – to integrate one’s psychology with one’s theology. Her research is currently expanding within depth psychology as she approaches the questions of soul through her involvement in the work of Wolfgang Giegerich and others within the International Society for Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority.

In her teaching, Jane is particularly interested in helping students learn more about the depths of the soul’s expressions. In her course on dreams and psychotherapy, Jane’s teaching engages dreams as expressions of the soul within a Jungian psychological framework. Students have the opportunity to learn more about the interface of depth psychology with their religious tradition/spirituality. During her doctoral studies, Jane taught Sexuality and Spirituality as well as Modern Makers of Theology: The Theology of Film at St. Stephen’s College within the University of Alberta.

Selected Course

EMP3538HF

Martha ter Kuile serves in ministry at Bloor Street United Church in Toronto.  Her priority in teaching is to combine practical experience in the world with theological reflection.

Martha’s career began in international development. She worked for CIDA and the UN, living with her husband and children in Kenya, Ecuador, Nigeria, and Guatemala, eventually returning to a farm outside Ottawa. An M.Sc. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Guelph led her to focus her work on agricultural research for developing countries.

After preparing for ordained ministry with an M. Div. at Queen’s University, and served at churches in the Ottawa area before coming to Bloor Street United in 2007. She continued her theological studies at Saint Paul University with an M.A. in Christian Ethics, on the history of Christian ideas about poverty. Martha completed her PhD in Theology at Saint Paul University, University of Ottawa. Her dissertation developed a Christian Realist Virtue Ethics, based on Reinhold Niebuhr and Martha Nussbaum. Her article, Virtue and the Fragile Christian Realist, appears in Paradoxical Virtue: Reinhold Niebuhr and the Virtue Tradition, Kevin Carnahan and David True, eds., Routledge, 2020.