About Me

Jennifer Henry (she/her)

I am a person of faith with a deep passion for justice. Activism, ecumenism, and feminism have been constants in my life. I believe that hope can be borrowed, that God’s dreams of justice are more radical than ours, that we are called into solidarity as co-conspirators, and that persistence brings forth transformation. I commit to sharp analysis, deep reflection, bold action, and gentleness in personal interactions so that “learning” and “together” might become real. I believe in owning truths, acknowledging privilege, and joining in allyship, in a process that includes life long learning.

I am passionate about reading biblical texts in the context of social movements–Word in the world. I believe that texts are for wrestling, and I am inspired to see hearts stirred into action by faithful interaction with them and one other. I strive to find new words–sermons, prayers, hymns–to express the abundant solidarity and impossible hope of the living God.

For 27 years, I have served the Canadian churches and social movements in ecumenical social justice, the last almost nine as Executive Director of KAIROS Canada. While the issues varied from economic justice to international development to women’s rights, from migrant justice and climate action to Indigenous rights, and contexts changed from local to global, the common commitment was to policy analysis, theological reflection, popular education, advocacy, and social action. I have been profoundly changed by the peoples and communities I have learned from in social movements around the world.

I am an oldest daughter, a sister, a mother, a partner, and I identify as queer. My white settler ancestors came to Turtle Island in the early 1600’s and I take seriously the complicity of my peoples of blood and faith in enslavement and colonization as well as my inherited privileges and necessary accountabilities. The life-changing honour of my life was being a consistent ecumenical witness at six of the seven National Events of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

My academic training is in English literature, social work and theology, and I have hard skills in management type things, including facilitating complex processes. 

I strive to work with collaboration, equity, and inclusion, in a recognition of the dignity, humanity, and difference of every person.  I believe that the Divine lives in-between-us and that Christ is incarnate in movements of lament and hope that change the world.