The Aldersgate Prize

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About the Aldersgate Prize

The John Wesley Honors College at Indiana Wesleyan University has the privilege each year of awarding the Aldersgate Prize. Motivated by the ethos of its liberal learning community, this book prize celebrates the outstanding achievement of an author whose scholarly inquiry challenges reductionistic trends in academia by yielding a broad, integrative analysis of life's complexities and shedding fresh light on ultimate questions that enliven Christian conceptions of human flourishing. Book nominations for the Aldersgate Prize may come from any academic discipline(s) and focus on any subject of significance. While the nature of this book prize is inspired by the John Wesley Honors College's commitment to Christian liberal learning, the selection committee recognizes that authors may embody the ideals of the Aldersgate Prize without themselves affirming any particular faith commitments.

Recipients receive $3,500, an engraved glass sculpture from Kokomo Opalescent Glass (the oldest continuously operating decorative glass producer in the country), and the opportunity to offer the keynote address at Indiana Wesleyan University's Celebration of Scholarship Luncheon.

The selection committee actively searches for titles reflecting the scholarly ideals associated with the Aldersgate Prize. The committee also openly welcomes submissions by authors and/or publicists. In order to offer a submission, interested individuals should mail a brief letter of intent to submit, along with one copy of the book to:

The Aldersgate Prize
John Wesley Honors College
Indiana Wesleyan University
4201 S. Washington St.
Marion, IN 46953 USA

Books considered for the 2023 Aldersgate Prize will have been published between May 1, 2022, and April 30, 2023. The deadline for submission is April 30, 2023.

Questions concerning the Aldersgate Prize may be addressed to Dr. Jeffrey Tabone, Director of Programs in the John Wesley Honors College, at jeff.tabone@indwes.edu.

Aldersgate Prize Recipients

Norman Wirzba, Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Theology and Senior Fellow in the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University Divinity School, for This Sacred Life: Humanity’s Place in a Wounded World (Cambridge University Press) Press Release
John Swinton, Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies at Aberdeen University, for Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges (Eerdmans) Press Release
Noah Toly, Provost at Calvin University and professor of urban studies, politics, and international relations,  for The Gardeners' Dirty Hands: Environmental Politics and Christian Ethics (Oxford University Press) Press Release
Andrew Skotnicki, Professor of Theology at Manhattan College, for Conversion and the Rehabilitation of the Penal System: A Theological Rereading of Criminal Justice, (Oxford University Press) Press Release

Mary L. Hirschfeld, Associate Professor of Economics and Theology at Villanova University, for Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy (Harvard University Press) 

Natalia Marandiuc, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology at Southern Methodist University, for The Goodness of Home: Human and Divine Love and the Making of the Self (Oxford University Press)
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Vittorio Montemaggi, lecturer in Religion and the Arts at King’s College London, for Reading Dante’s Commedia as Theology: Divinity Realized in Human Encounter (Oxford University Press)
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Makoto Fujimara, director of the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts at Fuller Theological Seminary, for Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering (InterVarsity Press)
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Dr. Peter Harrison, director of the University of Queensland’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, for The Territories of Science and Religion (University of Chicago Press)
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Dr. Christina Bieber Lake, the Clyde S. Kilby Professor of English at Wheaton College, for Prophets of the Posthuman: American Literature, Biotechnology, and the Ethics of Personhood (University of Notre Dame Press)
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Dr. Catherine Brekus, Professor of American Religious History in the University of Chicago's Divinity School, for Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America (Yale University Press)
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Dr. Brad Gregory, the Dorothy G. Griffin Collegiate Chair in Early Modern European History at the University of Notre Dame, for The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)
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