Farewell symposium for Prof Heleen Zorgdrager: Activist Theology. Resilient Bodies in Solidarity

Dr Orysya Bila is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, where she also serves as Director of the Master’s Programme in Theology. Her teaching and research focus on contemporary European philosophy, religious philosophy and ethics under conditions of war and crisis. Her recent work explores the intersection of moral resilience, justice and hope in wartime Ukraine, drawing on Hannah Arendt and Avishai Margalit. She is involved in several international academic networks, including the European Society of Women in Theological Research.

Prof Dr Mariecke van den Berg is Professor of Religion, Gender and Sexuality at VU Amsterdam, and holds the endowed chair of Feminism and Christianity (Catharina Halkes Chair) at Radboud University Nijmegen. Her research focuses on religion, gender and sexuality in public debates, as well as queer and feminist theology. She uses art and popular culture as hermeneutical lenses for reading biblical texts and is equally interested in the afterlives of biblical motifs in contemporary popular culture. Her current research focuses on religious and ecclesial boredom: how the dullness of exclusionary theologies and practices can lead to religious disaffiliation, but also how boredom may serve as a tool for change. Mariecke is an editor of the international journal Religion and Gender and a board member of the Dutch Society of Queer Theologians.

Dr Klaas Bom is Associate Professor of Dogmatics and Intercultural Theology and Director of the MA programmes at the Protestant Theological University. His research themes include theological anthropology (epistemology, will and grace), Blaise Pascal, an intercultural approach to the science–religion interface, and Latin American Pentecostal theology.

Renate Japenga MA graduated in 2023 with a thesis on the subject of Whiteness. In 2024 she began serving as minister in the Protestant Church de Ontmoetingskerk in Gouda. Her theological interests include Ecumenism, Feminism, Womanism, Queer, Postcolonial and Liberation Theology. 

She lives in Schoonhoven with three children; her husband is lovingly remembered. 

Donate Philbert-Nieveld, MSc, was trained as a Speech, Ear, and Voice therapist and worked on Curaçao, Bonaire, and St. Maarten. She held management roles in the government, including positions at the Civil Registry of Curacao and the Employment and Income Service. Since November 2023, she has been part of the research project 'Church and Slavery in the Dutch Empire: History, Theology & Heritage,' funded by the NWO. Her work focuses on the theological, historical, and heritage aspects of colonial legacies and church complicity. She researches Church and Slavery from the perspective of enslaved Africans in Curaçao and Suriname, emphasizing their agency, faith, and heritage during 1848-1873.  

Noud Fortuin -van der Mik is a diaconal community worker at Stek in The Hague and is finishing his Masters of Divinity at the Protestant Theological University (PThU) in Utrecht. His research engages the intersections of liberation theology and queer theology in the Netherlands, emphasizing lived experience as a starting point for theological reflection. In his master’s thesis, he explored Marcella Althaus-Reid’s Indecent Theology and its potential application in the Netherlands, through a case study of Christelijk Collectief tegen Genocide in Gaza (CC). Noud’s work highlights how theology can emerge from concrete social contexts, addressing questions of justice, community, and faith in practice.