• Svend Andersen
• Bo Bergholt Grymer
• Bo Kristian Holm (co-ordinator)
• Per Ingesman
• Kirstine Helboe Johansen
• Liselotte Malmgart
• Kjeld Slot Nielsen
• Marie Vejrup Nielsen
• Carsten Bach-Nielsen

• Ulrik Becker Nissen
• Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen
• Christine Svinth-Værge Põder
• Søren Feldtfos Thomsen
• Peter Widmann
• Sasja Emilie Mathiasen
• Agnes Arnórsdóttir
• Nina Koefoed

Svend Andersen has since 2004 worked on the project  "Reconstructing a Lutheran Political Ethics", funded by the Velux Foundation. As part of the project two books have been published: Om verdslig øvrighed. På dansk ved Svend Andersen [On Secular Authority. Danish Translation by Svend Andersen]. Århus 2006, and Macht aus Liebe. Zur Rekonstruktion einer lutherischen politischen Ethik [Love-Based Power. Reconstructing a Lutheran Political Ethics](Berlin: De Gruyter 2010). During the project period a number of Danish and international articles on the political theology of Luther, Martensen, Grundtvig, Kierkegaard, and Troeltsch have been published as well as articles on the political philosophy of John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas.

In Svend Andersen's present research two subjects will fall within the field Reformation Theology: Justification and the Ethics of Neighbor Love - K.E. Løgstrup's Thesis about the Presence of a Metaphysical Concept of God in Luther.

In February 2008 Bo Bergholt Grymer received a 3-year PhD fellowship funded by The Danish Council for Independent Research, Humanities (FKK). His PhD project with the title “Faith and Ontology. An examination of the ontological dimension in Lutheran theology in the light of Oswald Bayer and K.E. Løgstrup” examines the possibility of speaking of ontology within a Lutheran theological framework. In addition to his project, Bo Bergholt Grymer has participated in the organisation and running of the conference “Reformation Theology: Reception and Transformation”, which was held on August 21-24, 2009 at Aarhus University’s Faculty of Theology.

Bo Kristian Holm is the author of a number of works about Luther and Lutheran theology. Several have been focusing on the use of the concept of gift giving in the interpretation of Luther and in comtemporary Lutheran theology, as in Gabe und Geben bei Luther. Das Verhältnis zwischen Reziprozität und reformatorischer Rechtfertigungslehre (Berlin: de Gruyter 2006), "Luther’s Theology of the Gift"  in The Gift of Grace. The Future of Lutheran Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress 2005) and "Purified Reciprocity in Martin Luther and John Milbank“ in Word – Gift – Being (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2009). He has been leader of the research project “Reformation theology – Reception and Transformatin” 2007-2009. He is vice-precident for Luther-Akademie Sondershausen-Ratzeburg e.V, member of the steering committee for the Nordic Luther Network and member of the network "Gabe. Beiträge der Theologie zu einem interdisziplinären Forschungsfeld". He is also co-ordinator of the present network ”Reformation theology”.

Bo Kristian Holm's actual research focuses on the concept of theology in Luther and Melanchthon, the theological potentiality of the concept of the gift, and the reception of reformation theology in the 20th century.

Per Ingesman, born 1953, dr.phil., is Professor of Church History at Aarhus University, Denmark. His main area of research is Danish and European ecclesiastical history in the late medieval and early modern period. At present he is doing research on changes in ecclesiastical discipline at the Reformation and on the consequences for canon law of the Reformation. He has written numerous articles and two books: Ærkesædets godsadministration i senmiddelalderen (1990) and Provisioner og processer. Den romerske Rota og dens behandling af danske sager i middelalderen (2003). He has co-edited fifteen anthologies on a wide range of topics within medieval and modern history and church history, among these Reformation: religion og politik. Fyrsternes personlige rolle i de europæiske reformationer (2003). He is leader of a research network for historians and church historians working on the history of the Christian Church and Christian religion in Denmark.

In the autumn 2009 Kirstine Helboe Johansen was awarded a PhD degree in theology. With the dissertation The Necessary Balance: a Ritual Theoretical and Practical Theological Analysis of the Sunday Service of the Church of Denmark between Magic and Symbol Kirstine Helboe Johansen investigated the Sunday Service of the Church of Denmark and discussed selected views on ritual within Lutheran theology. With practical theology as the main field of study, Kirstine Helboe Johansen has worked with both the traditional rituals and newer rituals within the Church of Denmark, discussing how it is possible to integrate a positive view on rituals in a Lutheran theology. Thus, the primary interest regards the present religious landscape as a challenge for Lutheran theology and in light of this, the possibilities of reformulating central Lutheran ideas.

Kirstine Helboe Johansen works partly on a project analysing the understanding of ritual among pastors and bridal couples, partly on a project investigating the experience of certain elements of the Sunday service among church attendants. Both projects are a study of tendencies in the present religious landscape which the Lutheran theology must discuss.

