I’m happy to inform the biblioblogging community that Tübingen based Theologian, Hans Küng, received the Lew Kopelew Prize for Peace and Human Rights last Sunday, for his ‘unermüdlichen Einsatz um ein besseres Verständnis zwischen den grossen Religionen der Welt’. It was a real joy to watch the whole presentation on TV. As to his speech, I was both surprised and pleased how bold and forthright he was in his criticisms of the Bush administration. For example, in the context of peace among the world religions, he courageously claimed that he:‘considers it a positive development, at least since the loss of the congress elections in Nov 2006, and the long over due outing of the incompetent and warmongering defence minister, that most of the American citizens are slowly coming to realise – one has to say this clearly – that they have been misguided, yes misguided, by a President arrogantly presenting himself as a Christian, by a neo-conservative ideologist, and by a passive congress as well as willing mass media’ (translation ours).Earlier he spoke that (our translation shortens the original German considerably):
‘Instead of effectively fighting a criminal network, this president thought he had to announce a war, marching into Afghanistan and, despite his father’s wisdom, into Baghdad, thereby turning his father’s idea of “the new world order” into a “new world disorder”!Küng has never been one to duck a fight, at least one in the service of peace and human rights!
By the way, I hope the person from New Jersey, United States, found what he or she was looking for when their Google search for ‘The Biblical Significance of a Sneeze’ landed on my blog! Why oh why would anybody want to search Google for that?!
4 comments:
Congrats to Kung! Could you describe the Kopelew prize somewhat for those of us who do not know it? For instance, who is/was Lew Kopelew? Who awards the prize? What criteria are used for deciding the recipient?
Who doesn't regularily search for the Biblical Significance of a sneeze. And you call yourself a scholar!
:-D
So it was you, Frank, who did the search?!
I suppose I could/should tell you something about the Lew Kopelew prize. If you search LeV KopeleV (i.e. not 'w') in google, all will be revealed!
Ah, the famous/infamous German "ws that sound like vs." I have now found out much about the fascinating figure of Lew Kopelew, but not much yet about the prize, who awards it, or the criteria. Still, Kung's constant work for interfaith peace is deserving of a major recognition such as this one.
I am in favor of these kinds of awards. The Nobel has vague selection criteria and is so famous only because it is associated with the other Nobel prizes and the monetary award is so high (a million dollars U.S. now) because of wise investment of Alfred Nobel's money.
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