Templeton Foundation Honors Archbishop Desmond Tutu For His Life-long Work

 

South African Anglican Archbishop and former apartheid activist, Desmond Tutu, is the recipient of this year’s (2013) $1.7 million Templeton Foundation Award.

Tutu, who came in third in the mid-2000s, when British Columbians were asked in a poll to name their most respected spiritual leader; was awarded the 2013 Templeton Prize for his life-long work in advancing spiritual principles such as love and forgiveness which has helped to liberate people around the world.

“By embracing such universal concepts of the image of God within each person, Desmond Tutu also demonstrates how the innate humanity within each of us is intrinsically tied to the humanity between all peoples,” said Dr. John M. Templeton, Jr., the president and chairman of the John Templeton Foundation, in a video statement released.

“Desmond Tutu calls upon all of us to recognize that each and every human being is unique in all of history and, in doing so, to embrace our own vast potential to be agents for spiritual progress and positive change. Not only does he teach this idea, he lives it,” he added.

Steven D. Gish, Professor of History at Auburn University in Montgomery, Alabama, in his letter of recommendation to the Prize judges describes Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a true ‘entrepreneur of the spirit.’

“With his unfailing faith in ‘God’s dream,’ he embodies the best instincts of us all,” he said.

In response to receiving the prize, Tutu said: “When you are in a crowd and you stand out from the crowd it’s usually because you are being carried on the shoulders of others. I want to acknowledge all the wonderful people who accepted me as their leader at home and so to accept this prize, as it were, in a representative capacity.”

Tutu will receive the prize at a public ceremony at the Guildhall in London on Tuesday, May 21. 

Templeton news release on Desmond Tutu’s Award:

Desmond Tutu Wins 2013 Templeton Prize

Revered religious leader is a moral voice for love, peace and justice

Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, has been awarded the 2013 Templeton Prize for his life-long work in advancing spiritual principles such as love and forgiveness which has helped to liberate people around the world.

Tutu rose to world prominence with his stalwart – and successful – opposition to South Africa’s apartheid regime. He combines the theological concept that all human beings are shaped in the image of God, known in Latin as Imago Dei, with the traditional African belief of Ubuntu, which holds that only through others do people achieve humanity which, he says, creates “a delicate network of interdependence.”

His broad calls to common humanity began in the 1970s, when Tutu used positions within the church to focus global attention on the apartheid policies of South Africa’s ruling minority. After Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 and subsequent election as president in the country’s first multi-ethnic democratic elections, Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission employing a revolutionary and relentless policy of confession, forgiveness and resolution that helped shepherd his nation from institutionalized racial repression toward an egalitarian democracy.

His deep faith and commitment to prayer and worship provides the foundation for his message of love and forgiveness. He has created that message through extensive contemplation of such profound “Big Questions” as “Do we live in a moral universe?” and 

“What is humanity’s duty to reflect and live God’s purposes?”

Such inquiries reflect the deep interests of the late Sir John Templeton, founder of the Templeton Prize, in fostering and recognizing spiritual progress, the purpose of the award since it was first given in 1973 to Mother Teresa.

The Templeton Prize office of the John Templeton Foundation, based in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, made the announcement this morning online on the prize website at http://www.templetonprize.org, via email to journalists, and on Twitter at #TempletonPrize.

A celebration of the prize to Tutu will be held on Thursday, April 11 in Cape Town at St. George’s Cathedral, the site that became known as “the people’s cathedral” for its role in the fight against apartheid when he served there as Archbishop from 1986 to 1996. A press briefing at 11:00 AM at the Taj Cape Town Hotel will precede the celebration.

Tutu will receive the prize at a public ceremony at the Guildhall in London on Tuesday, May 21. Video highlights of both ceremonies will be available on the prize website a few hours following each event.

The prize, valued at £1.1 million (about $1.7 million or €1.3 million) – the world’s largest annual monetary award for the past 40 years – honors a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.

“By embracing such universal concepts of the image of God within each person, Desmond Tutu also demonstrates how the innate humanity within each of us is intrinsically tied to the humanity between all peoples,” said Dr. John M. Templeton, Jr. in a video statement released onhttp://www.templetonprize.org. Dr. Templeton, the president and chairman of the John Templeton Foundation, noted: “Desmond Tutu calls upon all of us to recognize that each and every human being is unique in all of history and, in doing so, to embrace our own vast potential to be agents for spiritual progress and positive change. Not only does he teach this idea, he lives it.”

“To borrow Sir John Templeton’s words, Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a true ‘entrepreneur of the spirit,’ said Steven D. Gish, Professor of History at Auburn University in Montgomery, Alabama, in his letter of recommendation to the Prize judges. “With his unfailing faith in ‘God’s dream,’ he embodies the best instincts of us all.”

“When you are in a crowd and you stand out from the crowd it’s usually because you are being carried on the shoulders of others,” Tutu said in response to receiving the prize in a video on the Prize website. “I want to acknowledge all the wonderful people who accepted me as their leader at home and so to accept this prize, as it were, in a representative capacity.”

In another brief video on http://www.templetonprize.org, Tutu elaborates on the concept of free will. “We inhabit a universe…where kindness matters, compassion maters, caring matters, sharing,” he says. “This is a moral universe and right and wrong matter. And mercifully, gloriously, right will prevail.”

Tutu abandoned a teaching career in 1957 in response to apartheid regime laws that severely limited education and, thus, career opportunities for the majority non-white population. He entered the Anglican ministry in 1958 and received a Master of Theology degree from King’s College, London, in 1966. Over the next 30 years, he became a key player in the campaign to abolish apartheid, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, in using his pulpit to bring worldwide attention to the crusade for justice and racial conciliation in South Africa.

