Ralph C. Wood's teaching and writing career over fifty years helped readers and students be attentive to the way literature renders the theologically abstract concretely. Wood has modeled serious theological engagement and robust literary reflection in his writing on G. K. Chesterton, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Flannery O'Connor, among others. His books have shaped current and future generations of literary critics and theologians alike. Not as easily measured, Wood formed generations of undergraduate and graduate students in candid, sometimes brash, often comedic, and always critical engagements with theology and the arts. Avoiding what Flannery O'Connor deemed the two great follies of theologically oriented literature in the forms of pornography and sentimentality, Wood drew out theological themes without watering down the reality of suffering or the costly nature of the gospel. Good News Resounding honors Wood's contribution by continuing to follow in his footsteps, reflecting theologically on literature to draw out the very Good News of the gospel amidst very real suffering, evil, and sin. The collection assembles a diverse group of scholars--former students, colleagues, and friends of Wood--to demonstrate the multivalent approaches to and richness of reading literature theologically. Written for academically inclined readers of theology and the arts, Good News Resounding extends Wood's legacy and testifies to the power of the classroom to shape future generations of readers, theologians, and Christians.
Rachel Toombs serves at Ascension Episcopal Church in Stillwater, Minnesota.
Introduction Rachel ToombsFor Ralph Wood Malcolm Guite 1 Dante's Holy Tears: Hope, Compassion, and Conformity to God in the Comedy's School of Weeping Matthew Rothaus Moser 2 The Biblical and Pastoral Imagination of George MacDonald: The Meaning of Death in Lilith Gisela H. Kreglinger 3 The Long Defeat Barry Harvey 4 "I am Christ's back": Alienation, Necessity, and Exchange in Charles Williams' Drama Rowan Williams 5 Freeing the Waters: Art and Sacrament in David Jones Paul S. Fiddes 6 The High Cost of Good Readers: Possibility, Responsibility, and the Christian Moral Imagination in Flannery O'Connor's Theory of Fiction Jordan Rowan Fannin 7 Flannery O'Connor's Prophets Are Not Fundamentalists John Sykes 8 Under Every Green Tree? Flannery O'Connor, Caroline Gordon, and "Parker's Back" Rachel Toombs 9 The Power of the St. Therese's "Little Way" in Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins Jessica Hooten Wilson 10 Knoxville, Summer 2022 Pete Candler
