Loving God and Loving Neighbor: A Reflection on Living Amid Religious Diversity
Keynote Speaker, Heather Templeton Dill, president of the John Templeton Foundation
Response by Alexander Massad, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of World Religions
moderated discussion with President Ryken, eighth president of Wheaton College.
Thursday, October 26, 7:00 p.m.
Armerding Center for Music and the Arts Concert Hall
520 E. Kenilworth Ave. Wheaton
Biography:
Heather Templeton Dill
PRESIDENT
Heather Templeton Dill is president of the John Templeton Foundation. Prior to assuming this role in 2015, she served as executive liaison to the president under her father, the late Dr. Jack Templeton. Dill is the granddaughter of the late Sir John Templeton.
The work supported by the Foundation crosses disciplinary, religious, and geographical boundaries across a range of subjects in the sciences, philosophy, and theology, from gratitude and hope to the psychology of purpose and positive neuroscience. One of the main programs of the Foundation is the Templeton Prize, valued at $1.3 million. It is one of the world’s largest annual individual awards to honor individuals whose exemplary achievements advance her grandfather’s philanthropic vision: harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it.
The 2023 Templeton Prize Laureate, Dr. Edna Adan Ismail, joined a list of 52 Prize recipients including Mother Teresa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and the Dalai Lama. The 2022 Templeton Prize went to Nobel Prize-winning physicist Dr. Frank Wilczek. The 2021 Prize went to Dr. Jane Goodall, who co-authored an op-ed for USA Today with Heather Dill on human resilience and hope.
Dill has spoken at various venues on living in a pluralistic world, on the research-supported benefits of a life of purpose, as well as the importance of intellectual humility. In 2020, she received the Citizen Diplomat of the Year Award, from Citizen Diplomacy International Philadelphia, jointly with Jennifer Templeton Simpson, and she was selected by Main Line Today magazine for its 2019 Women on the Move issue. In 2022, she was named #6 on the Pennsylvania Nonprofit Power 100 from City & State Pennsylvania. She was featured on the cover of the donor-focused philanthropic magazine Lifestyles in a major profile for its spring 2023 issue. She is a member of the Generosity Commission and currently serves on the board of the Philanthropy Roundtable.
She served as a trustee of the John Templeton Foundation from 1997-2003 and 2009-2015 and has been a member of the Foundation’s executive, finance, and strategic planning committees. Dill previously served on the Templeton Religion Trust steering committee and the Templeton World Charity Foundation board and is currently a member of the board of First Trust Bank Limited.
She holds a master’s degree in American history from Villanova University and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a B.A. in history and a concentration in public policy.
This event is free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the Center for Applied Christian Ethics (CACE) and the division of Humanities and Theological Studies