1. Dr. Dörte Bester, Germany
Current Position
Pastor, working as an assistant head of studies at the Seminary for the Training for Ministry and as an assistant head of studies at the Centre for Pedagogy and Theology of the Lutheran Evangelical Church of Württemberg.
Pfarrseminar/Pädagogisch-Theologisches Zentrum der Evangelischen Landeskirche in Württemberg
Grüninger Str. 25, 70599 Stuttgart
E-Mail:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Award Winning Publication
Körperbilder in den Psalmen. Studien zu Psalm 22 und verwandten Texten, Forschungen zum Alten Testament, 2. Reihe, Bd. 24, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2007.
(Body Images in the Psalms. Studies of Psalm 22 an Related Texts)
The keywords"prayer" and "body" delineate the topic of the study on Psalm 22 and related texts at hand. Prayer and body are inextricably linked to God and spirituality: The prayers collected in the Book of Psalms enable humans to raise their voice and articulate their life before God. The body comprises the "location" of a human being in the world; the body is a site and medium of expression for a person’s relationship to God and other humans. Spirituality as lived faith cannot be nurtured outside of the human body. The body images thus reflect bodily expressions of faith and spirituality. The interpretation of Psalm 22 and related texts, particular from Job and the Psalter, explains the significance of individual body images and their function in the procedure of prayer.
Current Project
I am working on themes of Old Testament anthropology, biblical dimensions of sickness and healing and homiletic issues.
2. Dr. Gönke Eberhardt, Germany
Current Position
Postdoctoral student, affiliated to Prof. Dr. B. Janowski (Tübingen, Germany).
Award Winning Publication
JHWH und die Unterwelt. Spuren einer Kompetenzausweitung JHWHs im Alten Testament
Every form of spiritual practice is based on a certain concept of God. But what if the concept of God does not meet the spiritual needs of the community? When YHWH's religious significance in Ancient Israel continually increased, the relative lack of relation between "the God of Life" and the underworld – and thus between God and the dead – must have appeared deficient at some point. But in the course of time the concept – or rather: the concepts of God – changed remarkably and in many different ways, and the religious practice concerning the dead finally did assert YHWH's powers even in Sheol. The Old Testament still bears witness to these remarkable developments in the history of Israelite religion.
Current Project
Some hundred years after Israel had become a proper Ancient Near Eastern state, YHWH had acquired the status of a national and also of an increasingly universalistic deity. But soon the Babylonian Exile put an end to the dream of Israel as the primary kingdom of the world's highest deity, YHWH. How was this (temporary) 'failing' of a nationalistic concept of God and how were the developments during and after the exile related to the emerging of monotheism? How is the tension between the emphasis on YHWH's 'nationality' and his growing universalism to be interpreted? What political interests exerted influence on the theological idea of the God of Israel? These are some of the questions I am going to deal with in my next research project.
3. Dr. Michael Stephen Hogue, USA
Current Position
Assistant Professor of Theology at Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, IL USA.
Meadville Lombard Theological School
5701 S. Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637
E-Mail:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Award Winning Publication
The Tangled Bank, Wipf and Stock Press 2008.
The Tangled Bank was motivated by concern for the interaction of increasing human power and moral uncertainty in a time of ecological crisis. Bringing this problem into critical view is necessary to register and engage the scope and depth of the ecological crisis as a contemporary moral and religious issue. Through comparative critique of the works of Jewish philosopher Hans Jonas and Christian theologian James M. Gustafson, the book argues toward an ecotheological ethics of responsible participation as one way to respond to this central paradox of our time.
Current Project
I am working at present on a book tentatively entitled Varieties of Religious Ethics and the Vulnerability of Life. Scheduled for publication with Rowman and Littlefield in late 2009, this project develops “critical religious pragmatism” as a promising theoretic option in a time of global moral problems and pluralism.
4. Dr. Henning Hupe, Germany
Current Position
Teaching of religious studies as well as French language and literature at the Schwetzingen Gymnasium near Heidelberg.
c/o Prof. Peter Lampe
Wissenschaftlich-Theologisches Seminar
Kisselgasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
E-Mail:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Award Winning Publication
Lukas' Schweigen. Dekonstruktive Relektüren der „Wir-Stücke“ in Acta, Passagen, Wien 2008.
