Every year, the Colson Center presents the William Wilberforce Award to a Christian leader who has made a lasting difference in their sphere of influence, demonstrating the same kind of principled courage as that of British abolitionist William Wilberforce.

We are pleased to announce Os Guinness as the recipient of the 2026 William Wilberforce Award.

Os Guinness, DPhil., is an author and social critic. The great-great-great grandson of Dublin brewer Arthur Guinness, Os was born in China during World War II where his parents were medical missionaries. He spent the first decade of his life amid national and global upheaval, including war, a famine that took the lives of his two brothers, and the rise of Communism in China. He was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to Europe where he was educated in England, eventually earning his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his D.Phil. in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford. In the 1960s, he traveled to L’Abri in the Swiss Alps, where his faith and worldview were sharpened. It was there that he met his wife, Jenny.

One of the most influential Christian thought-leaders of our time, Os has devoted his life to advancing truth, addressing societal issues from a Christian worldview, and helping the Church think wisely about life and culture in a post-Christian age. In 1991, he founded the Trinity Forum, dedicated to the cultivation of the Christian mind. An ardent defender of religious freedom and the rights of conscience, he was the key drafter of the 1988 Williamsburg Charter, a celebration and reaffirmation of the First Amendment, and the Global Charter of Conscience, which was presented to the European Union Parliament in 2012. 

In addition to advancing truth in Western society, Os has served the Church by advancing wisdom for Christians living in a post-Christian culture, helping Christians discern between competing visions of humanity, and advocating for the Biblical notion of calling. Like William Wilberforce, who called the Christians of his generation to practical, applied, and authentic Christianity, Os has been a consistent voice calling the Church to faithful action and to the pursuit of Truth and freedom. He looks at culture with uncommon clarity, observing the times and interpreting them through the lens of Truth.

Os has written or edited more than thirty books, including The Call, The Magna Carta of Humanity, Our Civilizational Moment, and most recently America Agonistes: America’s 250th and the Restoration of a Nation in Conflict with Itself and Its Past. Since moving to the United States in 1984, Os has been a Guest Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies, a Guest Scholar and Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum and the EastWest Institute in New York. Os has spoken at many of the world’s major universities and spoken widely to political and business conferences across the world. In 2025, Os was featured in Truth Rising, a documentary project with the Colson Center and Focus on the Family.

The Colson Center is proud to select Os Guinness as the recipient of the 2026 William Wilberforce Award. 

While a limited number of tickets remain for the conference, the Wilberforce Award Dinner is sold out. If you are already registered for the conference, you can join the waitlist. To join the waitlist:

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