Dr. Barry Hankins, BA '78, MA '83, history professor and director of graduate studies, has received the 2009 John Pollack Award for Christian Biography from Samford University.
The award recognizes Hankins' book, Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America, which chronicles the life of the theologian, philosopher and Presbyterian pastor.
The Pollock Award is named for the British author of more than 30 books on religion, the majority of them being biographies of Christian leaders. Samford University's Beeson Divinity School established the award in 2001.
Prior recipients include writers Stephen Graham, Alan Jacobs, Francis Bremer, George Marsden, Kevin Belmonte, Joseph Pearce and Timothy Dudley-Smith.
The award includes a $5,000 award and a trip to Beeson for a public lecture about Schaeffer.
"I set out to write a book that would tell his and his wife Edith's story while assessing their contribution to the development of American evangelicalism," said Hankins.
The book tracks Schaeffer's life in three phases--his fundamentalist early years, a middle period when he was involved in the Christian cultural engagement, to his final years as the intellectual guru of Christian Right politics, said Hankins.