Desmond Tutu Wins $1.7M Templeton Prize, World’s Top Religious Honor

[rug]

April 4, 2013 | Posted by Nick Chiles

He has always been a symbol of courage and moral clarity in South Africa and now Bishop Desmond Tutu has been honored with the world’s top religion honor, the Templeton Prize, which carries an award of $1.7 million.

The John Templeton Foundation, based in Pennsylvania, said Tutu was being honored for advancing the “spiritual liberation” of people around the world. The 81-year-old former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town was a ferocious voice for the liberation of black South Africans during the horrors of apartheid.

In his typically humble way, Tutu said that he had so many others to thank for the honor.

“I want to say a very big thank you but I would also like to acknowledge the fact that, you know, 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, and therefore if you will let me, 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,” he said.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/04/04/desmond-tutu-wins-1-7-mil-templeton-prize-worlds-top-religious-honor/

http://www.templetonprize.org/

[struggle4progress]

1. ... 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" ...
http://www.templetonprize.org/


An excellent contextualization!