(Luke's silence - deconstructive re-readings of the "we-passages" in the Acts of the Apostels)
Paul, as portrayed by Luke, acts constantly on account of the Spirit who moves him to action. Paul's freedom in the Spirit is particularly created by Luke’s silence. We encounter "Luke's silence" explicitly in Acts 21:14, where Paul's companions remain silent and cannot prevent Paul from going to Jerusalem, even though he is in danger of losing his life for the sake of Jesus. In this moment of speechless silence, the companions of Paul, indicated in the "we-sections", repeat the guiding motif that shapes the description of Paul's journey from Jerusalem to Rome: The Lord's will be done. My dissertation examines the relational network created by the term "we" on a literary level, arguing for the ethical necessity of refraining from controlling the other. Lukas does not allow himself to limit his description of Paul to a specific profile; instead, he grants him an iridescent authority that protects the freedom of his person, which in this context primarily means the freedom of his spirituality.
Current Project
Jesus and the Ethics of Justice.
5. Dr. Tomi Petteri Karttunen, Finland
Current Position
Lecturer in Systematic Theology, University of Joensuu (Aug 2007-July 2008) and Pastor in Kangasala
PL 111, 80101 Joensuu, Finland
E-Mail:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Award Winning Publication
Die Polyphonie der Wirklichkeit. Erkenntnistheorie und Ontologie in der Theologie Dietrich Bonhoeffers, Theological Publications of the University of Joensuu 11, Joensuu 2004.
This dissertation analyzes the epistemological and ontological basis of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology. In his model Bonhoeffer aimed to do justice both to the intentions of christian revelation theology as well as to scientific standards. The basic premise of Bonhoeffer's work was thus unfolded and the conclusions he drew from this fundamental starting point in his concepts of the church, Christology, and his understanding of the relationship between God and the world were shown. Moreover, Bonhoeffer's efforts to overcome the gap theory and practice with his concept of reality are examined in this work. From the beginning Bonhoeffer pointed out the balanced relationship between the individual and community. In the context of the Third Reich this position lead to an extraordinary challenge to combine spirituality and ethics in obedience to Christ who was a "man-for-others". The title "The Polyphony of the Reality" describes the manner in which Bonhoeffer understood reality in a non-totalitarian way regarding various dimensions of life in the light of the concrete reality of God in Christ.
Current Project
My major project, at the moment, concentrates on the contemporary ecumenical ecclesiology in light of the Trinitarian turn in theology and in the ecumenical movement. My research with Bonhoeffer's works has also opened inspiring views from the perspective of ecumenical theology.
6. Dr. Benjamin Lazier, Israel/USA
Current Position
Assistant Professor of History and Humanities at Reed College, and Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center
Reed College
3703 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland, OR 97202
Stanford Humanities Center
424 Santa Teresa St, Stanford CA 94305
E-Mail:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Award Winning Publication
God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination Between the World Wars (Princeton UP, forthcoming 2008)
God Interrupted is a study of the interwar era and several of its afterlives, approached by means of innovations in theological thinking that were also much more. The book demonstrates how our typical historical accounts of the period need to be revised in light of how Europeans thought about the divine, the problem of heresy above all. It does so, in part, by revisiting the careers of three seminal thinkers, all of them German-Jewish émigrés, whose work evolved out of this milieu: Hans Jonas (a philosopher of biology and inspiration to the German Greens), Leo Strauss (the political philosopher mobilized retroactively by American neo-conservatives), and Gershom Scholem (the scholar of religion who helped reorient ideas about what it means to be a Jew). Last, their example helps us revisit the problem of secularization. They alert us to the ways in which talk about God was adapted for talk about nature and politics, to the ways in which discourses of the divine flourish in the midst of the most apparently secular of pursuits.
Current Project
Earth Undone: A History of Organism and Artifact in the Twentieth-Century
My first book traced how European intellectuals impressed by the interruption of God's call and dismayed by the excesses of modern technology enabled by God's absence sometimes looked to ancient ideas about the autonomy of nature (physis) as an alternative. My current project extends that line of inquiry. It aims to provide a history of twentieth-century answers to the following question: are biological organisms free, endowed with autonomy and purpose, and if so, what are the implications of this idea for how we organize our systems of justice, our politics, our bodies and our human-built world?
