Beth Allison Barr

Summary: Examines the connection between the decline of female ordination and the rise of the role of pastor’s wife.

Beth Allison Barr is the wife of a minister. She is also a full-time Professor of History at Baylor University. While joining in her church’s ministry, she does not fit the stereotype of “the pastor’s wife.” She does not see “pastor’s wife” as a calling for all women married to ministers. And in this book, she makes a case that the elevation of the role of show more “pastor’s wife” corresponds to the decline in the ordination of women, particularly in evangelical churches.

She begins by observing what we see in the New Testament accounts. There are women like Phoebe, Prisca, and Junia who engaged in ministry. Junia is “among the apostles.” And then there is Peter’s wife. Barr asks, “where is she?” The silence of scripture suggests that there is no role definition for her, unlike the growing consensus in conservative church circles treating “pastor’s wife” as a calling. (Barr and her researchers even compiled the literature on the subject, which appears as a special bibliography.)

Rather, for the first millennium, Barr shows that there were women who were priests. She describes the Priscilla Catacombs that portray a women leading liturgical prayer. There were the presbytera who served communion and otherwise participated in ministry. And she points to stained glass representations of women with croziers and to the powerful role of Milburga as abbess over a double community of women and men. Such an ordained position was the equivalent of a bishop’s. Likewise, there is the example of Hildegard of Bingen, who preached throughout Europe.

Barr traces the decline of women in such positions to the celibate male priesthood. Female bodies became a problem as the “Geese” of the Cross Bones Graveyard attest. Located near Winchester, it was unconsecrated burial ground for women prostitutes working in brothels under the bishop’s jurisdiction. And when the Reformation came, the priest’s whore became the pastor’ wife.

From here, the book takes a turn to the role of the pastor’s wife in the Southern Baptist Convention and the elimination of ordination as an option for women. Here, Barr brings in her study of books written for pastor’s wives. The picture is one of the church getting “two for the price of one” in addition to being the dutiful homemaker who served all her husband’s needs. She traces the evolution of the Willie Turner Dawson Award, recognizing the best pastor’s wife.

She explores how women were ordained in the Southern Baptist Convention–as missionaries. And prior to 1973, women were ordained to ministry positions. At this point, complementarianism began to be increasingly embraced, and with it, women’s ordination increasingly opposed. And during this time, sexual abuse and misconduct and coverups became part of the Southern Baptist culture. Barr juxtaposes the story of the 2023 vote to disfellowship churches ordaining women with the story of Maria Acacia. An SBC missionary to Toronto, she found herself in an abusive relationship with her husband. Church leadership covered up the abuse. He remained in leadership. She filed for divorce. No one spoke to or for her.

Barr concludes the book proposing the the role of pastor’s wife can be different, pointing to the Church Mother role in Black churches. She contends that women can minister as co-pastors with their husbands. And men and women can team together in ministry.

It was my privilege to work alongside amazingly gifted women in campus ministry, striving together for God honoring excellence. We had clear policies and good training about sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior. So I would applaud Barr’s vision.

I also applaud her calling out the stultifying expectations of the “pastor’s wife” role and the injustice of the “two for one” system that made wives unpaid employees of churches. I’ve seen the oppressiveness of these expectations, the harm to marriages, and the children alienated as a consequence.

The pivot in the second half of the book to a focus on the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) came as a surprise. While this is a significant body that exemplifies beliefs and practices of other evangelicals, Barr’s account seemed ‘inside baseball” to this outsider. It was helpful to bring in examples from the Black church. However, the title and promotional material material about the book didn’t prepare me for the heavy SBC focus of the book. And counter-examples from other church bodies, if such exist might have been helpful.

