Lord Sacks wins Templeton Prize
March 02, 2016
Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, has been named as the winner of the 2016 Templeton Prize for "affirming life's spiritual dimension."
Lord Sacks, who was Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwelath from 1991 to 2013, has argued powerfully against the use of religion to justify violence. At a March 2 press conference in London announcing the award, he said that "if religion is not part of the solution it will assuredly be a large part of the problem as voices become ever more strident, and religious extremists ever more violent."
The Templeton Prize has been awarded each year since 1973, when Mother Teresa of Calcutta was named the first recipient. Other honorees have included Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Billy Graham, Chiara Lubich, the Dalai Lama, Michael Novak, and Charles Colson. Last year's prize went to Jean Vanier, the founder of the L'Arche community.
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