Karen Swallow Prior and the Spiritual Practice of Reading Fiction

Karen Swallow Prior is Research Professor of English and Christianity and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Today, Karen shares how she resisted the Lord early in life, becoming a pro-life protester and getting arrested five times, and how getting hit by a bus was a mystical experience. Karen also shares how reading classic literature is an important and formative experience that just happens to be fun as well. Karen’s story reminds us that engaging culture means thoughtful reading.

Listen to Karen’s story today!

Stories Karen shared:

• Growing up in a Christian family in the American Northeast
• The “old fashioned” thread of her family’s faith
• Attending a baptist church as a child
• Resisting the Lord in late adolescence and early adulthood
• Becoming instantly pro-life after a presentation at her church
• Being arrested five times and spending four days in jail
• Discovering her gifts for teaching and prophecy
• Experiencing God’s love personally when her dog ran away
• Getting hit by a bus as a mystical experience
• What she learned about what trauma does to people
• Why people should read the classics for themselves
• How language shapes the experience of literature
• Why Evangelicals need to ask better questions

Great quotes from Karen:

My whole life centered around books when I was a little girl.

I love teaching because I love learning.

[Reading fiction] is an embodied, incarnational experience.

This is where the culture is being shaped, on social media.

We are living in a new dark age in the sense that there is so much information that it’s very difficult to tell truth from fact. But the real battle is that we care about the difference.

Evangelicals don’t like the questions; we just like the answers. Art is about the questions.

Resources we mentioned:

• Karen’s website
• Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior
• On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books by Karen Swallow Prior

Related episodes:

• Skye Jethani and Living Life with God
• Michelle Rayburn and Growing in Christ
• Amy Patton Say God is in Your Story