In sum, Barr’s research on the role of “pastor’s wife.” and the corresponding decline of women’s ordination is an important contribution. It highlights, for me, the constrictions we have placed on the gospel freedom of women and the loss to the whole church that has resulted.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review. show less

This ended up being such a fascinating and also faithful look at how power systems created false readings of scripture in order to subjugate women (and other races). Just looking at how women's roles have been defined over time using the same scripture but interpreted differently is eye opening. I loved Ms. Barr's contention that the gospel of Jesus Christ is actually very egalitarian and we should reject the false, man-made power systems that creep into our religious organizations in favor show more of knowing our history and embracing the radical truths taught by the Savior of the world. show less

Strong 5.

Dr. Barr not only gives very strong arguments for why we have interpreted Paul incorrectly due to bias in modern English translations, she also informs us of pertinent medieval history. In addition to all of this, she tells us about her story and how she came to believe what she does today. Even if you don't agree with her conclusions, you'd be hard pressed to say it was a bad book.

There is a section on subordination of the Son (EFS and ESS Controversy) that Dr.Barr addresses from show more a historical perspective. For further reading on a more theological critique of this defense of complementarism using the relationship in the Trinity, I've been enjoying "Trinity without Hierarchy" edited by Michael Bird. show less

As with “biblical womanhood,” so with the role of the “pastor’s wife”: expectations and ideologies have as much, if not more, to do with culture than with anything made known in the witness of Scripture. Yet such would also be true of the many imagined alternatives.

Beth Allison Barr’s Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry (galley received as part of an early review program) is very much akin to her previous The Making of show more Biblical Womanhood.

Barr did a fantastic job at demonstrating how what passes for “biblical womanhood” in conservative Evangelical circles was highly culturally constructed and difficult to sustain on a textual basis; she brings the same critical eye to the role of the “pastor’s wife,” particularly as it is expressed in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) churches, and does quite well at marshaling significant evidence for her assertions. The author well pointed out how little we know about Peter’s wife, and how the expectations of wives of ministers in the SBC and many other conservative Evangelical spaces do not come from the pages of Scripture.

Likewise, Barr did very well at exploring how Christian men seeking to justify patriarchy worked diligently to suppress the place and contributions of women in the heritage of the Christian faith when exploring “biblical womanhood,” and she again does well at tearing down many of the patriarchal arguments related to the “pastor’s wife.” She is able to demonstrate how many women were ordained to various forms of ministry throughout Christian history, and even specifically within Southern Baptist history, very much to the contrary of the claims being made by many of those advocating a far more patriarchal position in the Southern Baptist Convention.

In all these things the author provides important contributions and counterweights to long-standing and not great arguments regarding the role and work of women in Christian faith and ministry. Just as “biblical womanhood” in the end is uncomfortably aligned with a particular conservative ideological view of women from a very specific time period in the past couple of centuries, so also it goes with the role of the “pastor’s wife.” The author compellingly bears witness to how the “conservative resurgence” in the SBC helped to perpetuate the expectations for pastor’s wives as unpaid ministers, and as a way to channel women who desired to go into a kind of ministry to find ministry work without upsetting the patriarchal status quo. Likewise, she is able to bear witness to how much of a burden is being placed on the women who have come to love men who feel called to ministry in these spaces, since these expectations will be placed upon them regardless of how skilled or called they feel to jointly participate in that ministry work.

The author is herself a pastor’s wife, and bears no ill will toward pastors’ wives. She has actively worked in the ministry with her husband and does not regret any of it. She instead challenges how the SBC and many related organizations have cultivated the expectations that come with the role of the “pastor’s wife,” and does very well at showing how they do not align with what is made known in Scripture.

But then there is the matter of the subheading and the argument regarding how marriage replaced ordination as a woman’s path to ministry. And, as with the previous conversation regarding biblical womanhood, the author herself goes well beyond what is written regarding her desire for a more egalitarian framework for ministry.

The author makes much of the evidence for women in ministry throughout the ages. It is important to acknowledge the existence of evidence for women as very active in service and ministry in the Christian faith.

