BY HANK REICHMAN

One of the country’s most prominent evangelical Christian activists, Karen Swallow Prior holds a PhD in English Literature from the University at Buffalo, taught for two decades at the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, and is currently Research Professor of English and Christianity and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.  In May, soon after Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked, the Washington Post published a piece about her troubled reflections on the coming victory of a cause she had long championed.  “I have reservations about where the culture war mentality took us,” she told the Post.

Prior had hoped this court decision “would come in a more holistically pro-life culture.”  Speaking of the way the issue has been politicized and monetized by some on her side of the issue, she said, “I’ve not until now put it all together: Is it a feature or a bug?  Is it all just grift?  I want to believe it’s not, but looking at Trumpism, it’s getting harder and harder to say otherwise.  We got what we wanted, a quote-unquote pro-life president and this was not what I wanted.  I thought: I’m not willing to pay this price. This is not what I had imagined a pro-life president being.  I thought politics was the way to change abortion.  I had this moment of realization: We got what we asked for, and I want to take it back.”

At Liberty, the article reported, Prior was known as both a genuine scholar and a sympathetic ear to all her students, from those in the pro-life club, for which she served as advisor, to the LGBT students who felt safe with her, one of whom praised her in his moving article at The Atlantic, “Being Gay at Jerry Falwell’s University.” But in recent years she found herself increasingly under assault by former allies, eventually departing Liberty.

The article intrigued me. I disagree with Professor Prior’s views on abortion, but I respect her principled stand and was eager to learn more about her.  I have, of course, encountered and often worked well with conservative faculty members, but most are basically secular.  I was interested to engage with an evangelical conservative faculty member and, perhaps, find common ground with her.  I wanted to learn about her experiences in academia in general and at Liberty in particular.  I reached out to Professor Prior through her website and in August we met via Zoom and spoke for over an hour.  Although we come from very different backgrounds and hold sometimes diametrically opposed views, we were both pleasantly surprised by how well we could get along and how easy it was to exchange views. To my surprise, we also found that our experiences in and our ideas about academic life were remarkably congruent. We therefore agreed to continue our conversation publicly on this blog. I began by posing a few questions for her.

Hank Reichman:  Thank you for doing this, Karen.  As I mentioned when we spoke, I am interested in your experiences in academia as an evangelical conservative and I think others will be too. Can you provide a brief bio for us?  What attracted you to the academic life?  What is it like for someone with your background and beliefs to work in fields and institutions that are not always sympathetic?

Karen Swallow Prior:  Many academics suffer from imposter syndrome, and I suppose I’m no exception.  As someone born and raised in a rural middle-class, non-academic family, even going to college wasn’t a given.  But I always loved school and thrived there. Majoring in English in college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do except to keep studying language and literature, so I applied to a PhD program while still an undergraduate and, whether by luck or providence, I got in. I had no idea what an academic life was like. I didn’t know any academics besides my college professors. Entering a program that was extremely centered on literary theory and criticism was especially disorienting. I felt like I had to fight to keep my love of the texts themselves, fight for the love of the books and reading. I did fight and won. But just as importantly, I discovered while in my program that I love teaching.  In fact, I think that’s what I am made to do.

I have not always found a friendly reception among fellow academicians.  I have a couple of amusing stories of being treated rudely based on the institutional affiliation printed on my name tag at conferences, for example, and being the sole Christian in my Ph.D. program was hard.  But for the most part, one’s work speaks for oneself in life, and I have mainly enjoyed excellent collegiality from others in my field.  If I have to do more to prove myself in order to overcome biases or stereotypes, well, I’m not the only one in the world who has to do that.  In fact, I think that the bar for civility and decency in this very polarized and divided cultural climate is so low that more people more easily welcome those who believe differently when we can at least share mutual respect and a desire to learn from one another.  The two of us are one such example!

HR:  I hope we are!  Let’s talk about Liberty University.  I think most non-conservative academics like me have always been pretty skeptical of its claims to be a genuine university.  When we spoke, however, you stressed that your experience there was mainly positive until some things changed, interestingly largely after the administration began to privilege its online operation.  Can you tell us a bit about your experiences at Liberty?

