Templeton award

Dear ASA friends,

may I request your help in a somewhat unusual way? I have to review a
paper submitted for publication to a Christian journal. In connection
with a Templeton award, the author comments on Templeton in a way I
consider somewhat incompetent. I already told the editor. But I don't
know Templeton personally. Can any one of you provide me with a few
objective points about Templeton (not about 'XXX', the recipient of the
Templeton award under discussion) to give the editor about the snip from
the author's text I am giving below?

The author wrote (my translation from German):

"...XXX...was distinguished by a high-ranking freemasons' decoration,
the Templeton award. XXX said 'When we encounter God face to face and
receive Him into our life, we become a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a
better Catholic, a better - whatever we are - one has to accept God in
the way He exists in our ideas.' The Templeton award was founded
(provided) in 1972 by John Marks Templeton, a new-age adherent and
pantheist. According to his view, humanity must, in order to attain to a
spiritualized life, draw from the basic teachings of all religions:
Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., as well as Christianity."
Enlarging on Templeton's supposed philosophy, the author continues: "The
West urgently needs great men who are able to invent new forms of
religion. The next stage on the ladder of evolution leading man to
divinity must needs be prepared by spiritual geniuses for the rest of
humanity. Templeton provided his award as an encouragement for such
progress in religion. Earlier award winners included an Indian Hindu
guru, a highranking Japanese Buddhist, a general secretary of the
Islamic World Congress, an evolutionist, the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa,
an atheist physicist, and others..."

Thanks for any of your comments!

Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)