Dr. Karen Swallow Prior | Vocation, Calling, and Desire

Recorded from the Denver Lecture Series on Oct. 8th, 2023 Youre listening to a recorded Lecture from the Denver Lecture Series. Regular lectures for the disciple of Jesus, the skeptic, and everyone in between. You can learn more and check out our upcoming events by going to DenverLectureSeries.com The Denver Lecture series is an initiative of the Heights Church in Denver CO. To learn more about the heights you can check out TheHeightsDenver.com What should I do with my Life? If you’re human, you have asked yourself this questions before. We all want to do something we’re good at, something we love, or something that makes a real difference. To make things harder, our culture is constantly telling us to “find our passion” and to find this elusive fulfillment in what we do. It’s easy to feel defeated when it comes to what we do for a living. But what does the Bible say? As Christians, how can we think of work in a way that gives meaning and not despair? Join us for a night with Dr. karen Swallow Prior, as we look at what it means to be “Called to Create.” About Dr. Prior Karen Swallow Prior, Ph. D., is a reader, writer, and professor. She is the author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos, 2023); On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books (Brazos 2018); Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist (Thomas Nelson, 2014); and Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T. S. Poetry Press, 2012). She is co-editor of Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues (Zondervan 2019) and has contributed to numerous other books. She has a monthly column for Religion News Service. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, Vox, Think Christian, The Gospel Coalition, and various other places. She hosted the podcast Jane and Jesus. She completed her Ph.D. at the State University of New York at Buffalo and her undergraduate studies at Daemen College in Amherst, New York. Her academic focus is British literature, with a specialty in the eighteenth century, a period she loves for its emphasis on philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, and community, as well as its efforts at correcting the universal human impulse to gravitate toward extremes. She and her husband live on a 100-year old homestead in central Virginia with dogs, chickens, and lots of books.