David B. Hart wins the 2011 Michael Ramsay prize

London, May 27 (ENInews)--Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, today awarded the 2011 Michael Ramsey prize to "Atheist Delusions," by
David Bentley Hart. The book, said Dr. Williams in a news release, "takes no
prisoners in its response to fashionable criticisms of Christianity."

"Needless to say the honor is very great," said Hart in a news release.
"For me, it lies especially in the name of the prize, as I have such a high
regard for Michael Ramsey, and in its being conferred by the current
Archbishop of Canterbury, whose work is among the richest theology being written
in English today."

In the book, Hart outlines how Christianity transformed the ancient world
in ways we may have forgotten: bringing liberation from fatalism,
conferring great dignity on human beings, subverting the cruelest aspects of pagan
society, and elevating charity above all virtues. He then argues that what
we term the "Age of Reason" was in fact the beginning of the eclipse of
reason's authority as a cultural value. Hart closes the book in the present,
delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a
culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values.