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Theology professors Keith Beebe and Jerry Sittser were recently recognized for their outstanding efforts in teaching and writing.
Beebe is the recipient of a 2006 Graves Award in the humanities. The award, given by the American Council of Learned Societies, is presented for exemplary skill and enthusiasm in the classroom and for faculty research that enhances students' educational experience.
The $9,600 award will allow Beebe to spend the upcoming summer in Scotland, preparing 264-year-old documents for publication and writing a book based on that project. "I'm especially glad for this opportunity to continue research on such a fascinating document as the McCullough Manuscripts," Beebe says. The manuscripts, compiled by the Reverend William McCullough, are a collection of 108 first-person conversion narratives associated with the Scottish "Great Awakening." Beebe's upcoming book on the project is titled The McCulloch Manuscripts (1742): Windows of the Scottish Soul.
 Sittser is the 2005 Gold Medallion Book Award winner for his most recent book, When God Doesn't Answer Your Prayer. The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association awards the prize in recognition of Christian books that meet the association's highest criteria for excellence in content, literary quality, design and significance.
The book was one of hundreds of entries that publishers submitted for the 2005 awards. Of those, 100 were chosen as finalists and 20, each representing a particular category, were selected as Gold Medallion winners. Sittser's book was honored in the Christian Living category, which recognizes publications that facilitate Christian life and/or provide a model for what it means to live as a Christian.
"This is the kind of book that challenges the assumptions of readers about what prayer is and how people should pray," says Sittser. "So the recognition means a great deal because it says that judges were willing to consider a book that has an edge to it. I am deeply grateful for that."
Sittser is also the author of a number of other popular Christian books, including The Will of God as a Way of Life, Loving Across Our Differences, and A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss. He is currently at work on a book on the history of Christian spirituality, tentatively titled Water from a Deep Well. It is slated for publication by Zondervan in 2007.
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