Persecution for God’s Sake
Politico-religious Conflicts in the Pre-Modern and Modern Age
Tuesdays, from 6.15 to 7.45 p.m., Lecture hall F2 at the Fürstenberghaus, Domplatz 20-22
The persecution of heretics, for the sake of their religion, is a phenomenon that, in the secular modern age, was believed to have been overcome. This turned out to be a delusion. What heretics were made to experience at different times on behalf of the majority society and what they are still experiencing today ranges from more or less rigid discrimination, social exclusion and the demolition of sacred sites to physical destruction. As far as this is concerned, members of one and the same religion may act as persecutor on one occasion and be the persecuted on the next. This applies to Christianity as well as to many other religions. The reasons for persecuting “for God’s sake”, therefore, cannot be found in religion alone – rather, they need to be reconstructed from the individual historical overall context.
The public lecture series looks into the discrimination and persecution of heretics across medieval and modern history. Topics range from the Christian fight against heresy in the early Middle Ages and the confessional conflicts of the early modern age to the struggle between church and state in the GDR as well as the persecution of Buddhists in communist Cambodia. Representatives from various disciplines – from history, religious studies, sociology, theology, book science, Romance and Byzantine studies – will take the floor.
Programme
| 09.04.2013 | Gerd Althoff, Münster | Beata persecutio. Verfolgung der „Bösen“ als Akt der Liebe und des Erbarmens (5.-13. Jahrhundert) |
| 16.04.2013 | Detlef Pollack, Münster | Der Triumph des Kommunismus über das Christentum: Kirchenkampf in der DDR |
| 23.04.2013 | Michael Grünbart, Münster | Häresiebekämpfung im byzantinischen Mittelalter |
| 30.04.2013 | Ulrich Pfister, Münster | Italienischer Späthumanismus und reformierte Konfessionalisierung. Die welschen Exulanten, 2. Hälfte 16. Jahrhundert |
| 07.05.2013 | Ian Harris, Carlisle | Buddhism under Pol Pot: Monk Mortality and Ideological Absorption |
| 14.05.2013 | Max Deeg, Cardiff | Unsanftes Erwachen – antibuddhistische Polemik und reale Buddhistenverfolgung im frühmittelalterlichen China |
| 28.05.2013 | Gabriele Müller-Oberhäuser, Münster | „Bloody Bonner“: Bischof Edmund Bonner und die Verfolgung der Protestanten unter Maria I. von England (1553-1558) |
| 04.06.2013 | Johannes Heil, Heidelberg | Differenz, Kohabitation und Konflikt – Juden und Christen im Mittelalter |
| 11.06.2013 | Thomas Scharff, Braunschweig | „Rex, quem Deus ipse docet“. Häresie und Königtum in der Karolingerzeit |
| 18.06.2013 | Bernard Heyberger, Paris | Verfolgung, Diskriminierung und Zusammenleben: Christen im Nahen Osten (17.-21 Jahrhundert) |
| 25.06.2013 | Karin Westerwelle, Münster | Zensur und freie Rede. Montaignes Essais im religionspolitischen Kontext |
| 02.07.2013 | Scott Hendrix, Princeton | Luthers Bauernkrieg. Realpolitik oder Politik ohne Barmherzigkeit? |
| 09.07.2013 | Hans-Werner Goetz, Hamburg | Wahrnehmung anderer Religionen im mittelalterlichen Christentum |
Summer Semester 2013
Tuesdays,18.15 bis 19.45 Uhr
Lecture hall F2 at the Fürstenberghaus
Domplatz 20-22
48143 Münster
Lecture series of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” in cooperation with the Centrum für Mittelalter- und Frühneuzeitforschung (Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, CMF).