2015-05-23

Award for Public Religious Literacy

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Westar Institute Inaugurates Award for Public Religious Literacy

In a move that embodies its conviction that knowledge about religion is essential to healthy public discourse, the Westar Institute has inaugurated a new award to honor members of the public who demonstrate an outstanding commitment to fostering religious literacy. The new Advocate for Public Religious Literacy (APRL) award seeks to recognize the courage, commitment, and contributions of people who cultivate thoughtful discussion and disseminate learning about religion in their communities. Westar invites nominations at this time. . . .

See the Westar site: http://www.westarinstitute.org/blog/westar-institute-inaugurates-award-for-public-religious-literacy/ (The Westar Institute is best known for its Jesus Seminar led by Robert Funk some years ago; since then a work on Acts has been published and posted about here.)

It will be interesting to see who does win the award.

Can anyone think of any blog-authors who deserve to be nominated! 😉

But then again I think the world deserves an honest discussion about religious and biblical scholarship. Too many scholars shun any public engagement that does not foster the parameters of the conventional wisdom as we have experienced.

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4 thoughts on “Award for Public Religious Literacy”

Doug Shaver says:

2015-05-23 02:02:41 GMT+0000 at 02:02

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Besides the obvious, Robert M. Price comes most quickly to my mind.

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Cassandra says:

2015-05-23 13:29:32 GMT+0000 at 13:29

Thanks for sharing! As far as I can tell, no one is really tracking in any meaningful way what members of the public are doing to raise knowledge about religion and religion-related issues, yet I know lots of individuals and organizations who are concerned about it.

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"I’d like to thank you for this very nice representation of what I was trying to show in the book. It’s always gratifying when a reader zeroes in on exactly those aspects I thought were most interesting and most central to my argument. Thank you for this careful and engaged reading of my work – much appreciated!"

— Eva Mroczek, – June 2017
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— Russell Gmirkin, – October 2016
"I’ve even been cited by atheists with approval (which I really don’t know how to take, so thanks, I think, but I’m not sure, Vrider (even though I feel like I need to take a shower now))."

-- Jim West, – September 2010
"Neil Godfrey and Tim Widowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work."

— Richard Carrier, – March 2014
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— Anthony Le Donne, – September 2009
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It is worth saying another word of appreciation here for Neil Godfrey's effort to make Bruno Bauer accessible in English.

-- Peter Kirby, - May 2023
"For an excellent example of generally high-quality scholarship by someone who isn’t a biblical studies professor, see Neil Godfrey’s work posted on the website vridar.org."

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"Neil, You’ve done a clean job in your posting on ‘Jesus the Healer’. It reflects well on you. Best, John"

— John Moles, September 2011 (personal email)
"Note that I do not use the term ‘amateur’ pejoratively. . . . In fact, Godfrey is extremely well read and his librarian skills have brought many important academic works to my attention."

Raphael Lataster - August 2019
"By the way, my thanks to Neil for an ongoing superb job of exposing Jim’s review for what it is: a farcical and none too effective exercise in mythicism assassination, nothing to do with rational, let alone unbiased, scholarship. I’m also happy to see even Jim giving Neil credit where credit is due."

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"I want to say here that this site is so resourceful and highly on top of the most modern scholarship in the areas discussed here. . . I know of no other site which offers a wide range of topics related to careful critical analysis of historically and scripturally related issues."

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"Very good. This post is going straight to the March 2016 Biblical Studies Carnival."

—N.T. Wrong, – March 2016
This is superb work, Neil, and reminds me of Albert Schweitzer’s work from a century ago. . . . .

I commend you for being the first to even TRY to translate Bruno Bauer’s brilliant Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs, which is now more than 150 years old.

. . . . .Thank you for your historic effort.

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Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed
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Nancy Fraser - June 2019 (personal email)
"Neil, in my mature judgement (I am now an old man), this fine 4-part study is a brilliant reworking, an instructive restatement of Hayden White’s Metahistory (and his subsequent writings). Your critique of certain historiographic representations as imbedded in the case study of the “scientistic”, “empirical” Richard Carrier provides a solid starting point for the more honest “fictive” reading of the New Testament that you encourage. Your last paragraph is a very intelligent call to sensitive readers of these texts. I suspect a whole generation of biblical students has been educated without the insights provided by the incomparable White. Bravo!"

-- Timothy Bagley, - November 2024
Congratulations, Vridar, . . . I declare, Vridar, your own hard work translating Bruno Bauer will make a major difference in future studies of Bruno Bauer and the evolution of Hegel’s philosophy of religion.

-- Paul Trejo, - April 2023
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

-- Enrico Tuccinardi, - October 2022
"I have found your website really valuable as an interpretive filter for Biblical scholarship, especially the origins of Christianity and historicity of Jesus issue. Your clarity of expression, fair comments and personal insights are much valued. I refer to your site frequently as yet more names and publications pop up requiring an academic critique and helpful recommendations for book purchases. So, please continue to delve deeply and share this intellectual sustenance with your grateful readers."

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— Philippe Wajdenbaum, – November 2018
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Westar Institute Inaugurates Award for Public Religious Literacy

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