Danny Akin is feeling the heat for hiring Karen Swallow Prior, a gay-affirming self-avowed feminist who believes that calling abortion murder is “unchristlike.” Defending himself during a Q&A at FBC Henderson – which by necessity required defending Karen Swallow Prior’s atrocious words, Akin called Prior’s critics “liars.”
Quoted by the sunshine-pumping public relations department at the SBC known the “Baptist Press,” a fake news outlet run by the SBC Executive Board, Akin used the L-word to describe people who can read plain English. The BP states…
Akin said Prior’s comments had been intentionally taken out of context by many of her critics. “People who do things like that are liars,” he said.
The comments from Akin were referencing her 2015 Christianity Today article in which Prior said abortion isn’t murder.
Let’s review the facts. Prior wrote:
Rallying for the defunding of Planned Parenthood isn’t inflammatory rhetoric; it’s political engagement. Videos depicting the self-damning words and actions of Planned Parenthood officials isn’t yellow journalism; it’s investigative reporting. On the other hand, referring to abortion providers as “abortion ghouls,” clinic volunteers and workers as “deathscorts” or “bloodworkers,” and women who obtain abortions as “murderers” is worse than inflammatory: it is unchristlike. Calling legal abortion “murder” when it isn’t (it is, to our shame, lawful) is to say what isn’t true, at least in a civil (not church) context.
Prior, who had previously been defended by many after her gay-affirming language in various articles, was written about critically in many, many Christian publications (here’s a partial list).
To be clear, Danny Akin is calling the following people liars (who are all linked in their criticism of prior over her abortion-affirming language above):
- Jesse Johnson
- Anne Kennedy
- Steven Wedgeworth
- Tony Miano
- Michael Coughlin
- Jeremy Lundmark
- Tim Laitinen
- Joel McDurmon
- CBN News
- Pulpit & Pen
That list was compiled only within a week or so of Prior’s remarks. Since then, thousands upon thousands of Southern Baptists and other evangelicals have read her plain words and came to the conclusion she said what she meant.
Akin mentioned her “arrests” for pro-life protesting, but as we have demonstrated, there’s no real record of that. Akin left off the part about Prior’s only pro-life affiliation was with a group she started called “Feminists for Life” or that she’s dined glibly with Planned Parenthood to talk about “common ground.”
The problem isn’t a few people taking something out of context. The problem for Danny Akin is that people have basic literacy and can read.
There is a liar in this story, however. In fact there are two; Danny Akin and that strange woman, Karen Swallow Prior.
