I’m on my way to Washington now to get ready for the 2010 Templeton Prize winner announcement on Thursday. I can’t reveal the name of this year’s winner, but I can tell you the selection will cause a certain amount of controversy. Watch this blog for more. Here’s the website for the Templeton Prize, where you can read about past winners, including philosopher Charles Taylor, writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, physicist Freeman Dyson, astrophysicist Stanley Jaki, Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson, and many others.
The purpose of the Templeton Prize, which is the largest cash award of its kind in the world, is, in part, as follows:

The Templeton Prize honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works. Established in 1972 by the late Sir John Templeton, the Prize aims, in his words, to identify “entrepreneurs of the spirit”–outstanding individuals who have devoted their talents to expanding our vision of human purpose and ultimate reality. The Prize celebrates no particular faith tradition or notion of God, but rather the quest for progress in humanity’s efforts to comprehend the many and diverse manifestations of the Divine.

Tell me, readers, who, in your view, deserves the Templeton Prize? Please explain.