wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] U.S. must own up to misdeeds, says Grawemeyer religion winner

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www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2008/08922<http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2008/08922

U.S. must own up to misdeeds, says Grawemeyer religion
winner

Presbyterian Donald W. Shriver is winner of prestigious
award

by Toya Richards Hill

Special to Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Reprinted with permission

LOUISVILLE ― The author of a book that calls for the
acknowledgement and repentance of the morally negative
events of America's past is the winner of the 2009
Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion.

The Rev. Donald W. Shriver Jr., a Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) minister, educator and scholar, has been selected
for the coveted prize, which honors creative ideas
illuminating the relationship between human beings and the
divine, and how that relationship might empower people and
communities.

The award, named for H. Charles Grawemeyer, comes with a
$200,000 prize and is given jointly by Louisville
Presbyterian Theological Seminary [www.lpts.edu] (LPTS) and
the University of Louisville. Other Grawemeyer awards
recognize excellence in music composition, education, ideas
improving world order, and psychology.

Shriver, President Emeritus of Union Theological Seminary
in New York City, was chosen for his book, Honest Patriots:
Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds, published
in 2005 by Oxford University Press.

"My astonishment was exceeded only by my gratitude,"
Shriver said shortly after learning of his selection. "It
is an honor to be in the company of such distinguished past
recipients," he said.

The Religion award was first presented in 1990, and the
most recent winners include Margaret Farley (2008), Timothy
Tyson (2007), Marilynne Robinson (2006), and George M.
Marsden (2005).

Shriver, who was nominated by his editor at Oxford
University Press, was chosen after an extensive selection
process that lasted about 10 months.

"We look for works that are creative, and that treat
important topics with clarity and power," said Susan R.
Garrett, professor of New Testament at LPTS and coordinator
of the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. This year's
winner is a "great example" of such a work.

In Garrett's recommendation of Shriver, she said, "The
premise of Donald W. Shriver's book is that both gratitude
and contrition are necessary for honest patriotism."

"Uncritical love of country ― love that refuses to see and
publicly acknowledge past errors ― is destructive to the
social fabric and permits continuing misdeeds," she said.
"By contrast, Shriver shows that public recognition and
collective repentance for wrongs done promote mending of
that fabric and open the way to a better future for all."

Shriver contends that the United States particularly needs
to acknowledge and repent of its historical treatment of
African- and Native-Americans, and then try to repair and
repay the debt for those past wrongs in public ways. He
spotlights the pioneering efforts of Germany and South
Africa to foster and express collective repentance.

"We like to acknowledge our virtues from the past. We do
not like to acknowledge our vices," he said. America
believes any flaws it has are in the process of being
improved, but a flaw cannot be improved "until you rightly
remember it."

An honest confession is good for the soul, "and I believe
that includes the soul of the nation," Shriver said.

He concludes his book with a chapter titled, "Being Human
While Being American: Agenda for the American Future."

"Shriver suggests what repentance and reparation might look
like on a wider scale in America, and provides much food
for thought regarding present American crimes for which we
will likely feel a need to repent at some point in the
future," Garrett observed.

Shriver noted that Honest Patriots is a sequel to his
earlier book, An Ethic for Enemies: Forgiveness in
Politics, published by Oxford University Press in 1995.

Shriver will accept his award and speak on the award
winning publication on March 4, 2009, at Louisville
Seminary, at 7:00 p.m.

He is emeritus president of the faculty and professor of
applied Christianity at Union Theological Seminary in New
York, where he also served as president from 1975-1991.
Shriver began his teaching career in 1972 at the Candler
School of Theology of Atlanta's Emory University. He has
also taught at Jewish Theological Seminary and at Columbia
University in New York.

Born in Norfolk, VA, Shriver is a graduate of Davidson
College, Union Theological Seminary (now Union Theological
Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education) in
Virginia, Yale University Divinity School, and Harvard
University. He holds a Ph.D. in the field of Religion and
Society from Harvard. He is an ordained Presbyterian
minister, and prior to his teaching career he served as
pastor of a congregation in North Carolina and as
Presbyterian University Minister at North Carolina State
University.

Shriver's thirteen books have addressed Christian ethics as
related to race relations, youth culture, economics,
medicine, urban affairs, business management, and political
conflict. A forthcoming book will introduce students in
colleges and seminaries to the lifework of H. Richard
Niebuhr, Shriver's teacher in ethics at Yale.

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