For Immediate Release

Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom to Receive Annual Kuyper Prize at Princeton Seminary

Princeton, NJ, February 3, 2006– Founder and chairman of the board of the Institute for Global Engagement and former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Robert A. Seiple is the recipient of Princeton Theological Seminary’s 2006 Abraham Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Life. He will receive the award when he delivers the Seminary’s Kuyper Lecture on Thursday, April 6 at 7:30 p.m.

Ambassador Seiple’s lecture is titled “The Gospel Blimp Revisited:  Reflections on Christian Witness and Persecution.” By looking at both positive and negative examples of mission activity and the responses it has received in various nations, he seeks to convey that the message, motivation, and methodology of sharing the gospel are important in an effective Christian witness. Christians should have an incarnational ministry, he believes, focused on spreading the reality that the kingdom of God is at hand rather than focused
on themselves.

President Clinton appointed Seiple to the position of U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom in 1999, a post created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. In this capacity he was charged with promoting religious freedom worldwide, promoting reconciliation in those areas where conflict had been implemented along religious lines, and addressing U.S. foreign policy to reflect these goals.

A New Jersey native, Seiple is a graduate of Brown University. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps, attaining the rank of captain during the Vietnam War, in the course of which he flew 300 combat missions and received numerous commendations. He returned to his alma mater in 1971, where he held numerous administrative positions, including directing the Campaign for Brown, the largest fund-raising campaign at the university at that time.

From 1983 to 1987 he served as president of Eastern College and Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He left that position to serve for eleven years as president of World Vision, Inc., the largest privately funded relief and development agency in the world.

Seiple left his ambassadorial post in 2001 to found the Institute for Global Engagement, of which he continues to serve as chair. The institute, according to its web site, was “created to develop sustainable environment for religious freedom worldwide, and to inspire and equip emerging leaders with faith-based methodologies of engagement.” It seeks to work with governments and at grassroots levels to achieve the goals of religious freedom for all faiths, even those who choose no faith.

The Abraham Kuyper Prize is awarded each year through the generous gift of Dr. Rimmer and Mrs. Ruth de Vries to a scholar or community leader who has contributed to the further development of Reformed theology, particularly as it bears on matters of public life, historical or contemporary, in one or several of the spheres of society. The de Vries’ gift  also established an endowed faculty chair and a grant fund for graduate students at Princeton Seminary.

The lecture will take place in the Main Lounge of the Mackay Campus Center. A public reception will immediately follow the lecture in the Private Dining Room of the Mackay Campus Center. For more information regarding the Kuyper Prize and Lecture, contact the Communications/Publications Office at 609.497.7760, or visit the Seminary web site at www.ptsem.edu.

In connection with the Kuyper Prize and Lecture event, the Abraham Kuyper Center of Public Theology will hold a consultation on Ambassador Seiple’s Kuyper Lecture on Friday, April 7 from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Responses to the lecture will be offered by Ms. Kaley Middlebrooks Carpenter of Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. D.J. Smit of the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, and Dr. C.J. Klop of the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Please contact Clifford Anderson at 609.497.3642 for more information regarding this event.