In this article, the focus is to grasp ongoing discussions regarding powerful knowledgein relation to social sciences in a broader sense, but especially in relation to religious education.Discussions around norms and values are central in classrooms where both multireligiousness andsecularity characterize students’ everyday life and where students constantly move between differentmulticultural contexts. It is the aim of this contribution to explore the ongoing discussions relatingpowerful knowledge in RE to existential questions and controversial issues. One way for teachers towork with these goals is to focus partly on subject literacy and on powerful knowledge in relationto inclusive teaching, and partly on subject content where core value issues are expressed togetherwith existential and controversial questions. This will be discussed and explored in this contributionfocusing on powerful knowledge and epistemology in social science, and especially in the schoolsubject of religious education.