The conference brings together theologians, religious studies scholars, anthropologists and political scientists from Indonesia and Germany to share academic research on Islam and Christianity within religiously plural societies. Scholars from Indonesia together with Scholars from Germany will engage in in-depth conversation on recent scholarship, broaden theological perspectives and further delve into academic research within an interreligious and intercultural setting.

The following speakers will participate in the conference, 'The Role of Islam and Christianity in Public Space: Perspectives from Indonesia and Germany'. It is sorted alphabetically by surname.

Zainal Abidin Bagir

Zainal Abidin Bagir the director of the Indonesian Consortium for Inter-religious Studies and teaches religious studies at the Graduate School of Universitas Gadjah Mada. His main interests are the issue of democratic management of religious diversity and religion and ecology.

Suhadi Cholil

Suhadi Cholil is currently a senior lecturer at the Graduate School of the State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He graduated from a doctorate program at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The primary area of Suhadi’s scholarly focus is interreligious relations. He also engages in the study of Islam (and other religions) in relation to contemporary issues. Outside his academic works, he involved deeply in the Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia, at the Yogyakarta province level.

Hans-Peter Großhans

Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Grosshans is Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the Institute for Ecumenical Theology at the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the University of Münster in Germany. At Münster university he is member of the interdisciplinary Cluster of Excellence on “Religion and Politics” since 2009. He has a longer relation with Indonesian places of Christian theological studies and also with Indonesian Christian churches. In 2017 he gave a lecture tour through quite some Indonesian universities on the global significance of the Reformation, which was organised by the German Embassy in Jakarta.

Noorhaidi Hasan

Noorhaidi Hasan is the Rector of Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and a leading scholar in the field of Islam and politics. He earned his PhD in Social Anthropology from Utrecht University, and has since played a pivotal role in shaping contemporary Islamic studies in Indonesia. Widely recognized for his incisive analyses of political Islam, religious pluralism, and Muslim youth culture, he has held senior academic leadership roles and served as a visiting professor at prominent universities across Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Nor Ismah

Nor Ismah is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Religion and Globalisation Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She also serves as Director of the Center for Islamic Law and Ethics of Mubadalah (CILEM) at Siber Syekh Nurjati State Islamic University, Cirebon, Indonesia. Her research explores the intersection of gender studies, women’s knowledge production, media, and Islam in the Indonesian context.

Catharina Jabss

Catharina Jabss is a research assistant at the Institute for Ethics and Related Social Sciences at the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the University of Münster. Her research focuses on political and social ethics, religious policy, and Protestantism in Europe. She recently completed her doctoral dissertation on theology in European spaces, which will be published next spring.

Mouhanad Khorchide

Mouhanad Khorchide is Professor of Islamic Religious Education as well as Professor of the Qur’an and Qur’anic Exegesis, and he has been Director of the Center for Islamic Theology at the University of Münster since 2012. Together with Angelika Neuwirth and Dirk Hartwig, he leads the Qur’anic commentary project Corpus Coranicum Commentary. He also heads several research initiatives, including Islam and Politics, Critical Masculinity Studies, and Aesthetic Approaches to Islam. Khorchide is working on establishing an Islamic theology of mercy.

Mery Kolimon

Mery Kolimon did her her PhD study at Protestant Theological University in the Netherlands. She is now teaching Missiology, Contextual Theology, and Feminist Theology at Artha Wacana Christian University in Kupang, West Timor. Besides, she is active as member and former coordinator of Eastern Indonesia Women Network for Study on Women, Religion, and Culture (JPIT). Her research interest includes church mission, feminism, and theology of human rights.

Dyah Ayu Krismawati

Dyah Ayu Krismawati is Executive Secretary for Asia Region and member of Management Team of United Evangelical Mission (UEM). She is pastor of the East Java Christian Church and interested in intercultural theology, interfaith dialogue, media, and communication.

Septemmy Eucharistia Lakawa

Septemmy Eucharistia Lakawa is a professor of Mission Studies and Trauma Theology at Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Theologi Jakarta (Jakarta Theological Seminary), Indonesia. Her research interests are in blue missiology, feminist intercultural theology of trauma, aesthetics of healing, eco-faith, and ethics of sustainability.

Izak Lattu

Rev. Prof. Izak Y. M. Lattu, Ph.D., Professor of Theology and Sociology of Religion, the Dean of the Faculty of Theology, Satya Wacan Christian University, Salatiga, Indonesia. He is a regular Visiting Professor of Interreligious Dialogue at Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS), Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia. His recent book chapter, “From Dialogue to Engagements: Sociology of Interreligious Relationships,” appears in Interreligious in Southeast Asia: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects (Compose 2025).

