Lord Sacks, the former chief rabbi, has pledged to use a £1.1 million prize to counter the voices of hatred that dominate the internet and improve western society’s “dysfunctional” response to the technological revolution.
It was announced yesterday that he had won the Templeton Prize, which is awarded to a person who has made “an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension”.
Previous winners include the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Lord Rees of Ludlow, the astronomer royal.
Since stepping down as chief rabbi in 2013 Lord Sacks has lectured and written a best-selling book, Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence. He said that he would use prize money to travel the world spreading his message to young people about honouring the diversity of faith.
An important element of his work will be using technology.
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Lord Sacks said that previous revolutions in communications — the invention of hieroglyphics and cuneiform; the invention of the alphabet; the move from scroll to codex; and the creation of printing — had all been accompanied by spiritual revolutions but that this was not yet the case with the internet.
“On the contrary the best uses of the web now are the people who value violence and hate,” he said.
He claimed that the use of the internet to spread the “truth” about faith had so far been dysfunctional.
“We are trying to work out how we can speak to this You Tube short-attention-span generation which nonetheless have hearts of gold and are waiting for a positive altruistic message,” he said. “We have to learn what it is that touches young people on the inside. We have got to take the message and make it funny, or unusual.”
He and his small team have experimented with music videos and whiteboard animation. Lord Sacks, who was nominated for the award by Lord Carey of Clifton, the former archbishop of Canterbury, said that young people needed to “hear the message of altruism [and] speak to the better angels of their nature if we are to counter the terrible voices of extremism”.
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Jennifer Simpson, chairwoman of the John Templeton Foundation board of trustees, which awards the prize, said of Lord Sacks: “He has always been ahead of his time and, thanks to his leadership, the world can look to the future with hope, something we are very much in need of right now.”