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Staley Distinguished Christian Scholar Lecture Series at Lees-McRae College Features Dr. Ralph Wood Oct. 22-23

Oct. 9, 2012. The Staley Distinguished Christian Scholar Lecture Series at Lees-McRae College is pleased to host Dr. Ralph C. Wood on Oct. 22-23 in Evans Auditorium in the Cannon Student Center on the campus of Lees-McRae College. He will present two lectures: “J.R.R. Tolkien: Writer for our Time of Terror” on Monday at 7 p.m. and “Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South” on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Ralph C. Wood, University Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University in Waco, Texas since 1998, holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Texas A&M University-Commerce, as well as M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago. Before coming to Baylor, he served for 26 years on the faculty of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he was the John Allen Easley Professor of Religion. He has also taught at Samford University in Birmingham, at Regent College in Vancouver, and at Providence College in Rhode Island.

At Baylor, he teaches in both the Great Texts program and the Department of Religion. He serves as an editor-at-large for the Christian Century and as a member of the editorial board of the Flannery O’Connor Review.

His major book, first published in 1988 and still in print from the University of Notre Dame Press, is entitled The Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists (Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, John Updike, and Peter De Vries). He is also the author of Contending for the Faith: The Church’s Engagement with Culture (Baylor, 2003); The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth (Westminster John Knox, 2004); Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South (Eerdmans, 2004); Literature and Theology (Abingdon, 2008); Preaching and Professing: Sermons by a Teacher Seeking to Proclaim the Gospel (Eerdmans, 2009); and Chesterton: The Nightmare Goodness of God (Baylor, 2011).

Dr. Wood has written numerous essays and articles about J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, P.D. James, G.K. Chesterton, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy and other topics.

The Staley Distinguished Christian Scholar Lecture Series is designed to provide scholarly speakers for religious emphasis programs at small Christian colleges. The Staley endowment to Lees-McRae College provides the funding to bring Ralph C. Wood to the campus during the 2012-13 academic year. Past speakers include Dr. Tony Campolo, Dr. Marcus Borg and Dr. Bart D. Ehrman.

These lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Mr. Jim Taylor at 828-898-8842 or taylor@lmc.edu