It’s hard to do a critique of an elite-media feature about someone who is a real online friend.
But, in this case, there’s an issue that — at least to me — cannot be avoided in the glowing Washington Post religion-desk feature that ran the other day with this headline: “Karen Prior has worked for Roe's overturn for decades. This isn't what she'd hoped to feel.”
Most fans of the “Notorious KSP,” I would imagine, loved this piece.
At the same time, I’m sure her worst critics loved it as well — for reasons linked to the journalism issue that I would like to spotlight in this post. It helps to understand that Prior has critics (and friends) who disagree with some things that she says and does and then she has critics that basically don’t want her to exist.
Meanwhile, anyone — worthy critics and supporters — who has followed KSP’s work through the years with any kind of an open mind knows the strength of her logic and (dare I say it) art when defending centuries of Christian doctrines about life issues, as well as marriage and sexuality. But to grasp that side of her life, and how it fits into the total package of her apologetics, people need to actually read or hear her address those topics.
This Post piece focuses, for the most part, on her actions and beliefs that have fueled controversy about her among some evangelicals (like me, she was #NeverTrump #Never Hillary in 2016). A more balanced profile of her would have included quoted material that would have — with good cause — offended, well, most Post readers and editors. Hold that thought, because I will come back to it.
The piece starts with Prior’s feelings of elation at the news that the U.S. Supreme Court appears to be poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Prior was shocked and thrilled. But within minutes the deep divisions and differences in priorities among antiabortion advocates came into view. After being put aside for decades as they worked together to overturn Roe, they had become impossible to ignore. While Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. took pains to say the leaked opinion may not be the final one, experts on abortion in America say even the potential of Roe’s demise is a turning point for the movement. If Roe falls, what does it mean to be for life now?
For Prior, it means much more than overturning Roe. It means more support for child care and pregnant women as well as supporting sex abuse victims, vaccinating as many people as possible against the coronavirus, and helping start and run an inner-city high school in Buffalo. But not all antiabortion activists agree and lately have begun splintering over next steps, such as whether to classify abortion as homicide and restrict contraception, as well as whether issues outside of reproduction even qualify as part of the “pro-life” cause.
Once again, this is an old, old story that is presented as something essentially new and, thus, linked to COVID-19, the Trump era and all kinds of “now” things. In reality, debates among evangelicals, and especially Catholics, about what it means to be “consistently pro-life” go back to the 1980s or earlier.
For example, this classic Ronald J. Sider book — “Completely Pro-Life” — played a major role in my own switch to a pro-life stance in moral theology and, thus, politics. Ditto for this famous 1977 essay on race and abortion by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, before he veered left on this and many other doctrinal issues: “How we respect life is the over-riding moral issue.” Here’s a sample of that:
Politicians argue for abortion largely because they do not want to spend the necessary money to feed, clothe and educate more people. Here arguments for in-convenience and economic savings take precedence over arguments for human value and human life. I read recently where a politician from New York was justifying abortion because they had prevented 10,000 welfare babies from being born and saved the state $15 million.
Now, let’s get the Trump stuff done, since that’s the most crucial material to many Post readers:
“It’s not pro-life to incite a riot at our nation’s capital where people are killed,” she said a recent morning in her kitchen while making eggs. And: “I don’t think it’s pro-life to brag about sexually assaulting women and to have affairs with porn stars. I mean, these are all the things that contribute to the culture I’ve been fighting all these years.”
In response to her tweets, hundreds of Prior’s fellow Christian activists, including leaders in her Southern Baptist denomination, trashed her antiabortion cred:
“Jezebel — horribly, horribly wicked woman.”
“Enemies of God.”
“You’re complicit in the deaths of millions.”
By Wednesday, Prior stood on the same porch in tears.
For starters, it would have helped to have defined “leaders” in the Southern Baptist Convention. That could be loud bloggers, a few pastors or who knows what. Facts matter, in this case.
But let’s look at another Post passage that gets to the heart of my critique. This passage flashes back to KSP’s many years at Liberty University. That’s a setting in which — to say the least — she had strong critics and supporters, since Christian campuses usually contain more political and cultural diversity than their secular equivalents. If you doubt me, read deep into this 1995 classic in The Atlantic by the famous liberal Baptist scholar Harvey Cox: “The Warring Visions of the Religious Right.”
Now, back to the Post:
In 2015, divisions among antiabortion believers got personal for Prior. Long known as a trusted, beloved ear to some LGBT students at Liberty, she appeared at a 2015 groundbreaking film festival looking at the experience of queer evangelicals. Photos of her smiling and posing with openly gay Christians at an affirming event, even though she was there to share her view opposing same-gender marriage, opened a flood of critical pieces about her from fellow conservative Christians.
For attending the event and for saying abortion and human sexuality are “complex” topics and that she sees “common ground” with advocates for abortion and same-sex marriage, Prior was called sinful, bizarre and an example of “shocking liberalism.”
That hyperlink for the words “her view” sends readers to a pay-wall protected Christianity Today piece with this headline: “Gay Marriage, Abortion, and the Bigger Picture.”
This doesn’t help readers much, if at all. It’s just not enough reporting by the Post.
What we need here, along with at least one clear explanation of her abortion views, is some actual quotes from a KSP presentation on these matters. Is there a text or recording from that Liberty event? Yes, this would have required quoting THEOLOGICAL material about her views on sex outside of marriage. No surprise, she backs 2,000 years of small-o orthodox Christian doctrine.
What is the controversial “common ground” that she sees, despite her orthodox views?
I would imagine that, on abortion, she would say that it’s crucial to work with pro-life LGBT activists, Democrats, atheists, etc., to back legislation that has a chance to pass and be put into practice in very different states (red and blue). Does she want to compromise on her convictions? No. Does she want to help as many unborn children and their mothers as possible in each unique political setting? Yes.
It’s important to know why she has clashed with some — repeat SOME — evangelicals, in part because of Trump-era realities. But the readers of this story also need to know how and why she clashes with the Sexual Revolution doctrines that define today’s progressive activists on these issues.
A balanced, informed piece would offend people on both sides of her world, her right-wing critics and the folks on what used to be called the “left.”
That’s the Notorious KSP that I know. Let her rip. Quote this brave woman on the core issues. Otherwise, all the Post has done is hand new bulletin-board material to the far right.
FIRST IMAGE: From a Rod Dreher online Q&A with Karen Swallow Prior.