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A poem on how literature helped me rebuild my house of faith.
substack.com/@hjhogsed/no...

I certainly hope so. Just praying for endurance and courage for the days to come and the work to be done.

Destroyed so much of what I thought my relationship with God was built on. It left me catatonic. Again if it wasn’t for people like Dr.Towles, Dr. Dow, and Nick Olson showing me how to be a Christian in a way that felt authentic and real, I would have definitely walked away from the faith entirely.

Pressure to perform. To be perfect. To serve the university and the “mission” regardless of how many hours they asked or how mentally ill I really was at the time. The performative nature of that role and the keeping up of the appearances for years in that position (I did it all four years)

When I had visited it in high school, I thought it would have been a place I would have finally fit in and been nurtured in my faith. Apart from the English department, it was just years of pretending to be ok. To not be upset or struggling. I was a Resident Shepherd and was under constant pressure.

The quiet and stillness has been really excellent for my soul, but it is hard to fully integrate to a more orthodox tradition after so much of my identity as a teenager was firmly rooted in Evangelical culture. I think that was the most devastating part of being at Liberty.

Thank you Dr. Prior. It was a great encouragement. I have been attending an Anglican Church on an off for the past year. Even though I am not entirely adapted to the liturgical world it has been a refreshing experience.

That is terrible. I had it a week ago. And yeah it is quite the undertaking, but the harvest is definitely ready, and the joy of the fruit makes it worth it.

Thank you so much for that’s I have felt so hopeless for a while now and the encouragement means a lot. Also, I work with Roy at Amherst. It has been so wonderful to see him as an example of a Christian educator. I hear from the kids in my English class how much he means to them.

and tells me I’m not a Christian, crazy, or demonically influenced for questioning the regime. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for being a voice for people like me.

An now as a Christian who finds himself as the sole anti-Trump voice in his family, I am struggling immensely in my faith. How can I continue to be a Christian when the majority of the Christian world seems to have betrayed its central teaching,

@karenswallowprior.bsky.social
Hey Dr. Prior,
I was an English student at LU, but sadly was an underclassmen when you left. Evangelical culture has become so unpalatable for me that I viscerally feel sick at most churches. I have never walked away from Christ, but the Church is very hard for me.