With its principle of “Sola Scriptura” (Scripture alone), the Reformation movement of the 16th century made a radical claim: the Bible should be the sole and unambiguous source of what is authoritative in Christianity. But does this claim actually hold water? How clear is the Bible? Historian Volker Leppin from Yale University will address this question and the Reformation conflicts that arose on 22 June at the University of Münster’s Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”. Read more

Alfred Bodenheimer, Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Basel and professor of Jewish literary and religious history, is the 2026 Hans Blumenberg Professor at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” in Münster. He will speak at the Cluster on Tuesday 16 June 2026 on how historical and, in part, biblical events or models of behaviour are used to justify Jewish actions today. The evening lecture is titled “Forward into the Past: Contemporary Jewish Self-Definitions in the Grip of Historical Analogies”.Read more

The research project ‘News from China? –  Knowledge-ressources, Knowledge-acquisition and Knowledge-transfer of Missionaries in China in the 19./20. Century’ at the Cluster of Excellence ‘Religion and Politics’ addresses the key question of for what purpose and in what context Christian missionaries acquired so-called ‘knowledge of China’ during the period in question. Sinologist and project leader Kerstin Storm and doctoral candidate Lisa Kerl report on their work with the sources and their findings on how knowledge was transferred to individuals, groups and institutions across nations.
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