Enriching Our Imagination: An Interview with Karen Swallow Prior
Dr. Karen Swallow Prior has a strong public presence for the sake of the gospel, and she’s no stranger to attack, from both left and right. I’m struck by her faithfulness and equanimity in the face of such attacks and by her commitment to using her considerable intellectual gifts as a public witness to Jesus Christ. Dr. Prior was kind enough to answer some questions for Firebrand.
For those who may not be familiar with her, Dr. Prior is Research Professor of English and Christianity and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Her published books include Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T. S. Poetry Press, 2012), Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist (Thomas Nelson, 2014), and On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books (Brazos, 2018). She has published articles in journals and magazines such as Christianity Today, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, Vox, Relevant, Think Christian, and Books and Culture, and has written for both the Gospel Coalition and Religion News Service.
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Beth Felker Jones: As a well-known public intellectual and Christian writer, how do you handle both the praise and criticism you often receive?
Karen Swallow Prior: I try not to take either too seriously. I try to learn from both praise and criticism. If someone praises me in a specific way, I consider how that quality which another person sees in me fits into my calling and gifts. Sometimes others see strengths we don’t recognize in ourselves or affirm what we aren’t sure about. Criticism offers two opportunities (at least): to consider how I can improve my communication (it is often the way we communicate that is at issue as much as what the messages is) and to learn more about the perspectives of those who disagree with me in order to enlarge my own perspective.
BFJ: Pro-life advocacy is clearly a passion of yours. What drives your involvement in the pro-life movement? How can Christians effectively advocate for the unborn today?
KSP: I think I have an overdeveloped sense of justice and a corresponding desire for reconciliation in general. I have felt that since I was a little girl on matters at a child’s level. As a young woman, I once tried to break up a fight between two men I didn’t know in a parking lot after one man called the other the “N” word. I didn’t even think about it—I just wanted to help the man who had been verbally assaulted. I don’t know where this passion comes from. Perhaps it’s a gift of the Holy Spirit at work in me. It’s just hard for me not to speak up when I see injustice. (This makes social media a challenge to my developing virtue of temperance!) When I was 22 and learned in a presentation at my church about what abortion entails , I instantly became pro-life. I see abortion as an injustice to an innocent, growing child. I also see the circumstances which usually compel a woman to seek abortion as unjust as well. I know that pain and suffering is part of this fallen world and we can’t escape it all. But so much of it is unnecessary pain we inflict that could be avoided. This is also why I’m passionate about animal welfare. I eat meat and don’t think that’s wrong since God permits us to do so. But as human beings we choose whether or not to inflict suffering—and we ought not to do so to any of God’s creatures, but especially those made in his image.
BFJ: Who are some Christian writers to watch today?
KSP: There are, of course, the big names like Wendell Berry, Marilynne Robinson, Christian Wiman, Makoto Fujimura, Alan Jacobs, and Lauren Winner. But some writers emerging now who are saying important things and saying them well include Hannah Anderson, Jemar Tisby, Tish Harrison Warren, Jasmine Holmes, Alan Noble, Jake Meador, and Charlotte Donlon. This list is short on creative writers. There seems to be something about our contemporary American Christian culture that makes it hard for high quality literary works by those identified with Christianity to produce, publish, and be heard. They may be out there, but I haven’t encountered them yet.
BFJ: What do you see as the biggest issues facing the church today?
KSP: I see a lot of big issues facing the church today, but I think most of them result in one way or another from an impoverished imagination. For example, the division and polarization we are facing in the church and our larger culture owe in great part to our inability to imagine or empathize with opposing, or even simply different, perspectives. It’s not a stretch to see the lack of developed imaginations at play here. Cognitive science shows that empathy increases among those who read literary fiction. Generally speaking, literature and other arts are not valued greatly in the contemporary church. Moreover, underdeveloped and unexercised imaginations make us more prone, ironically, to the lure of conspiracy theories. To be human is to have an imaginative capacity. Our imaginations will work, whether healthily or not. Imaginations that have been trained well in good, logical, well-constructed stories that make rational as well as aesthetic sense are less likely to be taken in by bad, false substitute stories.
BFJ: As we think about Christianity in the US today, is the term “evangelical” still useful? Are there ways in which it needs to be rehabilitated?
KSP: I have written in Still Evangelical? about my long and deep commitment as an evangelical and why I think the word has too much historical and global importance to abandon simply because of the past several years of American history. After all, the movement is almost 300 years old. At the same time, I do believe that the church is entering what may prove to be a 500-year moment (more or less)—a time when we undergo a major reckoning and reformation in the face of the damage done by power trips, abuse and cover-ups, and the ongoing conflation of America with the church. I hope and pray to see the church turn this corner. And if historians later identify what follows that turn by a term that is also new, that will be fine. Seldom in history do those living in a moment define or name what that moment is. I’m just concerned with being faithful in this moment in a way in which I would be proud of whatever part I played when the historians record it.
BFJ: You’ve been vocal about issues of ethics, and particularly the treatment of women, in your own Baptist tradition. Do you see progress in this area? What challenges still lie ahead for women in conservative Protestant traditions?
KSP: If seeing the bare, ugly truth laid bare is progress—and I think there is no progress that doesn’t reckon with reality—then, yes, I see progress. I am old school (and just plain old) enough to appreciate and believe in the traditional interpretations of the New Testament regarding the role of men and women in the pastorate and in marriage. But, unfortunately, a reactionary spirit in the latter half of the 20th century made much more out of a plain reading of the Bible and added a good deal of baggage to traditional teaching. For me, progress would be going back to the traditional understanding and application and getting rid of the extras that came about through the culture wars of the last century. Our challenge is to sift through the cultural trappings to return to the basics that accord with my denomination’s traditional hermeneutics. This would also entail another kind of progress—stripping away celebrity culture and its good-old-boy network that serves to perpetuate abuse and enablement. Those are surely lofty goals, but they are worth pursuing. And I think some in my denomination are committed to doing so—or I wouldn’t still be here.
BFJ: Recently you published On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books. Why did you write this book? What does it mean to read well?
KSP: I knew I wanted to write about how to read good literature and how to read it well. But I wanted to do more than model a Christian worldview (as important as that is). Having been influenced in recent years by the work of James K. A. Smith and his liturgical anthropology, I wanted to explore the way the very practice of reading can form our character. That naturally led to the virtues, and what ended up being the organizing framework for the book. I think reading well, to put it briefly, is to read closely and attentively, thinking critically and intentionally about not only what is written but how it is written.
BFJ: What advice do you have for young writers today?
KSP: Many queries I get from young writers reflect the larger culture’s conflation of writing and publishing and of being a writer and being a celebrity. There is overlap, overlap that is most often unfortunate. I think it is a prostitution and degradation of the art of writing to use it as a way of gaining celebrity or platform. If one wants to be a writer, one needs to study and practice the craft. Take classes, attend conferences, join writing groups, write, and seek constructive criticism from harsh critics. If you respect the craft of writing, think about it as you would any other art, like sculpting. I don’t think there are young sculptors out there trying to use sculpting as a way to become rich and famous.
Dr. Beth Felker Jones is Professor of Theology at Wheaton College and serves on Firebrand’s Editorial Board.