KSP: I went to Liberty immediately upon finishing my doctorate.  I was young, from outside the “bubble,” as they call it, and arrived while the school was on a huge economic and academic upswing.  I thrived there in the classroom and institutionally, chairing committees, becoming department chair, moving from assistant to associate to full professor right on schedule, and enjoying the best aspects of academic life, joined with the freedom and gift to teach with and from my Christian perspective.  I adored my students and had excellent relationships with my colleagues and even most of the administrators.

My experience academically began to change around 2011 when the online offerings exploded, and residential classes started to be regimented and structured to replicate the online courses.  Faculty had less and less say in curricular and pedagogical decisions until they had virtually no say at all.  Because I was department chair at the point when this major shift began, this was even more of a burden to me.  A few years later, the release time that had been given to me by the provost to research and write (which was given sparingly there since the primary emphasis was teaching) was taken away after the appointment of a new provost.  It did not feel like a coincidence that my release time was eliminated after I became an outspoken critic of Trump, and many there, particularly in upper administration were full-on supporters.  But I don’t know the reasons my requests for appeal were denied.  This was part of my decision to leave, but not entirely.  I do think I left on good terms.  Ultimately, my gifts and the school’s needs simply no longer aligned as well as they once had.

HR:  More than a few secular institutions, public and private, have had an analogous experience with the growth of online education.  I’m presently chairing an AAUP committee that has begun work on a new policy trying, I hope not in vain, to establish some standards and best practices that could protect academic freedom and shared governance in online programs.

The AAUP’s 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure includes a provision that has become known as “the limitations clause.”  It states: “Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.”  Liberty’s faculty handbook declares that “all employees of the University are expected to conduct themselves in matters of language and morality in a manner compatible with the Mission of the University and The Liberty Way.  Unsuitable conduct may be grounds for disciplinary action, up to and including termination.”  Liberty also proclaims that “all of our courses are taught from a Christian perspective and our faculty sees themselves as mentors.  Our mission is to Train Champions for Christ.”  These are arguably examples of such a limiting statement, in a sense exempting Liberty from AAUP standards on academic freedom.  Yet Liberty offers a broad array of degree programs in subject areas distant from religion, including law, medicine, nursing, and epidemiology.  The notion that these should be exempt from the protections of academic freedom on the basis of the limitations clause seems absurd.  What was your experience of academic freedom, or the lack thereof, at Liberty?  And what do you think might be the appropriate role of academic freedom at other religiously based institutions, including seminaries like the one at which you currently teach?

KSP:  Teaching from a Christian perspective doesn’t mean eliminating other views. It just means considering them from a certain point of view which can hardly be avoided by anyone.  I honestly felt more freedom at Liberty than I had as a Ph.D. student at my state university.  As a conservative (politically and theologically) Christian (the only Christian in my program, as far as I knew), I experienced some hostility.  To be sure, getting arrested for protesting abortion on the weekends between Old English classes wasn’t exactly a recipe for popularity, but still, my experience was one in which my views felt no more welcome there than yours would be at Liberty.  That’s why we have many different kinds of institutions of higher learning, after all.

HR:  I understand. Back in the ’70s my left-wing activism could cause problems for me in grad school, even at Berkeley!

KSP:  At Liberty I could express everything I thought and believed because my beliefs aligned with theirs. Students at Liberty are not required to share those beliefs (although most do), but faculty are, and agreeing to this requirement is part of the interviewing process and part of the employment agreement (at least for residential faculty—the requirements may be different for the thousands of online faculty employed from around the world). So, it was no hindrance or limitation to teach from the same worldview as the institution. In fact, I have taught similar courses at non-Christian institutions and felt that in those situations I had to remain superficial, teaching the same material but not delving into the transcendent truths that I believe undergird the reason, nature, and implications of the literature and language we study in my discipline.

Furthermore, Liberty is accredited by the same accrediting bodies that accredit its secular peers. Liberty students have to pass the same licensure exams as other students and compete in the same marketplace. So, in that way, we are on the same territory as our secular peers. Christian institutions—including the one where I serve now—simply educate the whole person within the context of what we believe to be the whole and eternal truth.

