The latest study of Bob Dylan's work could have Christian scholars singing in the aislesThe times are apparently not a-changin' for Bob Dylan,the American songwriter whose genius for giving the slip to his own musical shadow has long been celebrated by fans and a growing coterie of scholars. "There is but one Dylan," chuckles fellow countryman Stephen H Webb, and whether that proclamation has a slight biblical air it is intentional. According to Webb,a professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College, in Indiana, or Dylan's entire musical oeuvre of the past 45 years has been a superlative Christian work yet unfolding. He knows there will be those who beg to differ.
In his current book,Dylan Redeemed: From Highway 61 to Saved, the University of Chicago-educated theologian seems destined to raise even more hackles among his subject's secular followers than did the brief time in the late 1970s - date stamped by three muscular evangelical recordings, and late Train Coming,Saved and Shot of Love - that is commonly regarded as the sum total of Dylan's flirtation with an aggressive "born-again" stance.
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Source: theguardian.com