Following in the footsteps of the Southern Baptist Convention president, J.D. Greear — who calls on Christians to stand up for LGBTQ rights and says that homosexuality is morally equivalent to other sins such as boasting — Danny Akin recently hired a postmodern progressive activist to join the staff at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary to train pastors.
Karen Swallow Prior is an English teacher who has spent the last 21 years teaching at Liberty University — a Christian school with ties to the Southern Baptist Convention. Though Liberty was not officially an entity of the SBC, Karen Swallow Prior has been on unpaid staff as a researcher for the liberal Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) headed by Russell Moore.
Russell Moore once stated that he wishes there were “a thousand more Karen Swallow Priors” and despite the fact that (thankfully) there are not, her influence is gaining momentum in the Southern Baptist Convention.
Swallow Prior is known for her lack of clarity on social views and when asked about them, tends to give a different response depending on the audience — particularly in the area of homosexuality. In a contradictory move, Prior acknowledged that she both signed the Nashville Statement on sexual ethics as well as supports the Revoice Conference — a gay Christian conference designed to normalize homosexual attraction and increase acceptance among homosexuals in the Church.
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Danny Akin came out in defense of Swallow Prior, stating that she is orthodox and affirms all of the confessions of his seminary. But this is the problem — Swallow Prior tends to “affirm” whatever she needs to when it’s politically expedient for her to do so. She will tell a Christian audience that she believes homosexuality is sin yet stand in support of a movement that seeks to normalize homosexuality.
In a recent video with the Biblical Recorder, Swallow Prior doubles down on her support for Revoice, claiming that she still believes in the mission of the movement. Despite some unnamed disagreements she claims she has with it — calling it somewhat “problematic” — she asserts that God does not “remove that thorn” of same-sex attraction for some Christians, so she supports Revoice.
Revoice, however, wants homosexuals to be able to live out openly, to be able to identify openly as gay, and supports alternative living arrangements and forms of intimacy, including man-to-man and woman-to-woman intimacy, for homosexuals.
Swallow Prior says she’s seen a “lot of damage” done to people who don’t support homosexuals in the Church.