Members
Hannah M. Strømmen is Senior Lecturer in Bible, Politics, and Culture at Lund University, and leads the ‘Scripture and Secularism’ project.
Hannah’s research focuses on contemporary uses and interpretations of the Bible in philosophy, literature and politics. She is particularly interested in the way the Bible functions outside traditionally conceived religious spaces. In the ‘Scripture and Secularism’ project Hannah provides a major study of the role of scripture for conceptions of Europe as uniquely secular and Christian, focusing especially on how biblical texts are interpreted as foundational for the very idea of the ‘secular’.
Samuel Auler is a PhD student in Bible, Politics, and Culture and New Testament Exegesis at Lund University.
Samuel’s primary research interest lies in the intersection of politics and religion, with a particular focus on the Global South. As part of the ‘Scripture and Secularism’ project, his work centers on mapping qualitatively and quantitatively the use of the Bible in Brazilian Congressional speeches. His research illuminates how religious texts are mobilized within contemporary democratic institutions and it addresses a critical gap in biblical reception studies by foregrounding a Global South context, offering an account of how Bible-use intersects with state secularity, religious influence, and rising political polarization in Brazil.
Joel Kuhlin is a Researcher in Bible, Politics, and Culture at Lund University.
Ever since European Enlightenment ideology helped kick-start the scientific scrutiny of the Bible and modern New Testament exegesis, questions of secularism have been entangled with academic interpretation of Holy Scripture. In Joel’s sub-project, he intends to analyze the ways in which current scholarship on the figure of Jesus and the canonical gospels, particularly in northern Europe, partakes in the epistemic context and expression of contemporary secularism.
Hanna Liljefors is a Researcher in Bible, Politics, and Culture at Lund University
Hanna’s research interests focus on how biblical texts are interpreted, depicted, and used in various parts of the public sphere, such as in the press or on social media. She is particularly interested in how bible-use creates legitimacy, identity, and reproduces relations of dominance. Within the project, she focuses on bible-use in Swedish political discourse.
Frida Mannerfelt is a Researcher in Bible, Politics, and Culture at Lund University
As a practical theologian, Frida is particularly interested in various kinds of individual and collective religious (Christian) practices from a theological perspective. In the Scripture and secularism project, she studies how churches and religious leaders contribute to the construction – and deconstruction – of ideas of a secular, democratic society or culture grounded in Christian heritage in contrast to the religious other.
One of Mannerfelt’s projects aims to examine how conceptions of the secular and the Bible relate to one another in public debate in Swedish daily newspapers during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The study analyzes three debates, all connected to legislative proposals and each highlighting different understandings of the secular and the Bible: the debate surrounding the revision of abortion legislation in 1975, the debate on partnership legislation in 1995, and the debate related to the temporary law restricting the right to asylum in 2016 (during the so-called refugee crisis).
If you have questions about the project, or if you have written a contribution to any of these debates and wish to have your text excluded, please contact Frida Mannerfelt at frida.mannerfelt@ctr.lu.se .
Ett av Mannerfelts projekt syftar till att undersöka hur föreställningar om det sekulära och Bibeln relaterar till varandra i offentlig debatt i svenska dagstidningar under senare delen av 1900-talet och början av 2000-talet. I studien analyseras tre debatter som alla relaterar till ett lagförslag och som aktualiserar olika föreställningar om det sekulära och Bibeln, nämligen debatten i samband med den förändrade abortlagstiftningen 1975, debatten i samband med förändrad lagstiftning om partnerskap 1995, samt debatten i samband med den tillfälliga lagen om begränsning i asylrätten 2016 (under den så kallade flyktingkrisen).
Har du frågor om projektet, eller om du har skrivit ett inlägg i någon av de aktuella debatterna och önskar få ditt inlägg exkluderat, kontakta Frida Mannerfelt frida.mannerfelt@ctr.lu.se
Ely Orrego Torres is a Researcher in Bible, Politics, and Culture at Lund University
As a political scientist interested in international relations and political theory, Ely focuses on the complex intersections between religion and politics. In the “Scripture and Secularism” project, she investigates the politics of religious freedom and secularism in the Americas in recent years by devoting attention to transnational and regional networks, particularly religio-spiritual actors participating in the Organization of American States (OAS) as well as in domestic political arenas in countries such as Peru, Uruguay, and Guatemala.