Princeton Professor To Lecture On 'The Gospel According To Johnny Cash' Oct. 5 At Truett Seminary

October 3, 2006
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C. Clifton Black

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Princeton Theological Seminary professor and biblical scholar C. Clifton Black will present "The Gospel According to Johnny Cash: The New Testament and The Crafting of a Public Theology," as part of the Minette and Huber Lelland Drumwright Jr. Colloquium in New Testament Studies, at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 5. The lecture will take place in the Paul and Katy Piper Great Hall at Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary, 1100 S. Third St. in Waco. The event is free and open to the public.

Black will examine how Johnny Cash, whom he labels as a "Christ-haunted man," conveyed the gospel through his music to the prisoners of Folsom in 1968 and San Quentin in 1969. In his time and place, the "Man in Black" was proclaiming the church's gospel with such exquisite timing and taste that perhaps only a few of the hard-cases in his prison audiences knew it was happening. While this may seem far-fetched, Black reminds us that Christianity as a whole is based on an even more improbable claim: that a prophet who consorted with sinners and who was publicly crucified was raised from the dead by God to redeem the world. Black's lecture is a prelude to a manuscript of the same topic that he is currently writing.

Black earned his master of divinity from Emory University and his doctorate from Duke University. He is the Otto A. Piper Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His major works include "Mark: Images of an Apostolic Interpreter," "The Rhetoric of the Gospel: Theological Artistry in the Gospel and the Acts" and "Anatomy of the New Testament."

The Drumwright Colloquium is held each semester at Truett Seminary and is sponsored, in part, this fall by the Baylor University Press.

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