Christianity Today again fared well at the annual Evangelical Press Association (EPA) Higher Goal Awards, announced this week in Atlanta, receiving first place awards in four categories.
Sister publication Books & Culture did even better, winning 11 awards—far more than any other publication—including an Award of Merit in the General Magazine category.
The EPA Higher Goals honors recognize achievements in 27 writing, design, and photography categories. 110 publications submitted 892 entries in this year’s contest. Christianity Today placed in the top five in nine categories and finished first in biblical exposition, editorial, personality article, and typography and lettering categories.
Christianity Today Executive Editor Timothy George, who is also dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, placed first in the biblical exposition category for his February cover story, “Is the God of Muhammad the Father of Jesus?” Howard Hendricks, called the article (which is now a book) an “excellent treatment of a delicate subject.”
Douglas LeBlanc’s January editorial criticizing pundits’ overuse of the term fundamentalist won in the editorial category. “LeBlanc selected a very timely subject, which might have escaped others because, after all, it’s just a semantics issue. But this time, as he shows, the semantics are crucial to the ideas,” Russ Pulliam, associate editor and columnist for the Indianapolis Star, said of “A Secularist Jihad.” “It is very wise for him, and the magazine, to pay attention to this kind of detail because God cares about words and picks them carefully for the Scriptures.”
CT Editor at Large Ed Gilbreath won the personality article category with his February profile of Jesse Jackson. “I found this to be a courageous piece of journalism,” said judge Bob Welch, a columnist at the Register-Guard newspaper in Eugene, Oregon. The article is “well-written, well-researched, well-reported, and deals with a subject that most evangelical writers wouldn’t take the time or effort to deal with in a fair and honest way,” Welch wrote. “It was a honor to read this.” Gilbreath is now managing editor of CT sister publication Christian Reader [which placed fifth in the cartoon category].
CT designer Gary Gnidovic took first place in the EPA’s first-ever typography and lettering category for the article “The Top Tomato.”
The magazine also placed in the reporting, cartoon, full-color cover, single photo/controlled setting, and cause of the year categories.
Several Christianity Today staffers also won awards for work in Books & Culture. Senior writer Wendy Murray Zoba’s “Maya Mysteries” won the competitive general article category, which had 78 nominations. Associate editor Agnieszka Tennant took fourth place in the personality article for “The Shaming of Lech Walesa.” Books & Culture Editor John Wilson, who serves as editor at large for CT, won fifth place in the editorial category and first place in cause of the year for an article he wrote with Philip Yancey, a CT columnist and editor at large. Jennifer McGuire, who serves as art director for both Books & Culture and CT, won third place in publication design for Books & Culture.
Christianity Today‘s other sister publications that won EPA awards this week include Leadership, which won an Award of Merit in the Christian Ministries magazine category, Campus Life, Today’s Christian Woman, and Marriage Partnership.
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Related Elsewhere:
Last year, Christianity Today placed within the top five in eight EPA categories.
As of this article’s posting date, the EPA’s website still listed last year’s winners.
