Associate Professor, Department of Systematic Theology, Faculty of Theology, University of Aarhus.

Project: "God's own peoples?"

As a religious text the Bible has the potential to sacralize political autonomy and its ideas about national identity, nationalism, and nation state. The crucial thing is what people think about ethnic identity, rather than what the actual circumstances are. The Bible can thus embody political importance and play an essential role in the construction of states. This is evident from the process of nation building in the US and Israel, where the Bible plays an essential role for national identity.

The research project will deal with the political importance in the US and Israel of the Biblical idea of the Chosen People. Part of the research project will look at the role of the idea of "chosenness" in Palestinian Christian theology. The project can be seen as a contribution to research on the role of religion in contemporary peace and conflict resolution.