Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise Theology: Distinction for Ten Young Scholars
Press Release No. 41/2025
7 May 2025
Presentation of “Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise”
Ten young scholars from Lithuania, the Netherlands, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the USA are to be honored for their outstanding dissertations or first postdoctoral book publication on the topic of “God and Spirituality”. They have been selected to receive the “Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise”, which comes with prize money of 3,000 euros each. To mark the occasion, the Research Center for International and Interdisciplinary Theology (FIIT) of Ruperto Carola is hosting an award ceremony on Friday 9 May 2025. A colloquium featuring the prize-winners will follow, with participants including FIIT members and some of the 20 international referees who evaluated the scholarly publications submitted.
The award ceremony will be opened by the Rector of Heidelberg University, Prof. Dr Frauke Melchior, followed by greetings from Prof. Dr Jan Stievermann, Dean of the Faculty of Theology, and FIIT Director Prof. Dr Dr Michael Welker. Markus Lautenschläger will speak on behalf of the prize donor, Honorary Senator Dr h.c. Manfred Lautenschläger, and his foundation. Then three Heidelberg theologians will present the recipients and their publications, before the prizes are awarded. The keynote lecture in English entitled “On the relationship between body, mind and community in old age and at the end of life: a cultural anthropological reflection” will be given by Prof. Dr Andreas Kruse, long-standing director of the Institute of Gerontology and Senior Professor Distinctus at Heidelberg University.
Those receiving the distinction for 2025 are Vilius Bartninkas (Vilnius University), Alyssa Evans (Princeton Theological Seminary), Isaac (Yitz) Landes (Princeton University), Mark Lester (Yale University), Nadia Marais (Stellenbosch University), Justin Reed (Princeton Theological Seminary), Jonathan Torrance (University of Cambridge), Christine Trotter (University of Chicago) and An-Ting Yi (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). During the colloquium they will present future research projects and discuss them with the referees and members of the Research Center for International and Interdisciplinary Theology.
The “Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise” goes annually to ten young scholars from all over the world working in different disciplines, such as theology, philosophy, religious studies, ethics and related subjects.
Note for newsrooms
The presentation of this year’s “Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise” will be held on 9 May 2025 in the Great Hall of the Old University, starting at 3pm. Representatives of the media are warmly invited to attend and report on it. The colloquium with the prize-winners will take place from 10 to 12 May in the International Academic Forum of Heidelberg University. If you would like to attend and report on this event, the organizers ask that you please register by calling +49 6221 54-3393 or by sending an email to fiit.sekretariat@ts.uni-heidelberg.de.