Photo courtesy of CDSP President’s Gallery

[ECCSTF press release] The Rev. Dr.W. Mark Richardson (President and Dean, Church Divinity School of the Pacific) was awarded the 2014 Genesis Award from the Episcopal Network on Science, Technology & Faith (ENSTF) following his keynote address at the recentEcumenical Roundtable on Science, Technology & the Church, hosted by The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council Committee on Science, Technology & Faith (ECCSTF).

The Genesis Award recognizes Episcopalian leaders in the ongoing science and religion dialogue.  Richardson was granted the award for his decades of scholarship, teaching, and leadership on issues related to science, technology, and faith.  A priest, scholar, lecturer, theologian, and Episcopal Church Foundation Fellow (1990), Richardson has written extensively on faith, science, and evolution.  He was the founder and director of the Science and Spiritual Quest Project at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (Berkeley, CA), an effort which led to the publication of Science and the Spiritual Quest: New Essays by Leading Scientists (Routledge, 2002).  He has authored, edited, and co-edited several other essays and books including Faith in Science: Scientists Search for Truth (Routledge, 2001), Human and Divine Agency: Anglican, Catholic, and Lutheran Perspectives (University Press of America, 1999), and Religion and Science: History, Method, Dialogue (Routledge, 1996).

Richardson received his Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in 1991, writing a thesis on the1956/57 Gifford Lectures of the English theologian, philosopher, and priest Austin Farrer (one of the leading figures of 20th century Anglicanism).  Serving as an Associate Professor-in-Residence of Philosophical Theology at the GTU until 1998, Richardson joined the faculty at General Theological Seminary (New York, NY) in 1999, where he served as a Professor of Theology until his appointment as President and Dean of CDSP.  Richardson also served as a Senior Theological Advisor to the Trinity Institute (a continuing education program of Trinity Wall Street, New York, NY) and Chair of the Editorial Committee for the Anglican Theological Review.

The ENSTF gave the first Genesis Award in 2005 to the Rev. Dr. J. John Keggi (a retired priest of the Diocese of Maine who holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, served as a longtime co-convener of the North American Chapter of the Society of Ordained Scientists, and was instrumental in the formation of the ENSTF).  Other recipients of the award include the late Rev. Dr. Peter Arvedson in 2006 (who passed away in 2011, having served in six different parishes over thirty-five years after obtaining a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin and an M.Div. from General Theological Seminary), the Rev. Barbara Smith-Moran in 2007 (a priest in the Diocese of Massachusetts with a background in chemistry and astronomy, founder of the Faith & Science Exchange in Boston, and one of the co-founders and first co-chairs and of the ECCSTF), and Dr. Robert J. Schneider in 2008 (professor emeritus of Berea College, lead author of the Catechism of Creation, and co-chair of the ECCSTF from 2003-2006).  Richardson is the first recipient of the Genesis Award since 2008.

For more on the Episcopal Network on Science, Technology & Faith, see the ENSTF website (http://episcopalscience.org/), like ENSTF on Facebook (fb.com/episcopalscience) or follow them on Twitter (twitter.com/episcosci or@episcosci).