Imagining the gospel, an author interview
Karen Swallow Prior talks about her brand new book, *The Evangelical Imagination*
Gentle reader,
Today, it’s my privilege to bring you an interview with Karen Swallow Prior, who talked with us about her new book The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (304 pages, Brazos Press).
Here’s the book’s description:
“In this book, acclaimed author Karen Swallow Prior examines evangelical history, both good and bad. By analyzing the literature, art, and popular culture that has surrounded evangelicalism, she unpacks some of the movement’s most deeply held concepts, ideas, values, and practices to consider what is Christian rather than merely cultural. The result is a clearer path forward for evangelicals amid their current identity crisis—and insight for others who want a deeper understanding of what the term evangelical means today.”
Photo credit, Ashlee Glen. Karen Swallow Prior, Ph. D., is a reader, writer, and professor. She has a monthly column for Religion News Service. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, Vox, Think Christian, The Gospel Coalition, and various other places.
The interview follows:
BFJ: I love the cover’s mix of old imagery and contemporary color. Can you tell us about the cover?
KSP: The cover is intentionally ironic. It’s kitschy and sentimental—topics I discuss in the book. The painting, “The Good Shepherd,” by the nineteenth century German painter Bernhard Plickhorst perfectly exemplifies sentimentality. Paintings like this have greatly formed the evangelical imagination, often in distorted ways, misrepresenting the race of Jesus and emphasizing comfort and familiarity at the expense of other essential aspects of being a Christian. The bright thought bubble echoes and updates the ’70’s vibe that so influences contemporary American evangelicalism. It’s also just fun and eye-catching—kind of like a lot of evangelical culture.
BFJ: Why did you write The Evangelical Imagination?
KSP: The idea for this book, as I write in the introduction, emerged from the classroom. I’ve taught students raised in evangelical culture for over two decades. When I taught Victorian literature in particular (a period greatly influenced by the early evangelical movement) my students saw so many similarities between that time period and their own upbringing that we began to ask together, “What values and principles of evangelicalism are really rooted in scripture, and what are simply Victorian?”
But by the time I was digging into the writing itself, I was writing for so much more than interesting classroom discussions. I have been watching too many of my former students (and peers, if I’m honest) “deconstruct,” and I knew this disentangling the cultural from the truly Christian just had to be done and modeled by more of us. So much is at stake.
BFJ: Give us the short version: what’s the book about?
KSP: Drawing on Charles Taylor’s concept of social imaginaries, I identify some of the central images, metaphors, and stories that I see as having defined evangelicalism’s 300-year history. I try to give the history of these defining characteristics, why they arose, what they tried to do or correct, and how they have or can go too far. These include evangelicalism’s emphasis on conversion, testimony, domesticity, empire, and—of course—the Rapture.
BFJ: Share a detail you’re fond of from the book?
KSP: This may be cheating but I am really excited about the beautiful color plates included. It’s cheating because this isn’t my writing—but I did take a lot of time (and some expense) to choose these images and have them included. They really show the power of the imagination in addition to my telling about it.
In terms of my writing in the book, I think the detail I’m most fond of is the way I end the chapter on domesticity. It has one of my favorite sentences I’ve ever written. Is it mean not to include it here? I actually think it loses its effect when taken out of context. So I’ll just tease your readers here.
BFJ: Oooh, I love a book with color plates! But I do feel very teased!
A lot of Christians are suspicious of the importance of imagination. Why do you think it matters so much?
KSP: This is a topic that is deep, wide, and complex. But I think it can be answered briefly by saying that this suspicion is a particularly Protestant (and, therefore, also evangelical) problem. Protestantism was, among other things, a Word (rather than image) centered expression of Christianity. It is thoroughly connected with the Enlightenment, rationalism, and reason. These were needed corrections. But as with all movements, it’s easy to over correct. Christianity is a faith of word and image. We are creatures of reason and imagination. All of these need to be in proper balance. But perfect balance is hard.
BFJ: What do people mistakenly assume when they hear about your book?
KSP: They assume it’s about C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. And maybe a few other imaginative people evangelicals love. But as I noted above, it’s a book about our social imaginaries (our collective visions that drive us) more than our individual imaginations. They are connected, of course, and the whole book is an attempt to show how.
BFJ: Are there difficulties in the spiritual life that your book can help to address?
KSP: It’s interesting that you ask this question. I have an older mentor in my life who has asked me if I might write books that are more immediately and personally applicable to readers’ lives. It’s something he’s made me think about. This book is more a work of cultural criticism than of spiritual growth. And that is more my jam, so to speak. But it’s interesting that we understand those things as separate. I think I’m asking similar questions that someone writing about personal spiritual growth might ask. But I’m asking them about systems and structures and cultures rather than personal habits, background, and relationships. Evangelicals like answers that are rooted in the individual. That’s one of the movement’s defining features. But we aren’t just individuals. We are part of cultures that shape us and form our expectations and desires. If we change the culture in the right ways, it will affect our individual spiritual lives to some degree. With all that said, I do think the final passages of the final chapter offer some spiritual answers for the individual.
BFJ: If you could gift everyone with one insight from the book, what would it be?
KSP: We need to examine our unexamined assumptions. Even Christians have them.
BFJ: How has your spiritual life and prayer life changed as you’ve matured?
KSP: Oh boy. I wasn’t expecting this heavy question. I’m going to think about it long after I’ve answered it here. I think (I hope) I have become more patient, more kind, more forbearing, more joyful—with others and myself. My prayers to the Lord have become more urgent of late (I’ve faced so much more in recent years after a very easy, carefree life), and with that I’ve grown more willing and desperate to accept whatever answer he gives me.
Photo credit, Ashlee Glen. Karen completed her Ph.D. at the State University of New York at Buffalo and her undergraduate studies at Daemen College in Amherst, New York. Her academic focus is British literature. She and her husband live on a 100-year old homestead in central Virginia with dogs, chickens, and lots of books.
BFJ: What would your 10-year-old self say if she learned you’d grow up to write about this stuff?
KSP: She wouldn’t have believed it. She was too busy playing with ponies and rabbits and imaginary friends. And reading all the time. Well, maybe the reading part would have made it believable to her.
BFJ: Besides The Evangelical Imagination, what are your top reading recommendations for folks who want to think more deeply about these matters?
KSP: For more on disentangling Christianity from culture: Testimony by Jon Ward, Losing Our Religion by Russell Moore, Surprised by Doubt by Joshua Chatraw and Jack Carson
For more on social imaginaries: The Christian Imagination by Willie James Jennings, You Are What you Love by James K. A. Smith (or his three-volume series this book is based on), Modern Social Imaginaries by Charles Taylor
For more on Christians and the imagination: Culture Care by Makoto Fujimura, The Scandal of Holiness by
, Reading Black Books by Claude Atcho, Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow PriorWhile you’re at it, hop on over to subscribe to Karen’s (also brand new!) substack, delightfully called The Priory.
Karen’s other books include: On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books (Brazos 2018); Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist (Thomas Nelson, 2014); and Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T. S. Poetry Press, 2012).
Many thanks to Karen for sharing with us! Buy her book here.
Grace & Peace,
BFJ
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