Yale Scholar's Guide to Sexual Ethics Wins Grawemeyer Religion Award

7 Dec 2007 03:00 Africa/Lagos


Yale Scholar's Guide to Sexual Ethics Wins Grawemeyer Religion Award

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Dec. 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

A Yale scholar who says justice is an essential part of sexual ethics has won the 2008 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion.


Margaret Farley, a professor emerita of Christian ethics at Yale Divinity school, earned the prize for the ideas set forth in her 2006 book, "Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics." Her work was selected from among 52 entries from the United States, United Kingdom and Brazil.


Human sexual relationships must be not only loving but fair, because justice is the quality that forms, guides and protects love, Farley writes.


"It's an important message in light of all the confusion surrounding sexuality today," said Susan Garrett, a professor at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary who directs the award program. "The religious right issues stark decrees while the entertainment industry tells us 'anything goes.' People are confused about what's right."


Farley draws "clear and compelling guidelines from Christian tradition on what makes love 'just,' which helps us understand sexuality in the context of our faith," Garrett said.


A Roman Catholic nun, Farley was the first woman to teach full time at Yale Divinity School and is past president of the Society of Christian Ethics and Catholic Theological Society of America. She holds a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Detroit and master's and doctoral degrees in religious studies from Yale.


Her Grawemeyer-winning book, "Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics," published by Continuum Group in 2006, is the seventh book she has written or co-written.


The Grawemeyer Foundation at the University of Louisville awards $1 million each year -- $200,000 each -- for works in music composition, ideas improving world order, psychology, education and religion. The religion award is given jointly by the university and the Presbyterian seminary. Winners of the other Grawemeyer Awards also were announced this week.


For more details or Farley's photo, contact Michele Melton at 502-992-9358, 800-264-1839 or mmelton@lpts.edu or see http://www.grawemeyer.org/.


Source: University of Louisville

CONTACT: Michele Melton of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological
Seminary, +1-502-992-9358, +1-800-264-1839, mmelton@lpts.edu


Web Site: http://www.grawemeyer.org/
http://www.louisville.edu/