For Immediate release
Lutheran Historical Society of the Mid-Atlantic Announces Prize Winning Books
Tim Townsend’s Book on Army Chaplain Henry Gerecke’s ministry at the Nuremburg Trials and Mark Granquist’s new history on Lutherans in America Win Biglerville Prize in American Lutheran History
The Lutheran Historical Society of the Mid-Atlantic announced this week that Tim Townsend and Mark Granquist have won the St. Paul, Biglerville Prize in American Lutheran History. Townsend’s Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and theTrial of the Nazis (HarperCollins Publishers, 2014) explores the ministry of Lutheran pastor Henry Gerecke with twenty-one Nazi leaders awaiting trial. “In placing Lutheran chaplaincy and ideas of pastoral care at the heart of his account of one of the most famous trials in world history, Townsend’s account is a powerful story of American Lutheranism on the world stage” commented Dr. Jill Ogline Titus, chair of the society’s Biglerville Prize committee. Titus noted that “Mark Granquist’s Lutherans in America: A New History (Fortress Press, 2015) offers a thoughtful reinterpretation of American Lutheran history, raising timely questions about unity, diversity, and the definition of a missional church history. We are delighted to recognize these two excellent works, both of which – in their own distinctive ways – profoundly enhance our understanding of American Lutheran history.”
These monographs are the tenth and eleventh books to receive the award in the 23-year history of the Biglerville prize.
The prize is awarded every two to three years by the Society to a newly published book of mature scholarship in American Lutheran history. It was established by St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Biglerville, PA to honor their pastor, the Reverend Frederick Weiser, at the time of his retirement. It includes a $3000 award and was last awarded in 2014.
Townsend, formerly the religion reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, holds master’s degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Yale Divinity School. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Rolling Stone, among other publications. In 2005, 2011 and 2013, he was named Religion Reporter of the Year by the Religion Newswriters Association, the highest honor on the “God beat” at American newspapers.
Granquist is the first writer to win the prize a second time. He won in 2011 with Maria Erling for The Augustana Story: Shaping Lutheran Identity in North America (Fortress Press, 2008). He is an Associate Professor of the History of Christianity at Luther Seminary, having previously taught at St Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota and at Gustavus Adolphus College. An ordained Lutheran minister, he served as a parish pastor in Rochester, Minnesota. He serves as associate editor of the Luther Seminary journal “Word & World,” as well as editor of the “Journal of the Lutheran Historical Conference.” He was recently elected as president of the Lutheran Historical Conference, an organization that fosters effective cooperation among persons and institutions concerned with research, documentation and preservation of the resources revealing experiences of Lutheranism in North America.
The Lutheran Historical Society of the Mid-Atlantic is a non-profit organization with a mission to preserve, document, and nurture interest in the rich Lutheran Christian traditions and heritage of the Mid-Atlantic region. For more information visit their webpage at www.LutheranHistoricalSociety.com or contact LHSMA President Stephen Herr at 717-334-5212 or info@lutheranhistoricalsociety.com.