Donald J. Shriver Jr., an ethicist who has called on the United States to own up to past misdeeds, including slavery, has won the 2009 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion, the Grawemeyer Foundation announced today.

Mr. Shriver, who was president of Union Theological Seminary, in New York, from 1975 to 1991, has taught ethics at Union and several other institutions, including Columbia and Emory Universities.

The $200,000 prize honors Mr. Shriver for ideas he expressed in his 2005 book, Honest Patriots: Loving a County Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds (Oxford University Press). According to the award citation, the book argues that the U.S. government and the American people need to openly confront problems from the nation’s past, “much as Germany has worked to make amends for World War II and South Africa has tried to atone for apartheid.”

The Grawemeyer awards were created in 1984 by Charles Grawemeyer, a University of Louisville alumnus, to honor creative works and ideas in the arts, humanities, and sciences. The prizes are given in five categories. The other awards for 2009 were given earlier this week, honoring achievements in music composition, ideas improving world order, psychology, and education.

More information about the awards can be found on the foundation’s Web site. —Charles Huckabee