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Last year, Sir John Marks Templeton, the legendary 92-year-old global investor, made one big decision. He gave away $550 million, becoming the third-largest financial donor of 2004 after Microsoft's Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffet's wife, Susan.

A naturalized British citizen (and knight by grant of Elizabeth II), Templeton gave the money to his foundation, unique in its sustained focus on science and religion. These new funds propelled the John Templeton Foundation into the top 100 American foundations, with assets approaching $1 billion.

Over the decades, Templeton witnessed other foundations stray from their original charter or exercise poor stewardship. He wanted to avoid their mistakes. So first, he put into place stringent controls over budgets and grants to ensure that long after he's gone his foundation stays true to his vision for promoting spirituality, values, and a closer relationship between science and religion. Second, he put his 65-year-old surgeon son, John "Jack" Templeton, at the helm of the foundation, based in Pennsylvania.

The foundation's signature grant is the annual Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities (until 2001 known as the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion). This blockbuster gift of $1.5 million typically goes to a religious leader, scholar, or scientist. Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, and Chuck Colson were recipients, as was scientist-theologian John Polkinghorne in 2002.

The foundation also gives grants and awards of up to $40 million per year for conferences and science-religion research. Scholars, journalists, and major universities have received Templeton funds. In a typical year, it awards more than 100 grants. A longtime Presbyterian, Templeton has also generously supported the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Templeton's grants are not without controversy. His quest to bring science and religion closer together appears biased to some. "Mr. Templeton wants to bring scientists and religious people together in a hallelujah chorus of sorts," Paul Kurtz, a die-hard secularist and philosophy professor emeritus at the State University of New York at Buffalo, told The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Joel Carpenter, former religion officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts and provost at Calvin College (a Templeton grant recipient), told CT, "Sir John's theology is very eclectic. He has pushed [grants] to be religiously and theologically inclusive. However, the people who are most vitally interested in the relation of science and religion are traditional orthodox Christians.

"No one in the evangelical world is doing faith and science in the same way Templeton is."

The handover of the foundation from father to son also poses personal challenges. The elder Templeton is a universalist. He views God as a divine force of "pure unlimited love." His son Jack is a born-again evangelical and member of the conservative Presbyterian Church in America.

The Templetons have vastly different life experiences. Sir John is a deeply spiritual businessman. Jack is a high-achieving trauma surgeon committed to science and medicine.

But in managing their foundation, father and son have found new common ground. Earlier this year, Sir John, who lives in the Bahamas, popped off a pre-dawn fax to his son, barking orders like a Naval officer to the engine room of a ship:

"Find out everything about this scientist," it demanded.

"Make sure the scientist details his methodology for our grant," said another.

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September 2005, Vol. 49, No. 9