A pinnacle moment in that effort came on September 13, 1989, when Tutu, despite no official mandate from the church, led a Cape Town protest against apartheid that drew an estimated 30,000 participants. Within days, massive peace marches broke out in Johannesburg, Durban and across South Africa, often with Anglican bishops at the helm. The demonstrations ushered in rapid changes, including the freeing of Mandela and other imprisoned activists, and the eventual complete dismantling of the apartheid system.

In the 1990s Tutu became a principal mediator in South Africa’s transition to democracy. After retiring as archbishop in 1996, he chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the body charged with investigating human rights violations during apartheid, where he advocated for and implemented a three-stage model of “restorative justice” that aimed to trade justice for truth with those testifying. Grounded in the inherent humanity expressed in the African tradition of Ubuntu, the commission called for confession, forgiveness and, where possible, restitution.

In 2007 Tutu helped form The Elders, an independent group of former global leaders including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who work for peace and human rights in trouble spots around the world.

His extensive writings include No Future without Forgiveness, and most recently, God Is Not a Christian: And Other Provocations.

Even after his official retirement from public life in 2010, Tutu continues to speak to audiences across the globe. He engages with numerous organizations including the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and The Elders, and remains committed to creating a society guided by what he believes are the essential human values of love, hope, tolerance and courage.

Tutu and his wife, Leah, live in Cape Town, South Africa.

Notes

· Further information is available at http://www.templetonprize.org
· Videos including the Laureate’s acceptance comments are available athttp://www.templetonprize.org andhttp://www.youtube.com/user/TempletonPrize/
· Follow the Templeton Prize on Twitter using @TempletonPrize and the hashtag #templetonprize

Desmond Tutu Biography

Born in 1931 in the small Transvaal city of Klerksdorp, South Africa, Tutu first experienced an alternative to institutionalized racism as a small boy when he saw a white priest tip his hat to Tutu’s mother, showing him that religion might effect positive change. Later, as a teenager in the Johannesburg suburb of Sophiatown, a center of black culture, he slowly recovered from a near fatal case of tuberculosis, inspiring him to become a doctor. Despite acceptance into medical school, a lack of tuition thwarted his dream, so he opted to study education at Pretoria Bantu Normal College.

At 23 he began teaching at his alma mater, Johannesburg Bantu High School, only to quit three years later to protest deteriorating standards of black education mandated by the Bantu Education Act which severely reduced schooling to only three hours daily, segregated institutions of higher learning, and eliminated government funding to the remaining non-white colleges, largely condemning those students to careers in service industries and manual labor.

In 1960 he earned a Licentiate of Theology from St. Peter’s Theological College in Rosettenville and, the next year, was ordained to the priesthood in nearby Johannesburg. After receiving a Master of Theology degree from King’s College, London in 1966, he returned to South Africa to teach at the Federal Theological Seminary and serve as chaplain at the University of Fort Hare in Alice in the Eastern Cape. While there he witnessed police brutality for the first time, in response to a peaceful student protest.

In 1972, Tutu he became Associate Director for Africa of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches, a three-year position that took him on 48 visits to 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and immersed him in the emerging philosophies of black consciousness and theology.

His 1975 appointment as the first black Anglican Dean of Johannesburg provided him an international platform in the anti-apartheid movement. Within six months he was named Bishop of Lesotho. While there he wrote a prescient plea to the South African prime minister to avoid bloodshed and violence by drastically reforming government racial policies. Only months later, his call unheeded, several hundred young people were killed by police in the June 16, 1976 “uprising” named for the Johannesburg suburb of Soweto.

In the mid-1980s he pressed U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – unsuccessfully – to support economic and military sanctions against South Africa. Following election as Bishop of Johannesburg in 1985, he became Archbishop of Cape Town in 1986, the first black cleric to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa. 

Convinced he was following the will of God, if not an official church mandate, he led 30,000 in a Cape Town protest on September 13, 1989, precipitating massive multi-racial peace marches nationwide, often led by Anglican bishops. South African Prime Minister FW De Klerk soon moved to defuse the crisis, meeting with Mandela, broadly desegregating public facilities, lifting the ban on the African National Congress, and freeing many imprisoned activists including, in February 1990, Nelson Mandela.

In the first years following those moves some 14,000 more South Africans died in political violence. Chris Hani, the popular general secretary of the South African Communist Party, was assassinated in 1993, threatening the country again with anarchy. When Tutu preached at Hani’s funeral, he invoked Paul’s letter to the Romans, “If God be for us, who can be against us,” assuring the 120,000 gathered outside Soweto in the country’s largest stadium that they, the “rainbow people of God” were “moving to freedom and nobody can stop us… for God is on our side.” The next year, the nation’s first multi-ethnic democratic elections made Nelson Mandela president.

In 1995, the year before retiring as archbishop, Tutu was named chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which conducted four years of hearings on crimes of the apartheid era culminated by a 3500-page final report delivered to Mandela in 1998.

In 2007, with Nelson Mandela and wife Graça Machel, he convened The Elders, several former global leaders, now independent, working for peace and human rights in trouble spots around the world. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, from President Barack Obama in 2009. Though officially retired from public life since 2010, Tutu continues work with the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and The Elders, among other groups, in a redoubling of efforts to defend human rights around the world.

The Templeton Prize

The Templeton Prize each year honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.

Established in 1972 by the late global investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton, the Prize is a cornerstone of the John Templeton Foundation’s international efforts to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality. The monetary value of the prize is set always to exceed the Nobel Prizes to underscore Templeton’s belief that benefits from discoveries that illuminate spiritual questions can be quantifiably more vast than those from other worthy human endeavors.