I think it is crucial that religious institutions be able to practice their religious beliefs, just as secular and public institutions must reflect the pluralism built into our national laws and principles. At a private, religious institution, academic freedom can be fully expressed within the framework of the institution’s doctrinal commitments when a faculty member is aligned with those commitments.

HR:  I do agree that at a religiously-based school, the institution’s religious freedom will define the parameters of academic freedom differently. But let’s explore this a bit more. I once knew a young historian, fresh out of grad school at Columbia, who interviewed for a job at Brigham Young University. They did not require their faculty to embrace the Mormon faith, but they did require conformity with the Mormon Code of Conduct. That code prohibits use of tobacco and alcohol, which for this fellow presented no problem. But he balked when told that he, like many academics a dedicated coffee drinker, had to abstain from caffeinated beverages! It seems to me it’s one thing to regulate behavior, but another to regulate belief. And given the politicization of religion we see in the US today (and not only among evangelicals) I wonder whether “doctrinal commitments” (to use your term) might not become de facto or even explicit political commitments. Could a faculty member at Liberty be a Democrat, for instance? There are liberal evangelicals, after all, especially but not exclusively in Black congregations.

KSP:  Well, for me, I can’t really conceive of a distinction between behavior and belief.  All institutions—even religious ones—have their own distinctives and requirements. I taught as an adjunct at a couple of excellent Catholic colleges while working on my Ph.D. I was not required there to hold to the same beliefs as those of the Catholic church. Evangelical colleges and universities, however, were often founded specifically as places where students could go to be taught by evangelicals. That’s a very specific mission.

There aren’t a lot of Democrats among the faculty at Liberty, simply because of the ethos and history of the institution and because, until recently, most of the school’s doctrinal beliefs were more closely reflected by the Republican party, at least arguably. I suppose the breakdown is close to the inverse of what you might find among faculty at secular or public universities. I definitely know a few Democrats at Liberty, more since the 2016 election.

HR:  To be sure, belief and behavior are always entwined, but with respect to academic freedom I think a distinction is needed and can be critical. Under principles of academic freedom professors who hold controversial, iconoclastic, or even some bigoted views may advocate these freely in their scholarship and extramural expression (although they will not be immune from often harsh criticism in those venues), but in class they are obliged not to impose their views on students and to behave in accordance with professional standards. In my Understanding Academic Freedom (p. 102-03), I discussed a professor’s refusal to write a letter of reference for a student seeking to study in Israel solely because of the professor’s support for the BDS movement. I quoted a 1970 AAUP statement entitled Freedom and Responsibility, which declared that “most faculty members face no insoluble conflicts between the claims of politics, social action, and conscience, on the one hand, and the claims and expectations of their students, colleagues, and institutions, on the other. If such conflicts become acute, and attention to obligations as a citizen and moral agent precludes an instructor from fulfilling substantial academic obligations, the instructor cannot escape the responsibility of that choice.”

I think this tension between two kinds of obligations, professional and moral, must certainly apply in religiously based institutions.  Is there tension, even conflict, between the obligations faculty members at Liberty or elsewhere have to their faith and those they owe to their profession? If so, how have you dealt with this?

KSP:  In the case of choosing to work for a religious institution for which agreement with its doctrinal and moral commitments is a prerequisite for employment, then the professional and moral obligations are met institutionally. The tension would emerge if one’s views or beliefs changed and were no longer in alignment with what one previously professed. The example you cite seems like more of a political tension, and that certainly does come into play as politics (in both the narrow and broad definitions) and political situations shift. These shift much more than religious or moral principles do.

It’s important to understand that religious institutions—even within the smaller category of evangelical Christian colleges and universities—vary widely in commitments and approaches. So even to discuss “religious” institutions of higher learning is to discuss a very broad category.  But in answering your question, one potential point of tension I experienced at Liberty early on was dealing with a complaint from a parent about a reading assignment.  The parent was not easily convinced and went through every level of administration, every level of which backed me.  The final resolution was a recommendation to the parent that the family consider another Christian college more likely to be aligned with their concerns.

