Few preachers or teachers have influenced the preaching world as much in recent years as Fred Craddock. Now 75 years old, he taught for many years as Bandy Professor of Preaching and New Testament at Emory University in Atlanta. He presented the Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale in addition to other distinguished lectureships. He is the author of several important books and commentaries, including As One Without Authority (1971), Overhearing the Gospel (1978), and Preaching (1985).

Following his retirement from Emory, he became pastor at the Cherry Log Christian Church in rural north Georgia. (Craddock retired from this role April 14 of this year.) A native of rural West Tennessee, he regularly leads workshops for rural churches and Appalachian ministers. Preaching magazine editor Michael Duduit visited with Craddock in his church office in February.

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Preaching: You have been one of the most influential persons in the field of homiletics in recent years. In fact, many people look to you as the one who launched this whole movement that has come to be called the "New Homiletic." How would you describe how preaching has changed over the past three decades?

Craddock: I can talk about changes but I'm not as comfortable with the term "New Homiletic." Preaching was essentially the same in mainline pulpits, criticized pretty heavily by Harry Emerson Fosdick in "What's the Matter with Preaching?" in Harpers Magazine back in the 30's. Preaching had become in many churches either exegetical pieces without much present in them, or under the heading of expository preaching, generally regarded as unrelated to the pulse and vein of life.

Fosdick went to what I thought was an extreme — it was totally group counseling. What's your problem and we'll talk about that — you can add some poetry and Bible to that. But it did not really affect preaching that much. Broadus and Witherspoon's text — On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons — that still held sway, but it was based on the presupposition that the pulpit was the center of authority. And that was being eroded by the revolution of the 60's and the early 70's. Rightfully or wrongfully, it was perceived that way — to say something from the pulpit did not immediately get it accepted. The audience wanted to have more participation in the conclusion of the matter.

Well, where do you land between an old method which assumes the authority of the pulpit, of the speaker, of the scripture and of the church, to the more psychologically-oriented, "What can I do for you today? What would you like to talk about?" approach? Somewhere in between some things had to come together.

It was my struggling effort as a beginning teacher of preaching in the late 60's and early 70's to find a way for the community out of which the pulpit and the scripture comes, and the scripture which addresses the pulpit, to talk to each other in such a way that you don't sacrifice either one. The closest I could come to that was a method that's been called inductive preaching — not an entirely accurate description but as close as I could come to it.