The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education (IVP Academic) by Christopher Gehrz was chosen from more than forty nominations as a finalist for the prestigious Lilly Fellows Program Book Award.

The biennial award honors an original and imaginative work from any academic discipline that best exemplifies the central ideas and principles animating the Lilly Fellows Program. These include faith and learning in the Christian intellectual tradition, the vocation of teaching and scholarship, and the history, theory or practice of the university as the site of religious inquiry and culture.

Works considered for this year's award address the historical or contemporary relation of Christian intellectual life and scholarship to the practice of teaching as a Christian vocation or to the past, present, and future of higher education. Authors and editors did not nominate their own works.

The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education: Forming Whole and Holy Persons presents a clear alternative to Reformed accounts of Christian higher education. In this groundbreaking volume edited by Gehrz, scholars associated with the Pietist tradition reflect on the Pietist approach to education. Key themes include holistic formation, humility and openmindedness, the love of neighbor, concern for the common good, and spiritual maturity.

"Pietism is frequently overlooked or dismissed in conversations about evangelicalism and Christian history more generally. As a result, the resources from this rich tradition are not mined for their potential insights into the issues facing us today," said David Congdon, associate editor for IVP Academic. "The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education is an attempt to rectify this gap in the conversation with respect to the challenges of Christian higher education. Christopher Gehrz brought together an exceptional group of contributors, and the result is a book that shows the relevance of Pietism for shaping the future of higher education. In a society that seems to grow more fractured with each passing day, the Pietist vision of forming 'whole and holy persons' is more timely than ever."

The Lilly Fellows Program Book Award is a part of the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts, based in Christ College, the interdisciplinary honors college of Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana. This program seeks to strengthen the quality and shape the character of church-related institutions of higher learning in the twenty-first century.

For more information visit lillyfellows.org.