Samsul Maarif

Samsul Maarif is the head of the MA program in Religious and Cross-cultural Studies, Graduate School, Universitas Gadjah Mada. He has been involved in establishing collaborations and coalitions for social activism on religious freedom, state recognition for indigenous religions, and ecological justice. His research interests include everyday religion, religious environmental movement, decoloniality, indigenous religions, and social activism.

Jacklevyn Frits Manuputty

Rev. Jacklevyn Frits Manuputty is General Chairperson of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI) for the 2024–2029 term. A pastor of the Protestant Church in Maluku, he holds a Master’s in Muslim-Christian Relations and received an Honorary Doctorate from Hartford Seminary in 2021. His work centers on peacebuilding, interfaith cooperation, and multicultural education, shaped by years of national and international engagement in religious dialogue.

Burhanuddin Muhtadi

Burhanuddin Muhtadi serves as a Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Jakarta, and is also a Visiting Senior Fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore. His areas of research focus on political Islam, democratic studies, political representation, and clientelism.

Antje Roggenkamp

Antje Roggenkamp has been Professor of Practical Theology and Religious Education at the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Münster since 2015. Her research interests lies in the areas of materiality and practical theory. She also examines the history, origins, and development of religious education, incorporating forms of denominational and, increasingly, interfaith and co-denominational instruction. She is currently working on a project exploring the potential of co-faith instruction in church and state schools in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Saskia Schäfer

Saskia Schäfer currently leads two interdisciplinary research groups funded by the Volkswagen Foundation: one examining democracy and religion in Southeast Asia and Turkey, and another focused on combating antisemitism and racism through religious literacy in civic education in Germany. Saskia's book on the rise of religious nationalism in Indonesia, "Mobilizing Mainstream Islam," will be published by Cornell University Press in January 2026.

Mohamad Nur Kholis Setiawan

Mohamad Nur Kholis Setiawan is a Professor of Islamic Studies at the State Islamic University (UIN) Purwokerto, Indonesia. He obtained his Ph. D. from the University of Bonn and his master’s degree from Leiden University. He undertook postdoctoral and professorship researches in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Between 2012-2020 he served a government official at the Ministry of Religious Affairs as Director of Madrasah Education, Inspecture General and Secretary General.

Robert Setio

Robert Setio is Professor of Theology and currently serves as Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Universitas Kristen Duta Wacana, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He teaches courses in Biblical Hermeneutics, Ideological Criticism, and Interreligious Hermeneutics. His recent research focuses on ancestor veneration and the decolonization of theology and biblical studies.

Simone Sinn

Simone Sinn is Professor of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology at the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the University of Münster. Prior to this position she served as Professor of Ecumenical Theology at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, an institute which is part of the World Council of Churches and affiliated to the theological faculty of the University of Geneva. Her research focus is on the role of religious actors and religious narratives in public space, and the impact of interreligious and intercultural cooperation.

Thomas Stodulka

Thomas Stodulka is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at University Münster. His work focuses on affect, emotion, marginalization, and stigma, decolonial feminist thought and collaborative methods, mental health, and environmental pedagogies. He has studied with marginalized communities in Indonesia, and eco-social (permaculture) movements in Timor-Leste for over two decades.

Sahiron Syamsuddin

Sahiron Syamsuddin is a professor of Qur’anic Studies at Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He was vice-rector in charge of administrative, planning and financial aspects (2016-2024) and director of Graduate School at the university (2024). Now (since December 24, 2024) he has been director of Islamic Higher Education in the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia.

Ferdiansyah Thajib

Ferdiansyah Thajib is a Senior Lecturer at Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen-Nürnberg, and a social and cultural anthropologist focusing on psychological anthropology and gender and sexuality studies in Southeast Asia. He is co-editor of Affective Dimensions of Fieldwork and Ethnography (Springer, 2019) and Embracing Faith and Desire: Queer and Feminist Engagements with Islam and Christianity as Lived Religions (Routledge, 2025).

Fahimah Ulfat

Fahimah Ulfat is Professor of Islamic Religious Education and Didactics at the University of Münster. Her research focuses on interreligious learning, Jewish-Muslim relations, empirical studies on concepts of belief and gender, teacher professionalism, and discrimination-critical education.

Alissa Wahid

Alissa Wahid is a trained Psychologist but well-known for her active work in democracy, diversity, and interfaith cooperations and empowerment. She specializes in strategic plannings and transformation program designs. Alissa directs Gusdurian Network Indonesia to promote interfaith dialogue, advocate for FoRB and minority rights, and religious moderation. In Nahdlatul Ulama (Indonesia's biggest faith-based organization) she is the first female Co-Chair in the Executive Board, serving its more than 50 million Moslem members.

Frans Wijsen

Frans Wijsen is Professor Emeritus, Department of Empirical Religious Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and Adjunct Professor, Graduate School, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. His research focuses on Faith - Based Images of Human – Nature Relationships and Greening Islam in Indonsia.

Speakers