In this episode we’re joined by Dr. Karen Swallow Prior – writer, literary scholar, and professor – to talk about her new book, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created A Culture In Crisis (published by Brazos). As Dr. Prior explains, she is engaging the issue of evangelicalism as an insider, highlighting various concerns that she has not with evangelical beliefs but with the application of those beliefs. Over the course of our...
In this episode we’re joined by Dr. Karen Swallow Prior to discuss Guides for Reading and Reflecting (published by B&H). Dr. Karen Swallow Prior is Research Professor of English and Christianity and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, the host or Jesus and Jane Austen, and the editor of a series that we’re discussing today, which provide critical introductions to classic texts called Guides for Reading and Reflecting. Dr. Prior tells us about the idea...
In the third installment of our series on Art & Culture, we are joined by Dr. Matthew Mullins for a conversation on Art & Biblical Literature. Dr. Mullins is Associate Professor of English and History of Ideas as well as Associate Dean for Academic Advising at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, NC), and he is the author of Enjoying the Bible: Literary Approaches to Loving the Bible (Baker, 2021). Throughout the conversation we talk...
As a student devoted to the intersection of theology and literature I’m always assessing ways in which literature accomplishes theological work and how theological thought appears in literary form. Most often these points of conversion occur by means of metaphor. To refresh your memory, metaphor is a kind of comparison in which one thing is described as another. Metaphor can be as colloquial as “love is war” or lengthy and complex underpinning an entire narrative....
This summer, I got to read through Ephraim Radner’s Time and the Word: Figural Reading of the Christian Scriptures. When we flipped the calendar to August, and I traded theology for middle school literature, sharpening the transition from student to teacher, I was surprised to discover how theologically rewarding my experience would be. I want to tell you two stories from my classroom about figural readings of To Kill a Mockingbird and then turn them into an argument for...
The early Church father Tertullian once asked a similar question to explore the connections between Christianity and Greek thought. This question is designed to explore a literary connection between how we watch movies and how we read the Bible. The issue here is how are we to interpret the Old Testament narratives? Are they history or a story? How we understand the genre of the historical books in the OT will determine how we read,...
At long last the edited volume from the Harry Potter conference held at the University of St Andrews in 2012 is now in print and you can get your copy of Ravenclaw Reader here! The conference was a complete success, being one of the most enjoyable and stimulating academic settings I’ve ever been in. It was the first ever academic conference on Harry Potter held in the UK and I was so thrilled to be...
Warning: Spoilers ahead for classics you should have already read! I didn’t want to write for the blog this week. I’m going through a very difficult situation at work that has me feeling like I’ve been turned inside out. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I can’t see through to the outcome. I’m having trouble imagining what awaits me on the other side of this mess. And I hate it. It’s scary and uncomfortable...
Sometimes I like to read a popular book, a book that everyone is reading—so that I can know what everybody is talking about and, maybe, join in the conversation. So a couple weeks ago I read The Fault in Our Stars—the latest young adult novel from author John Green. The book—about two teenagers who meet at a cancer support group—is instantly gripping, and continues on to tell–in quick-witted, excellently crafted prose—a heart-wrenching, beautiful, soul-searching story...
I am one of those people who love to discuss books in the process of reading them. I just can’t help it. In English class, I’ve made my friends discuss the reading from the night before with me—which usually entailed predicting the rest of the book, discussing favorite (and least favorite) characters, and reciting favorite parts—every morning, before class, on queue. This being the case, I have a tendency to ask new people I meet...
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