7. Dr. Bo Karen Lee, Korea/USA
Current Position
Assistant Professor of Spirituality and Historical Theology
Princeton Theological Seminary
P.O. Box 821, Princeton, NJ 08542-0803
E-Mail:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Award Winning Work
Sacrifice and Desire: The Rhetoric of Self-Denial in the Mystical Theologies of Anna Maria van Schurman and Madame Jeanne Guyon
The book addresses the topic of "God and Spirituality" by re-examining the ancient Christian theme of self-denial through the writings of two seventeenth-century mystics. Van Schurman and Guyon argue that the path to an "immediate and direct consciousness of the presence of God," (i.e., mysticism, as broadly defined by Bernard McGinn), is through the emptying or "denial" of self. Their ultimate goal is profound joy in the presence of God, and they argue that the greatest happiness can be found in a radical surrender (or "sacrifice") of the self to the Divine Other. In an age that promotes individualism and consumerism, this form of self-giving may seem unpalatable; van Schurman and Guyon, however, are after the "summum bonum" - even if reached through a costly "shadow side."
Current Project
I am preparing an article on Hildegard of Bingen for the upcoming "Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology" (to be released in 2010), as well as an article on Madame Guyon's "A Short and Very Easy Method of Prayer" for the forthcoming volume "Christian Spirituality: The Classics", to be published by Routledge.
8. Dr. Hanne Løland, Norway
Current Position
Associate Professor of Old Testament Studies, at MF Norwegian School of Theology
Det teologiske Menighetsfakultet / MF Norwegian School of Theology
Postboks 5144 Majorstua, 0302 Oslo
E-Mail:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Award Winning Publication
Silent or Salient Gender? The Interpretation of Gendered God-Language in the Hebrew Bible, Exemplified in Isaiah 42, 46, and 49, Forschungen zum Alten Testament. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2008.
"If it is not meant that God is male when masculine imagery is used, why the objection when female images are introduced?" (Elizabeth A. Johnson) My dissertation is a study of the gendered god-language (the language used to talk about or to address God) of the Hebrew Bible. Its point of departure is the broader theological and scholarly debate on God, language, and gender. The dissertation examines whether and how gender is salient (of significance) when gendered god-language occurs in a text. This question has, to my knowledge, not been raised so far in Hebrew Bible research. I address this issue both in a methodological section and in readings of three sample texts from Isaiah 40-55. I argue that there is no conceptual difference between god-language formulated in similes or in metaphors. Further, that there is no principal difference between male and female god-language in the Hebrew Bible. These findings are relevant for the contemporary debate concerning god-language – and thus for the broader discourse on God and Spirituality.
Current Projects
I am preparing a paper for the next SBL in Boston 2008, where I am one of the invited speakers in a session organized by the Formation of the Book of Isaiah Group. The theme of the session is: The Place and Function of Chapters 40-55 in the Scroll of Isaiah: A New Look at H. G. M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, Oxford, 1994.
9. Dr. Yujin Nagasawa, Japan/UK
Current Position
Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham
Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the Australian National University
Department of Philosophy
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT
E-Mail:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Website: http://www.philosophy.bham.ac.uk/staff/nagasawa.shtml
Award Winning Publication
God and Phenomenal Consciousness: A Novel Approach to Knowledge Arguments, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008.
The book addresses the topic of "God and Spirituality", by focusing on problems in the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of mind. I maintain that there is a hitherto unrecognised connection between debates on the existence of God in the philosophy of religion and debates on the mystery of phenomenal consciousness, an essential element of spirituality, in the philosophy of mind. I argue that once we recognise the connection between them we can undermine, simultaneously, some of the most powerful arguments against the existence of God and against the physicalist approach to phenomenal consciousness. From the failure of these arguments I derive what I call "nontheoretical physicalism", a novel alternative to the traditional physicalist world view, and consider its implications for numerous issues about the existence of God and spirituality.
Current Project
I am currently working on a book on the history of arguments for the existence of God, which is under contract with Routledge.
10. Dr. Heike Springhart, Germany
Current Position
Postdoctoral teaching assistant to Prof. Dr. Dr. Dr. hc Michael Welker
Pastor of the Evangelical Church of Baden (Pfarrvikarin der badischen Landeskirche).
