The Templeton Prize is known to lots of people from Richard Dawkins’ intemperate denunciation of it in The God Delusion in which it features as the unspeakable temptation for scientists to do business with the God lobby. But having been to the ceremony last night in which it was awarded to the former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks – who, unusually for a winner, featured, mike in hand, in a performance of a hymn to celebrate Israel by the Shabbaton choir – I’m still at a bit of a loss as to what it’s about. The billing is that it ‘honours a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery or practical works.’ Its founder, the late investor and philanthropist, Sir John Templeton, intended it to celebrate ‘entrepreneurs of the spirit’.
Last year’s winner was Jean Vannier, founder of the admirable L’Arche communities in which mentally handicapped people live alongside others; before that there was Desmond Tutu, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, John Polkinghorne, Anglican priest and physicist.
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