Karen Swallow Prior, PhD, is a reader, writer, and professor. She is the author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos, 2023). She has a monthly column for Religion News Service. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, and Vox.
October 22, 2024: Karen Swallow Prior: Christianity Today: What Campaign Signs Taught Me About Being a Good Neighbor
October 1, 2024: Karen Swallow Prior: Plough: Jane Eyre Holds Her Own
Al Mohler stirs debate on abortion abolition, whether women should be prosecuted
Karen Swallow Prior, an Evangelical author and academic, wrote an opinion piece published by Religion News Service on Monday critiquing Mohler’s support for criminal punishments. “Where suicide (once called self-murder) is against the law, those who attempt it and fail are not tried, imprisoned or executed but are offered help and assistance. The same principle is applied in all cases of self-harm and self-mutilation,” wrote Prior. “While the child carried by a pregnant woman is a complete, whole, individual human being, that being is connected to her body. This is a physical and biological reality. It means that the child cannot be helped or protected without supporting the mother, too.” (Christian Post 3/28/24) READ MORE>>>>>
Karen Swallow Prior, an Evangelical author and academic, wrote an opinion piece published by Religion News Service on Monday critiquing Mohler’s support for criminal punishments. “Where suicide (once called self-murder) is against the law, those who attempt it and fail are not tried, imprisoned or executed but are offered help and assistance. The same principle is applied in all cases of self-harm and self-mutilation,” wrote Prior. “While the child carried by a pregnant woman is a complete, whole, individual human being, that being is connected to her body. This is a physical and biological reality. It means that the child cannot be helped or protected without supporting the mother, too.” (Christian Post 3/28/24) READ MORE>>>>>
‘Evangelical Imagination’ Has Formed Us. But Can We Define It?
Many of us associate imagination with children’s playtime, creative problem-solving, and hobbits.
Imagination might seem to be merely a fun but optional exercise, enjoyable but indulgent. We also tend to think of it as an individual ability or gift. “Use your imagination,” we say. Or “She’s really imaginative,” we might observe about someone else curiously. Most of us aren’t likely to think of imagination as something arising from our communal experience and exerting tremendous influence on our social lives, let alone our religious beliefs and practices. (Karen Swallow Prior/Christianity Today 12/22/23)
READ MORE>>>>>
Many of us associate imagination with children’s playtime, creative problem-solving, and hobbits.
Imagination might seem to be merely a fun but optional exercise, enjoyable but indulgent. We also tend to think of it as an individual ability or gift. “Use your imagination,” we say. Or “She’s really imaginative,” we might observe about someone else curiously. Most of us aren’t likely to think of imagination as something arising from our communal experience and exerting tremendous influence on our social lives, let alone our religious beliefs and practices. (Karen Swallow Prior/Christianity Today 12/22/23)
READ MORE>>>>>
The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis
Into this anxious milieu comes Karen Swallow Prior’s The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images & Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis—a book that is, if nothing else, refreshingly unique in its approach to evangelicalism. Prior attempts to get beneath the doctrinal or sociological definitions of evangelicalism that pervade the academic literature and understand the movement through the “evangelical social imaginaries.” That means the “collective pool of ideas, images, and values that have filled our books, our thoughts, our sermons, our songs, our blog posts, and our imaginations and have thereby created an evangelical culture.”
In one respect, Prior’s effort is to repristinate evangelicalism by disentangling the elements of the evangelical social imaginary “that are truly Christian” so they “can be better distinguished from those that are merely cultural.” Such an effort requires momentarily escaping the blindfold of the metaphors, stories, and images that mold our pre-cognitive intuitions and dispositions in order to see what is real.
(Matthew Lee Anderson/Public Discourse 11/13/23)
Read More>>>>>
Into this anxious milieu comes Karen Swallow Prior’s The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images & Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis—a book that is, if nothing else, refreshingly unique in its approach to evangelicalism. Prior attempts to get beneath the doctrinal or sociological definitions of evangelicalism that pervade the academic literature and understand the movement through the “evangelical social imaginaries.” That means the “collective pool of ideas, images, and values that have filled our books, our thoughts, our sermons, our songs, our blog posts, and our imaginations and have thereby created an evangelical culture.”
In one respect, Prior’s effort is to repristinate evangelicalism by disentangling the elements of the evangelical social imaginary “that are truly Christian” so they “can be better distinguished from those that are merely cultural.” Such an effort requires momentarily escaping the blindfold of the metaphors, stories, and images that mold our pre-cognitive intuitions and dispositions in order to see what is real.