Wissenschaftlich-Theologisches Seminar
Kisselgasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
E-Mail:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Award Winning Publication
Aufbrüche zu neuen Ufern. Der Beitrag von Religion und Kirche für Demokratisierung und Reeducation im Westen Deutschlands nach 1945, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2008.
The process of Germany's reeducation and democratization in the American perspective was a process in which religion and the churches were expected to play a significant part. My dissertation shows that within the differentiated set of aspects and criteria, it was primarily the image of the church as a source of moral and spiritual resources that led to its prominent role. God and spirituality can be considered metaphors for the dynamics in which reeducation and democratization should take place: the dynamics of stability and certainty on the one hand and of transformation and change on the other hand. Stabilizing continuity and transforming spirituality describe the process of transformation as influenced by religious factors. God can be considered the symbol for lively but stable orientation, for the guarantee of life even with guilt and for the basis for critique. Spirituality can be considered the individual power of a deep certainty and, based on that, the ability to shape changes and create transformation – this being the reason why religion and churches were considered to be significant for the transformation process and for Germany’s spiritual and social reconstruction after 1945.
Current Project
My second dissertation ("Habilitation") deals with the topic of "Dying, Death and Finitude in Systematic-Theological Perspective". I am looking for dogmatic ways of understanding dying and finitude, first with respect to the end of life and secondly under the perspective of finiteness as part of life in general.
11. Dr. Martin Wendte, Germany
Current Position
Akademischer Rat auf Zeit at the Institut für Hermeneutik und Dialog der Kulturen (IHDK), Evangelisch-theologische Fakultät, Universität Tübingen
Liebermeisterstr. 12
72076 Tübingen
E-Mail:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Award Winning Publication
Gottmenschliche Einheit bei Hegel. Eine logische und theologische Untersuchung, Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie (QuStPh) 77, De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007
(The Unity of God and Humanity According to Hegel: A Philosophical and Theological Inquiry)
My dissertation thesis fits the topic of "God and Spirituality" in a threefold way. First, my dissertation explores the Chalcedonian claim, that Jesus Christ is true human and true God in one person, as one of the central contents of Christian spirituality in general and both its Christology and therefore its doctrine of God in particular. Second, because my dissertation reconstructs Chalcedon via Hegel, and because Hegel propagates the sublation of religion in philosophy, my dissertation meets the topic from the point of view of philosophy of religion and concerning the form of spirituality, too: Is religious praxis or philosophical theoria the most appropriate way of approaching God? Third, having discussed this question, my dissertation meets the topic from the point of view of a hermeneutics of certain contemporary discourses on the doctrine of God which is organized around the question whether these discourses are driven by an "implicit Hegelianism".
Current Project
In Luther’s theology of communion, his doctrine of God and creation, his anthropology, his christology, his pneumatology, and his theory of language (etc.) intersect and display one of the deep structures of his theology: the interpenetration of word and object. I first reconstruct Luther’s theology of communion and then connect its deep structure with contemporary philosophical discourse.
12. Dr. Jacob L. Wright, USA
Current Position
Assistant Professor at Emory University in Candler School of Theology and the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies
500 S. Kilgo Circle
Atlanta, Georgia, 30322
E-Mail:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Website: http://www.emory.edu/PROVOST/greatscholars/JacobWright.htm
Award Winning Publication
Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah Memoir and Its Earliest Readers, De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004.
The book of Ezra-Nehemiah portrays how Judah gradually embraced a new form of spirituality in the process of rebuilding her society after the catastrophe of 586 BCE. Without a monarchy and military of their own, the Judeans construct the boundaries of their community in new and imaginative ways – by emphasizing holiness and purity, private and public prayer, the authority of texts, communal consensus, committed leaders, strict Sabbath observance, restrictions on intermarriage, a reclamation of Judah’s native language, and, not least, Temple and Torah-study. Rebuilding Identity examines the composition of this intriguing book, showing how its authors take their point of departure from the Nehemiah Memoir and employ writing as a tool for conceiving and actualizing a new idea of community.
Current Project
My current interest is the society of ancient Israel before it underwent a radical transformation in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. Specifically I am looking at the sundry ways in which war served as a catalyst for social change. My work (forthcoming in Oxford Univ. Press) takes a holistic anthropological approach, examining Israel's experience of war as well as the role it played in shaping her collective memories.
Back to Top 
Winners 