HR:  Also, I’m a tad surprised that you’ve suggested there may be more Democrats among the faculty at Liberty today than in 2016, before Trump. My assumption, based in part on our conversations, was that Liberty has become more, shall we say, rigid in its enforcement of official positions since its leadership entered the MAGA camp, but that previously there might have been greater tolerance of dissenting voices.

KSP:  Some, like me, are supporting third parties, too. (I serve as an advisor to the American Solidarity Party.)  The shift is likely small and is anecdotal, to be sure. But at Liberty and everywhere there are people who once aligned with the Republican party because it stood for conservative economic and moral principles.  Some don’t see that as the case any more.  It’s one thing to vote GOP on the issue of abortion, another altogether to vote with a party that minimizes and excuses January 6 or the mishandling of classified documents.  But you are correct that the leadership of the institution seems to have gone all in for MAGA.

HR:  You told the Post, “I thought politics was the way to change abortion.”  To what extent have you reconsidered that position?  And what are your thoughts on the relationship between politics, morality, religion, and scholarship?  (Big question, I know, but one that agitates people from many often opposing perspectives.)

KSP:  Well, at one time, I thought politics was the way to change everything.  I was very interested in politics: I attended the inauguration of Bill Clinton (I was already in D.C. for the March for Life), ran for Lt. Governor on the Right-to-Life Party ticket in New York, and used to actively campaign for candidates.  Like many in recent years, even many within my conservative Christian community, I’ve grown disillusioned with politics, the two major parties, and an over-emphasis on political solutions to deep-seated cultural conflicts. Of course, being an educator for three decades has helped me better understand how much begins in the mind and understanding and flows upstream from there.  I certainly still believe that the laws of our land ought to fulfill the ultimate purpose of the law (to protect human life, safety, and dignity, first and foremost), but when we can’t even agree on what constitutes a human life, that leaves a lot of foundational work to do. We cannot do without laws enforcing civil rights, for example. But I’m much more interested in investing my energy and resources personally into educating people and helping them recognize the injustices that continue even after the laws have been changed to become more just.

This all might seem a far cry from teaching literature in the college classroom (although I do teach seminarians in ethics and cultural engagement as well), but it’s not. I love literature—reading it, teaching it, and writing about it—because it is one of the humanities.  Literature shows humanity in all its complexities, and in so doing it shows us ourselves, too.  I can’t separate my respect for human life, the human condition, and the competing ethical claims we inevitably experience from living with other human creatures from the timeless works that teach us so much about all of these things.  For me, loving literature well teaches me to love human beings well, and, hopefully, how to live well.

HR:  But the word “politics” can have various meanings. I certainly understand your growing skepticism of “politics” in the strict sense of the formal political system, although in today’s environment, given the grave threats that our democratic and pluralist system itself now faces, abstinence from political engagement can represent a kind of political stance that may be irresponsible, even dangerous. Moreover, there is a broader sense in which even the study of literature can be “political” in the same way, as you acknowledge, it can—even must—be imbued with ethical and even religious concerns. The historian Joan Wallach Scott, responding to the recent tempest among historians about “presentism,” argued that the discipline of history necessarily has its own “politics.” Not the “politics of party” but a politics “understood as struggles for power, not always overt or acknowledged” and which concerns itself with “an implicit operation of power (hegemonic belief systems, disciplinary orthodoxies).”

I wonder whether we academics, even if we decide to eschew overt political activity, can avoid “politics” in this sense.

KSP:  Oh, I don’t believe we can ignore it.  I appreciate your saying all this because as much as I am dismayed by and turned off of politics proper these days, I still feel at heart sometimes very political.  Power, influence, and authority are precious gifts that I think all of us must steward well, wherever we wield them.  It’s interesting, too, that you point out that importance of acknowledgement of such things because my forthcoming book, The Evangelical Imagination, is very much about the unacknowledged influences in evangelicalism, both in history and in the present.  No, we cannot eschew politics in this broader sense, nor ought we even pretend we can do so.