(Matthew Lee Anderson/Public Discourse 11/13/23)
Read More>>>>>
SBC President Bart Barber apologizes for filing legal brief seeking to limit liability for sex abuse
Well-known Christian author and professor, Karen Swallow Prior, who most recently wrote, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis, suggested that Barber fire the lawyers who only gave him three hours to decide on whether the SBC should join the brief. “Maybe fire the lawyers that gave you three hours to make such a momentous decision,” she replied to his statement on X. (Leonardo Blair/Christian Post 10/31/23)
Read More>>>>>
Well-known Christian author and professor, Karen Swallow Prior, who most recently wrote, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis, suggested that Barber fire the lawyers who only gave him three hours to decide on whether the SBC should join the brief. “Maybe fire the lawyers that gave you three hours to make such a momentous decision,” she replied to his statement on X. (Leonardo Blair/Christian Post 10/31/23)
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Karen Swallow Prior: Christian Culture in Crisis
This week, Heather sits down with Viral Jesus “honorary co-host” Karen Swallow Prior to discuss the origins of the evangelical movement’s PR troubles. And few thought leaders are better qualified to put the issue into a hopeful perspective than Karen Swallow Prior. Fun Fact: This is Karen’s third appearance on Viral Jesus, and the most of any of our guests so far. Karen’s latest book, The Evangelical Imagination, is about how art, literature, and popular culture have helped push evangelicals into an existential crisis of sorts. And of course, social media, with its penchant for both joy and destruction, plays a role in this evangelical saga.
(Heather Thompson Day/Christianity Today 10/19/23)
Read More>>>>>
This week, Heather sits down with Viral Jesus “honorary co-host” Karen Swallow Prior to discuss the origins of the evangelical movement’s PR troubles. And few thought leaders are better qualified to put the issue into a hopeful perspective than Karen Swallow Prior. Fun Fact: This is Karen’s third appearance on Viral Jesus, and the most of any of our guests so far. Karen’s latest book, The Evangelical Imagination, is about how art, literature, and popular culture have helped push evangelicals into an existential crisis of sorts. And of course, social media, with its penchant for both joy and destruction, plays a role in this evangelical saga.
(Heather Thompson Day/Christianity Today 10/19/23)
Read More>>>>>
Russell Moore, Karen Swallow Prior Spark Outrage for Saying They Don’t Enjoy ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’
Some Christians are reacting with indignation after Dr. Russell Moore and Dr. Karen Swallow Prior said that they do not enjoy “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” a 17th century Christian allegory written by Puritan preacher John Bunyan. The work is one of the bestselling books of all time, at one point coming in second only to the Bible.
“I have written extensively of my admiration for Bunyan in two books,” said Prior, pushing back on the controversy in a Thursday post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “So you can listen to a very clipped clip that’s circulating, or you can read the books. (Yeah, we know what the click-baiters will choose.)”
(Jessica Lea/Church Leaders 8/25/23)
Read More>>>>>
Some Christians are reacting with indignation after Dr. Russell Moore and Dr. Karen Swallow Prior said that they do not enjoy “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” a 17th century Christian allegory written by Puritan preacher John Bunyan. The work is one of the bestselling books of all time, at one point coming in second only to the Bible.
“I have written extensively of my admiration for Bunyan in two books,” said Prior, pushing back on the controversy in a Thursday post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “So you can listen to a very clipped clip that’s circulating, or you can read the books. (Yeah, we know what the click-baiters will choose.)”
(Jessica Lea/Church Leaders 8/25/23)
Read More>>>>>
“If evangelicalism is a house, then these unexamined assumptions are its floor joists, wall studs, beams, and rafters, holding everything together but unseen, covered over by tile, paint, paper and ceilings. What we don’t see, we don’t think about. Until something goes wrong and something needs replacement. Or restoration.” --Karen Swallow Prior; The Evangelical Imagination; August 2023
“Empires expand by dominating, rather than loving, their neighbors. The idea of empire is so embedded in the modern Western imagination that it has shaped our understanding of nearly every facet of life.” --Karen Swallow Prior; The Evangelical Imagination; August 2023
May 12, 2023: Baptist News Global: The hidden battle in Christian higher education: A conversation with Scott Okamoto
Additional stories of power struggles in Christian higher education continue with Joe Rigney’s resignation at Bethlehem Seminary due to his embrace of Christian nationalism, Adam Greenway’s resignation at Southwestern Seminary due to financial liabilities and declining enrollment, the potential closing of The King’s College amidst financial chaos and a lack of transparency, and Karen Swallow Prior leaving Southeastern Seminary while citing that she does not share “the same vision for carrying out the Great Commission” and believes she is “not well-suited to the politics of institutional life in the SBC.”
Additional stories of power struggles in Christian higher education continue with Joe Rigney’s resignation at Bethlehem Seminary due to his embrace of Christian nationalism, Adam Greenway’s resignation at Southwestern Seminary due to financial liabilities and declining enrollment, the potential closing of The King’s College amidst financial chaos and a lack of transparency, and Karen Swallow Prior leaving Southeastern Seminary while citing that she does not share “the same vision for carrying out the Great Commission” and believes she is “not well-suited to the politics of institutional life in the SBC.”