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Alvin Plantinga, 84, a pioneering advocate for theism as a serious philosophical position within academic circles, has been named the winner of the 2017 Templeton Prize.

Heather Templeton Dill, president of the John Templeton Foun­dation, said in a statement, “Alvin Plantinga recognized that not only did religious belief not conflict with serious philosophical work, but that it could make crucial contributions to addressing perennial problems in philosophy.”

David G. Buttrick, best known as “a master of homiletic design,” died April 22, at age 89. His obituary did not give a cause of death.

Buttrick was professor of homiletics at Vanderbilt Divinity School for almost 20 years and also taught at Pittsburgh Theo­logical Seminary and Iliff School of The­ology, among other schools.

Frederick Houk Borsch, a bishop, academic, and advocate for social justice, died April 11 at age 81.

Borsch died of complications from myelodysplastic syndrome at his home in Philadelphia, according to the Episcopal Diocese of Los An­geles, where he served as bishop from 1988 to 2002.

As a peace deal signed a year ago falters and the world’s newest nation faces famine, Isaiah Majok Dau, head of the South Sudan Council of Churches, continues to find sources of hope.

Dau, who is also presiding bishop of the Sudan Pentecostal Church, recently visited the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland, and spoke to an ecumenical network focusing on South Sudan.

Laurie Zoloth, a leader in bioethics and Jewish studies, has been appointed dean of the University of Chicago Di­vinity School. She be­gins in the role on July 1.

Zoloth currently serves as a professor at Northwestern Uni­versity, holding ap­pointments in the Department of Reli­gious Studies and in the Feinberg School of Medicine.