About Dr. Craddock

The Fred Craddock Center’s Namesake:

Fred Craddock is one of the most influential homileticians of his era. His books, sermons, and lectures have been used in homiletics classrooms around the world for over fifty years, and Newsweek published a study that included him among the twelve most effective preachers in the English-speaking world. Craddock’s greatest contribution was his innovation in homiletical theory in an era when preaching needed new life.

Hailing from Humboldt, Tennessee, Cradock came as a freshman to Johnson University in the Fall of 1947, where he excelled as a student leader serving as class president from 1948 until his graduation in 1950 and as a student preacher in rural churches in east Tennessee. According to his senior yearbook, he planned to pursue further education, then mission work in Japan. Upon his graduation he married Nettie Dungan. Following his completion of a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Phillips University in 1953, Craddock returned to Johnson to teach from 1953-1957. He returned to Phillips to teach Preaching and New Testament in 1961 and earned his Ph.D. in New Testament from Vanderbuilt in 1964. Craddock became the Bandy Professor of Preaching and New Testament at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in 1979.

His 1971 book, As One Without Authority, sparked a new approach to preaching that forced the field of homiletics to reconsider some of its most basic assumptions. Craddock recognized that the modern privatization of religion should push preachers away from a deductive model whose effectiveness depended on the authority of the preacher toward an inductive, narrative model that derived authority from the shared experiences of the congregation. In addition to encouraging new forms of preaching, Craddock called on preachers to “engage the most thoughtful and substantive minds of its generation regardless of the views of those minds on matters vital to preaching.” This dialogue between the best biblical scholars and the best cultural critics would, he believed, allow preachers to bring the biblical word to bear on cultural circumstances. The Center will attempt to further these aspects of Craddock’s legacy.

In his retirement, Craddock settled in Cherry Log, Georgia, about 125 miles from Johnson’s Tennessee campus and within the same Appalachian region. His retirement goal continued his lifelong commitment to assist underserved mountain preachers. The Fred Craddock Center for Preaching Excellence at Johnson University is proud to carry on that legacy.