We have launched a new website and this page has been archived.Find out more

[Skip to Content]

28 January 2013

Shortlist announced for £10,000 Michael Ramsey Prize

Lord Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, has announced the shortlist for the 2013 Michael Ramsey Prize, which will be awarded at The Telegraph Hay Festival in May 2013.

The prize, which was inaugurated by Lord Williams in 2005, aims "to encourage the most promising contemporary theological writing and to identify it for a wider Christian readership". Previous winners include Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart and What is the point of being a Christian? by Father Timothy Radcliffe. The award commemorates Dr Ramsey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, and his "commitment to increasing the breadth of theological understanding among the Christian, and non-Christian, population at large". The 2013 prize will be awarded to the theological work "that is judged to contribute most towards advancing theology and making a lasting contribution to the faith and life of the church".

This year's shortlisted titles are:

Up with Authority by Victor Austin;
Christianity and Contemporary Politics by Luke Bretherton;
Disabled Church by John Gillibrand;
Heaven by Paula Gooder;
Claiming Abraham by Michael Lodahl;
Jesus and the Subversion of Violence by Thomas Yoder Neufeld.

Commenting on the 2013 shortlist, Lord Williams said: "As in previous years, we have a broad variety of books submitted for the prize, all of them displaying the creative qualities we are looking for. Once again, the Michael Ramsey Prize shows that accessible theological writing of high quality is in good supply, and I and the other judges look forward greatly to tackling these works, and to bringing them to the wider public in the context of the Hay Festival."

The shortlisted books will now be read by seven judges, who will come together in Hay-on-Wye in May 2013 to choose the winning title. The judges are: former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams; his wife, theologian and teacher Jane Williams; Prof Sarah Coakley, Norris-Hulse professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge; Bishop Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford; Dr Denise Inge, honorary senior research fellow at the University of Worcester; Father Alban McCoy, Catholic chaplain to the University of Cambridge; and Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum.

The winner of the £10,000 prize, which is sponsored by the Lambeth Fund and administered by publishers SPCK, will be announced at The Telegraph Hay Festival on 28 May 2013. The winning author will also receive a mosaic plaque hand made by ceramicist Dee Hardwicke. The other shortlisted authors will each receive £1,000 and a commemorative tile handmade by Hardwicke.