Liselotte Malmgart has written on Danish Church History in the 19th and 20th century, focusing on Christian social work and the church-state relationship. She is member of the board for the European research project ”The Dynamics of Religious Reform in Church, State and Society in Northern Europe, c.1780 – c.1920” (2006-2012) where teams of religious historians from across northern Europe are looking at the major aspects of the changes in the church-state relationship, comparing historical developments and Lutheran-Reformed-Catholic perspectives.

Liselotte Malmgart is planning a research project about the Danish Church and the Cold War. In this period the debate on the political voice of the Church was influenced by the Lutheran two kingdoms doctrine.

Kjeld Slot Nielsen                             

Kjeld Slot Nielsen finished his Master of Theology with a thesis on the trinitarian theologies of Karl Barth, Wolfhart Pannenberg and Robert W. Jenson. Since 2000 Kjeld Slot Nielsen has been a minister in The Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark. In 2007 he was enrolled as a PhD student at The Faculty of Theology in Aarhus.

Kjeld Slot Nielsen’s PhD project: ”God as the power og being and God as person in the late theology of K.E. Løgstrup and in recent Trinitarian theology” reads Løgstrup’s theology as a modern, critical attempt to maintain Martin Luther’s concepts of deus absconditus (God as the power of being) and deus revalatus (God as person). His thinking is discussed in the light of Wolfhart Pannenbergs understanding of the monarchy of the Father, God’s relatedness and otherness in the theology of Christoph Schwöbel and Robert W. Jenson’s concept of dramatic coherence.

Marie Vejrup Nielsen's main area of research is the history and development of Christianity, focusing on the 20th and 21 century, primarily in a Danish context, but also in global setting. She works with the representation of Lutheran identity within different areas such as media, research and the self-representation of the evangelical-Lutheran church (Folkekirken). In addition, she analyzed the transformation of the activity pattern in this church in the article "Transformations of Church Christianity in Denmark today", 2009, Religious Science Journal, No. 53, p. 63-79. She is editor of e-yearbook “Religion in Denmark”, published by the Centre for Contemporary Religion, Faculty of Theology, University of Aarhus.

In the context of this research network (Reception and Transformation of the Lutheran Reformation), Marie Vejrup Nielsen is working on a project on Lutheran identity, as it is represented in parts of the public debate in Denmark, specifically in the debates in selected Danish newspapers, where representations of “Luther” or “Lutheran” are invoked in discussions about Danish culture and society.

Carsten Bach-Nielsen is specializing in early modern and modern church history. He has intensively investigated problems in early Lutheran iconography, book printing, book production, and book illustration. Furthermore his contributions to church history have been in the field of “histories” – of mentality, culture, and social life in the Lutheran camp as well as in Roman Catholic Europe.
Carsten Bach-Nielsen was a co-editor of the book Reformation: Religion og politik, Aarhus 2003. Together with Bishop Jan Lindhardt he took the initiative to plan the fifth centenary of the Reformation in Denmark in 2007. This was done within the framework of the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs until 2010. In 2011 Carsten Bach-Nielsen published an article on the fourth centenary of the Reformation in Denmark in 1917; he is preparing a monograph on the jubilees and centenaries of the Reformation through the ages in the Danish Realm. 

Throughout the last fifteen years, Ulrik Becker Nissen has worked on various aspects of Luther’s ethics, particularly his notion of natural law and its implications for his political thought. Ulrik Becker Nissen has published several articles in different languages, e.g. „Martin Luthers und Philipp Melanchthons Verständnis vom natürlichen Gesetz“, in: Luther between Present and Past. Studies in Luther and Lutheranism, red. af/ed. by Ulrik Nissen, Anna Vind, Bo Holm and Olli-Pekka Vainio. 2004. Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Society, 208-234 and “Lutheran Natural Law Thought in the Nordic Countries in the 21st Century”, i Lisbet Christoffersen, Kjell A. Modéer og Svend Andersen (red.), Nordic Perspectives on Law & Religion in the 21st Century. New Life in the Ruins. Pluralistic Renewal in a Lutheran Setting. Forthcoming. Leuven, Peeters

Ulrik Becker Nissen’s current research focuses on Luther’s social ethics pertaining to recent and contemporary Lutheran social ethics. It is the aim hereby to contribute to a renewed understanding of the foundations of Lutheran social ethics hoping hereby to provide a significant contribution to the contemporary debate on the relation between religion and politics. During the last few years Ulrik Becker Nissen’s research has turned towards an interest in employing Luther’s ethics with regard to bioethical issues.

Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen has over the past 25 years published widely on Bernard of Clairvaux and Cistercian theology as well as on modern Lutheran theology and ecclesiology, such as for example ”Lutheran Theologies Today – Custodians of the Past or Guides to the Future?” in For All People. Global Theologies in Contexts (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2002). In recent years, she focused on the relation between Bernard’s and Luther’s theology, as in the articles such as “’Ein furtrefflicher Munch’: Luther and the Living out of Faith” in Luther und das monastische Erbe (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2007), and “The Significance of the Sola Fide and the Sola Gratia in the Theology of Bernard of Clairvaux and Martin Luther” in Luther Bulletin (2009). Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen was member of The Lutheran World Federation’s ecclesiology group. She was one of the leading initiators behind the research project “Reformed Theology – Reception and Transformation” as also one of the organizers of its concluding conference in 2009. She is active in a loose international network working with the relation between Bernard and the reformers’, especially Luther’s, theology, and is a member of the Nordic Luther Network.

