To welcome another academic year the TMTC community gathered virtually for celebration of research.TMTC community members from Toronto and beyond shared about the following completed projects or works in progress:
Alicia Batten co-edited Dress in Mediterranean Antiquity: Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians (London: T&T Clark, 2021) and is working on a commentary on James.
Andy Martin is on the cusp of completing his PhD dissertation on Old Order Mennonite spirituality at Regis College and continues work as a psychotherapist.
Anthony Seigrist is pastoring at Ottawa Mennonite Church and is working on completing an MSc in environmental sustainability at the University of Ottawa. He presented a paper on “Geography and Christian Mission: Mennonite-Run Residential Schools as a Case Study” at the recent Rooted and Grounded conference at AMBS and will be presenting a paper entitled "Creation Care as Mission: Obstacles and Opportunities for Christian Organizations in Canada" at the November TMTC Scholars Forum.
Carol Penner is finishing a book project entitled Resistance: Violence, Abuse and Power in Peace Churches and embarking on a new book project with Kim Penner on Sexual Violence and Peace Theology. Carol also regularly posts on her wonderful Leading in Worship blog.
Carolyn Mackie is working on a PhD dissertation at Regis College on the connections between incarnation and philosophical anthropology in the works of Søren Kierkegaard. She is actively involved in advocacy for survivors of sexual violence in Christian institutions and was a panelist on the People of Peace? panel hosed by TMTC.
Chris Sundby is completing a masters degree at Regent College in Vancouver and presented a paper on “Canadian MCC Agronomists and an Evolution of Knowledge” at MCC at 100: Mennonites, Service, and the Humanitarian Impulse conference in Winnipeg.
Daniel Rempel is working on a PhD dissertation at the University of Aberdeen on the witness of people with intellectual disabilities. He published an article entitled “The Healthiest Person I Know? Disability and Health” in Vision and co-edited an issue of The Conrad Grebel Review on Anabaptism and Disability Theology.
Emma Ceruiti is working on her PhD dissertation on disability theology and suffering at Emmanuel College.
Hadje Sadje is a PhD student at the University of Hamburg working on a dissertation on Pentecostal civic engagement in the Philippines as well as a book project on Karl Gaspar’s contribution to doing decolonial theology in the Philippines.
Isaac Friesen successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled “Casual Crossings: The Muslim Attendance of Coptic Spaces in Provincial Egypt” in April 2021 at the University of Toronto and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ottawa, working on the multinational John Templeton Foundation-funded project The Transmission of Religion Across Generations.
Jeremy Bergen penned a Globe and Mail Op-Ed on the Theological Reason why the Catholic Church is Reticent to Apologize for Residential Schools and is working on book on martyrdom and unity of the church.
Jeremy McCLung is working on his PhD dissertation in homiletics at Wycliffe College tentatively entitled “Preaching for Grateful Response” and has a review of Anthony Siegrist’s book Speaking of God forthcoming in The Conrad Grebel Review.
Johnathan Boerger is working on a PhD dissertation in trauma studies and forgiveness at McMaster Divinity College.
Kim Penner is pastoring at Stirling Ave Mennonite Church in Kitchener and published a chapter in Resistance: Violence, Abuse and Power in Peace Churches. She continues to work on issues violence, peace, ethics, cultures of abuse, and sexual violence and was a panelist on the People of Peace? panel hosted by TMTC.
Kyle Gingerich Hiebert participated in a panel on “Do Denominational Labels Matter?” at the Acadia Centre for Baptist and Anabaptist Studies and continues work on a book on the Mennonite theological tradition for Brill’s new “Research Perspectives in Theological Traditions” series.
Max Kennel successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled “Ontologies of Violence: Jacques Derrida, Mennonite Pacifist Epistemology, and Grace M. Jantzen’s, Death and the Displacement of Beauty” in May 2021 at McMaster University and is currently a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto working on a project on the “Critique of Conspiracism.” Max is taking over as editor of Pandora Press and published an article on “Religious Studies and Internal Family Systems Therapy" in Implicit Religion.
Michael Buttrey has a chapter on “Peter Parker’s Progeny: Power, Genetics, and Virtuous Parenting in Spider-Girl" forthcoming in Theology and Spider-Man (London: Lexington Books, 2021), continues work on his PhD dissertation on moral improvement and virtue ethics at Regis College, and participated in the People of Peace? panel hosted by TMTC.
Nathan Hersberger is completing a PhD dissertation at Duke University and is presenting a paper on “Healing the Wounds of Scripture: Anna Jansz and Biblical Apocalypticism” at the Mennonite Scholars and Friends Forum at the AAR/SBL in November.
Sarah Johnson successfully defended her PhD dissertation at the University of Notre Dame entitled "Occasional Religious Practice: An Ethnographic Theology of Christian Worship in a Changing Religious Landscape" and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology and Worship and Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Vancouver School of Theology and St Mark's College at the University of British Columbia. Sarah co-authored an article for Mennonite Church USA on Singing with the early and medieval church through “Voices Together”, continues to be involved with the launch of the Voices Together Hymnal as well as working on the Together in Worship website and the Anabaptist Worship Network.
Stella Kayenga Mbangu is researching participation of people with disabilities, particularly those that are hearing impared, in the church. Her 2019 PhD thesis, which she completed at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, is entitled “The Calling from the Margins: Mission to and by Hearing Impaired People in Francophone Churches in Pretoria and Johannesburg.”