HR:  One sphere of human life in which concerns about power, influence, and authority are especially critical is that of gender relations.  You’ve been prominent in efforts to hold accountable evangelical leaders credibly charged with sexual harassment or abuse or with tolerating such misogynistic behavior.  This is a major problem, of course, throughout higher education and many institutions, secular and religious, private and public, have rightfully come under fire for their failures, even well after the “me too moment.”  What has been your experience dealing with this issue?  Are there unique or unusual aspects to the problem of sexual harassment and abuse in evangelical institutions?

KSP:  As you point out, sexual abuse and harassment are everywhere.  Sadly, the church is no exception.  The aspect of the problem that makes it different in a religious context is not so much that abuse occurs but that it is too often tolerated, overlooked, and even covered up, all in the name of protecting the mission—which, of course, is ridiculous because such things go against the gospel mission.  There is also another aspect of sexual abuse in a religious context and that is that it often entails spiritual abuse, which adds many complicating layers, not only for those who experience the abuse, but for those who are unwittingly used to prop up abusive systems and people.

I suppose my awakening on this issue, and my stepping into it, began when I spoke out against Christians excusing or tolerating Trump’s admissions of sexual assault.  Then, in 2018, I helped lead a petition signed by thousands of Southern Baptist women calling for accountability of one of our convention’s leaders for a history of misogyny and failure to hold abusers accountable.  I’ve been continuing to listen and learn from abuse survivors to this day and using my platform to support them.

The Southern Baptist Convention has been undergoing its own #metoo (we sometimes call it #churchtoo or #sbctoo) over the past few years, and it is painful and hard.  But what gives me hope is that with every opportunity that congregants have had to vote and lead on these issues in the national body, they have overwhelmingly and emphatically chosen the path toward justice.

HR:  After reading the Post article and especially after we spoke, I recognized that in addition to us both being scholars and teachers we share the common experience—I decades ago, you more recently—of seeing a movement to which we’d dedicated much of our energy and even to some extent our lives turn out not to be quite what we had wished for.  For me, this was a process with no “road to Damascus” moment but involving considerable and protracted rethinking and soul-searching.  I was especially concerned not to become a stereotypical apostate (I know that I’m consciously employing theological terms to describe what was an explicitly materialist and secular “faith”), but instead to try to recover what had motivated me in the first place and to take what was best from the movement in which I had played a big part but from which I knew I had to depart ways.  I wonder what your experience has been like in this regard.

KSP:  Hoo boy.  This is a big, important question.  Thank you for seeing it and asking it—and for seeing how it is a process that is not limited to political or religious categories but transcends those.  It is helpful for me to hear you share your own experience because for many of us within conservative evangelicalism—not just me, by any means—this moment feels very much like a reckoning that has been building for a very long time.  Some of us even describe it as apocalyptic—veils are being ripped away that allow us to see things that have been there, covered, all along.  Or maybe we have just been blind to them.  It is painful and hard, but necessary.  Because for those of us who are true believers—not in human movements or cultures—but in the foundation of our faith, Jesus Christ and his church, it is good for us to strip away all the cultural, political, and temporary trappings so that we can be reconciled with the essentials of the faith that are eternal.

Now that’s a lot of religious language!  But somehow I trust that not only will you forgive me, but you will understand me, too.

HR:  I forgive you, of course, and I think I do understand.  For many of us from many perspectives this extraordinary and highly fraught historical moment has been an occasion to rethink ideas and beliefs but also to rediscover and recommit to what is most important.

Thank you once again, Karen, for engaging in this dialogue.  I hope we will be able to continue our conversation in other ways.  But let me give you the final word.

KSP:  Thank you for initiating this conversation.  Circling back to an earlier part of our discussion, it is true that I have occasionally encountered hostility and prejudice within the academic context.  But conversations like these, thankfully, remind me why I entered academia to begin with: to pursue knowledge, understanding, and shared humanity.

Karen Swallow Prior is Research Professor of English and Christianity and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the author of 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).  Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, Vox, Relevant, Think Christian, The Gospel Coalition, Books and Culture and other places.

Contributing editor Hank Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and president of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, based in part on posts to this blog, was published in 2019.  His Understanding Academic Freedom has recently been published. 

[home page photo for this blog post by Idawriter (CC BY-SA 3.0)]