In her present research Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen concentrates on the theological focus of Bernard and the Cistercians seen in relation to its reception and transformation in the theology of Luther and the 20th century Lutherans. Specifically, the relations between the theology of love and the theology of the cross and between mysticism and everyday theology are at the centre of this research.

Christine Svinth-Værge Põder defended 2007 her PhD dissertation Doxological Hiddenness. The Fundamental Theological Significance of Prayer in Karl Barth's Work (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2009). Here she employs a concept of reciprocity as a key to the late theology of Barth. Other publications on similar topics are ”De skjulte erfaringsstrukturer i Karl Barths sene teologi” (“The Hidden Structures of Experience in the Late Theology of Karl Barth”) in DTT 71, 2008:4 and ”Reziprozität im Gebet: Die Dialektik des Gebens und Empfangens bei Karl Barth” (“Reciprocity in Prayer”) in Word – Gift – Being (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2009).

Presently, Christine Svinth-Værge Põder is working on a research project financed by the Carlsberg Foundation on the reception of Luther‘s Lectures on Romans in the reformation theology of the 20th century, focusing particularly on the Luther Renaissance and The Dialectical Theology. The project aims at examining the problems of the negative structures as well as the positive potentials of this reception history.

Søren Feldtfos Thomsen is a PhD student at the Department for the Study of Religion, Aarhus University. His primary area of research is early modern Christianity, focusing in particular on the relationship between the established churches and deviant groupings in the period covering the Reformation through the Age of Confessionalization and up to the Enlightenment. Since 2008 Søren Feldtfos Thomsen has been working on the project ‘’Antagonistic Encounters: Deviance and Conformity in Early Modern German Lutheranism’.

Peter Widmann is retired as professor in dogmatics and former dean of the Faculty of Theology. Among his publications is Thetische Theologie (München: Chr. Kaiser 1982). He has published numerous articles on Luther and Lutheran Theology. He habilitation He has been co-editor of The Gift of Grace: The Future of Lutheran Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2005) og Word - Gift - Being (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2009). Han has been co-organising several conferences on contemporary and future Lutheran Theology, and was co-initiator to the creation of the research group "Reformation Theology".

As participant in the research group "Reformation Theology" Peter Widmann is working on a reformulation of the "prostestant principle".

 
 
 Sasja Emilie Mathiasen

Sasja Emilie Mathiasen is a PhD Student at the Section for Systematic Theology and is working on the project “Soli Deo Gloria -  A study of the concept of honour in the works of Martin Luther” which aims to explore the Lutheran concept of honour by examining its influence on Luther’s understanding of the relationship between God and man and on the Lutheran comprehension of life in the earthly realm. The project carries out an analysis of the concept of honour in selected works of Luther and wishes to expose the influence exerted on Luther’s concept of honour by the understanding of honour among Luther’s contemporaries. Furthermore, the project seeks to interpret Luther’s concept of honour in light of recent sociological and anthropological theories of honour. On the basis of a debate about the relevance of the concept of honour in modernity, the project intends to discuss which role the concept of honour has to play in a contemporary Lutheran theology.

Agnes Arnórsdóttir      

Agnes Arnórsdóttir is Associate professor in European and Danish medieval history at the Department of History, Aarhus University. She has written the dissertation "Property and Virginity. The Christianization of Marriage in Medieval Island 1200-1600", published by Aarhus University Press in 2010, and has previously worked on the religious culture of the Late Middle Ages and medieval memory and donation culture. Agnes Arnórsdottir has published books on women and gender history and has been an active participant in several Nordic and international networks about Medieval Studies.

Agnes Arnórsdóttir's current research relating to the reformation focuses on wills and donation culture in the 15th and 16th century and on how the Reformation might have changed the medieval idea of parenthood. The inspiration for those studies is mainly drawn from the field of Anthropological studies of medieval legal culture and from the history of emotion.

Nina Koefoed 

Nina Koefoed is Associated Professor at the Section of History, Aarhus University. Her main research- and teaching obligations are in Danish and European History between 1750 and 1914. She holds a PhD on the thesis “Promiscuous Women and Unloving Fathers. Gender, legal right and sexuality in 18^th century Denmark”. In the thesis she analyzes the importance of the Lutheran orthodoxy both for the legitimacy of the absolutist king and as a guiding line for regulation of marriage and sexuality. She has also written a number of articles on regulation of marriage and sexuality, construction of gender and sexuality and on the formation of democracy and citizenship.

Currently Nina Koefoed is working on a project on the practical importance of the Lutheran ideals for household and parenthood during the Danish absolutism, 1660-1848.