Grawemeyer Award in Religion
The Grawemeyer Award in Religion is made possible by the creative generosity of the late H. Charles Grawemeyer. Louisville Seminary, jointly with the University of Louisville, awards the $100,000 prize to honor and publicize creative and significant insights into the relationship between human beings and the divine. The award also recognizes ways in which this relationship may inspire or empower human beings to attain wholeness, integrity, or meaning, either individually or in community.
2023 Winner: Kelly Brown Douglas
Renewed faith will help Black Lives Matter, says 2023 Religion Award Winner

LOUISVILLE, Ky.—How do we really know God cares when Black people are still getting killed? How long do we have to wait for God’s justice?
Hearing her son ask those questions and seeing Black Lives Matter protests erupt nationwide after George Floyd’s death led theologian Kelly Brown Douglas to write “Resurrection Hope: A Future Where Black Lives Matter.” Today she was named winner of the 2023 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for the book’s ideas.
Douglas, dean of Union Theological Seminary’s Episcopal Divinity School in New York City and a canon theologian at Washington Cathedral, is one of the first Black female Episcopal priests in the United States and the first Black person to head an Episcopal Church-affiliated educational institution.
In “Resurrection Hope,” she shows how a “white way of knowing” came to dominate America through an anti-Black narrative tracing back to the Greek philosopher Aristotle. She also cites examples of how the bias persists today, from the refusal to dismantle Confederate monuments to attempts to discredit The 1619 Project, an effort to reframe U.S. history starting from the year the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia.
While recognizing the prolonged suffering of Black people raises deep questions about the credibility of Christianity, she argues that faith, not despair, is the best hope for assuring Black lives are valued.
“Douglas takes us on a captivating, painful journey with personal and erudite reflections on America’s corrupted soul,” said Tyler Mayfield, religion award director. “Her insights are lucid and disturbing. Her remedies are bold and constructive. May we find the courage to walk into the future she envisions for us all.”
Douglas, who has doctor of philosophy and master of divinity degrees, has been a faculty member at Edward Waters College, Howard University and Goucher College. She has written five books, including “Sexuality and the Black Church” in which she addresses homophobia from a womanist perspective.
Orbis Books published her Grawemeyer Award-winning book in 2021.
The University of Louisville and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary jointly give the religion prize. Recipients of next year’s Grawemeyer Awards were named this week pending formal approval by university and seminary trustees. The $100,000 prizes also honor seminal ideas in music, world order, psychology and education. Winners will visit Louisville in the spring to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.
(photo by Ron Hester)
Eligibility
Grawemeyer Religion Award Nominations are invited from religious organizations, appropriate academic associations, religious leaders and scholars, presidents of universities or schools of religion, publishers and editors of scholarly journals. Self-nominations will not be accepted or considered. There is no discrimination based on religious affiliation or belief or lack thereof. Previous winners are not eligible for subsequent awards.
For more information, contact Dr. Tyler Mayfield.
Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
1044 Alta Vista Road
Louisville, Kentucky 40205-1798
U.S.A.
Telephone: (502) 992-9375
Fax: (502) 894-2286
Or see grawemeyer.org/religion for more information.
Past Grawemeyer Award in Religion Winners
1990
E.P. Sanders
Jesus and Judaism
1991
John Harwood Hick
An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent
1992
Ralph Harper
On Presence: Variations and Reflections
1993
Elizabeth A. Johnson
She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse
1994
Stephen L. Carter
The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion
1995
Diana L. Eck
Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras
1996
No Winner
1997
Larry L. Rasmussen
Earth Community, Earth Ethics
1998
Charles Marsh
God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights
1999
No Competition
2000
Jürgen Moltmann
The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology
2001
James L. Kugel
The Bible As It Was
2002
Miroslav Volf
Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation
2003
Mark Juergensmeyer
Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence
2004
Jonathan Sacks
The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations
2005
George M. Marsden
Jonathan Edwards: A Life
2006
Marilynne Robinson
Gilead: A Novel
2007
Timothy B. Tyson
Blood Done Sign My Name
2008
Margaret Farley
Just Love: A Framework For Christian Sexual Ethics
2009
Donald W. Shriver, Jr.
Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds
2010
Eboo Patel
Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation
2011
Luke Timothy Johnson
Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity
2012
Barbara D. Savage
Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion
2014
Tanya Luhrmann
When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God
2015
Willie James Jennings
The Christian Imagination
2016
Susan R. Holman
Beholden: Religion, Global Health, and Human Rights
2017
Gary Dorrien
The New Abolition: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel
2018
James H. Cone
The Cross and the Lynching Tree
2019
Robert P. Jones
The End of White Christian America
2020
No Winner
2021
Stephen J. Patterson
The Forgotten Creed
2022
Duncan Ryuken Williams
American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War | Watch Lecture