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| TEMPLETON PRIZE LEGACY | |
| May 28, 1999 |
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Ian Barbour, a Carleton College professor emeritus, was awarded the 1999 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in recognition of efforts to create a dialogue between the worlds of science and religion. The following history of the Templeton Prize is provided by the John Templeton Foundation. |
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When John Marks Templeton established the Templeton Prize for Progress
in Religion 27 years ago, he decided that the award should always have
a monetary value exceeding the Nobel Prizes. Currently, the Templeton
Prize is valued at 750,000 pounds sterling, approximately 1.24 million
dollars and is the world's largest annual award. |
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Winners since Mother Teresa |
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| Chiara Lubich, winner in 1977,
financed a Philippine hospital's maternity wing with part of her prize
money. Another portion went to build two houses for the poor in a Brazilian
shantytown and part went to complete a religious and social training center
in Asia and to establish a "Town of Charity" in Italy for people with
disabilities. Barbour received his masters degree in physics from Duke University in 1946. While there, he met his future wife, Deane Kern, of Washington, D.C. They were married in 1947. Dame Cicely Saunders won the 1981 Templeton Prize for creating hospices dedicated to relieving physical and mental suffering of the sick. Clinical studies show that her pain-relief methods have a 99 percent effectiveness on terminally-ill cancer patients. Her prize money was used to construct a new wing at St. Christopher's Hospice, founded by Dame Cicely. The Rev. Dr. Billy Graham donated his 1982 prize money to funding his seminars and conferences for itinerant evangelists in underdeveloped nations. Professor Stanley Jaki, a Benedictine monk with a vow of poverty, won the 1987 Templeton Prize for his investigations into the relationship of science, culture and faith. With his award, Jaki established a trust to care for Benedictine monks in exile. |
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| Prize sought worldwide | |||||||||||||||||
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Professor Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, co-winner of the award in
1989, was honored for his efforts to initiate a dialogue between the
academic disciplines of natural science and religion. His prize money
now funds research at Starnberg, Germany, and the "Justice and the Integrity
of Creation" program at the Conference of European Churches. |
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| For research or good cause | |||||||||||||||||
| The 1995 recipient, Paul Davies, a mathematical
physicist from Australia, received the Templeton Prize for his wide ranging
inquiries into the workings of the universe that breach the barrier between
science and religion. Having spent most of his life working as a professor,
Davies, who had a personal chair at the University of Adelaide in Australia,
chose to use his prize money to pursue his research. Campus Crusade for Christ International founder and president Dr. William R. "Bill" Bright, the 1996 recipient, in recent years has worked to mobilize millions of Christians to fast and pray for a worldwide spiritual revival. All of his prize money is directed to this endeavor. The 1997 recipient, Pandurang Shastri Athavale, founder and leader of the Bhagavad Gita- based self-study known as swadhyaya. Swadhyaya encourages the recognition of God within all humans which, in turn, leads to a sense of self-esteem and respect for others and is credited with helping an estimated 20 million people in 100,000 villages in India. Yet, the movement -- which discourages proselytizing and is open to those of all faiths -- does not have a single paid worker, no formal hierarchy, and no bank account. Athavale, consequently, distributed his Templeton Prize money directly into the communities in which he and the swadhyaya movement work. Last year's winner, Sir Sigmund Sternberg, has tirelessly promoted interfaith dialogue for decades and played a critical role in relocating a Catholic convent in Auschwitz in the 1980s, organizing the first-ever papal visit to a synagogue, negotiating the Vatican's recognition of the state of Israel, and opening Vatican war-time files relating to Nazis and Jews and the relations of both with the Catholic Church. The Hungarian-born British businessman also has a long history as a philanthropist, and directed his award to several of the charities he has sponsored throughout his career, including the Sternberg Centre for Judaism in London, Europe's largest Jewish cultural center. |
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