Dr. John Templeton led the organization started by his father to support “discoveries relating to the Big Questions of human purpose.”
John Templeton Foundation president and chairman John M. “Jack” Templeton has passed away at the age of 75. Templeton, a prominent former pediatric surgeon, died of cancer last Saturday.
Templeton followed in his father’s footsteps as the top executive of the foundation, which awards grants and gives every year a $1.7 million Templeton prize to a “person, who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery or practical works.”
Templeton’s father, Sir John Templeton created the foundation in 1987, and his son took over the reins in 2008 when the older Templeton died.
New York-born Templeton, who had both a bachelor’s degree from Yale and Harvard, wrote several papers that were published in prominent medical journals over the years. He was also the author of two books, Thrift and Generosity: The Joy of Giving, and A Searcher’s Life. The temple served as director of trauma program and a professor of pediatric surgery at the University of Pennsylvania before he began his term at the foundation.
Templeton was also a member of several boards, such as the Foreign Policy Research Institute, National Bible Association, and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, from which he also received the Canterbury Medal for Religious Liberty in 2006. He was a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and vice chairman of the American Trauma Society.
Religion News Service reports that Templeton was also a major donor to the Republican party. In 2008, he also participated in Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign as a member of the campaign’s “National Faith and Values Steering Committee.” He was also an active supporter of Proposition 8 referendum, which at the time banned gay marriage in California.
Templeton is survived by his wife Josephine, his two daughters and six grandchildren and a brother, Christopher.