“But the virtue of courage — like all the other virtues — has to be tied to the other virtues, so in order for something to be courageous it actually can’t do harm.”
Likely, you’re not all that familiar with the national English professor scene; but you may have heard of Karen Swallow Prior. In certain parts of American Christianity, Prior represents a careful and winsome voice in an otherwise angry and hyper-political echochamber. And people beyond the language arts scene — and Christian spaces, for that matter — are noticing. In the past year or so, Prior has become a legitimate public figure. Academics have responded to her writing at meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society. A search of her name at the New York Times or The Atlantic returns as many bylines by her as articles about her. And in January of this year, America’s book of who’s who, the New Yorker, published a profile of her.
National media types are drawn to Prior for