But this is where many challenges arise. The author is within the world of the Southern Baptist Convention and its practice of having a pastor over a congregation. In the New Testament, a plurality of men called elders served as bishops/overseers and pastors/shepherds (e.g. Acts 20:17-35, Philippians 1:1, 1 Timothy 3:1-8, 1 Peter 5:1-4). There would be apostles and evangelists as well going out and proclaiming the message of Jesus (e.g. Ephesians 4:11-16). The modern role of the “pastor” seems to be a conflation of some of what elders and evangelists would be doing in the New Testament times, and the confusion this kind of conflation engenders is on full display in this work.

The author would be entirely correct if we replaced “pastor” and “pastor’s wife” with “evangelist” and “evangelist’s wife”: the New Testament provides no witness expecting the evangelist’s wife to maintain any kind of particular role or function. The presence of 1 Timothy 3:11, which can be equally argued to apply to deacon’s wives as much as deaconesses, and the expectation of the bishop/elder to be married in 1 Timothy 3:2 might well give credence to the expectation the elder’s wife would at least be a faithful Christian, and thus to be active in ministry and service inasmuch as any faithful Christian is expected to be active in ministry and service. In practice, it would be hard to imagine male shepherds as able to prove fully effective in their work without any contributions to that end from their wives.

Likewise, the matter of ordination also suffers from this kind of challenge: it has a lot of meanings and applications depending on contexts and groups. If “ordaining” is understood as a commission to a task or responsibility, there’s a lot of ordaining going on in the New Testament, of women as well as men; but if we understand “ordaining” as appointing to a particular office of responsibility, the number of examples become far more restricted in the explicit witness of the New Testament, and becomes predominantly male.

The author is pretty responsible with the way she handles the evidence in the New Testament: there’s a frank confession the New Testament world is patriarchal, and she generally does well at not overstating the evidence. But there are still a lot of ways in which she does assume possibilities we cannot have any more or less confidence in than its opposite. For example, yes, Junia is an apostle. But exactly what that means is left unstated. The author would like to assume Junia’s role and standing as apostle is independent of Andronicus, which is possible, but perhaps not; perhaps their apostleship was entirely mutual. Yes, Prisc(ill)a is mentioned before Aquila at times, and therefore might have been more prominent in speaking and teaching; but Aquila is still mentioned, still present, and still active in that ministry. Maybe a lot of women were actively involved in preaching and teaching with men present. But also maybe not. We cannot know; we can only speculate.

But when it comes to later evidence, the selection of evidence is very much motivated without a lot of critical reflection on the various intersecting matters of power involved. It’s as if there is the desire to point out all the ways in which women might have been granted power just to validate women as having power.

This is very much present in terms of Milburga, an Anglo-Saxon abbess ordained as such and who maintains a prominent position of power and authority in religious matters in late first millennium England. The author makes much of her and her authority, but then does not make much at all of the reasons behind why she would have that kind of authority: she’s the daughter of the king. She’s not some peasant who has been elevated to high standing. How much Milburga’s power might be a reflection of how Anglo-Saxon royal houses sought to exercise their authority in various domains is left unaddressed. Since Barr remains a member of a Southern Baptist church in good standing, I imagine that means she does not believe the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church truly reflects what God intended in Christ. If her egalitarian sympathies go beyond mere gender dynamics to also incorporate matters of class and social standing, I would hope she would find as much concerning and problematic regarding Milburga’s authority and standing and what it meant and represented relating to how Christendom was co-opted by the powers that be in order to reinforce hierarchical social structures as as she finds beneficial to use in her quest for egalitarianism in Christian gender dynamics.

Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the book involves one of its admittedly darkest chapters: how the Southern Baptist Convention authorities covered up the adultery and abuse of a male pastor to the active harm of his wife. This should be the kind of behavior everywhere reviled and condemned. The author is absolutely right, and concerningly so, regarding how the forces of the conservative resurgence in the SBC have themselves participated in sexual harassment and abuse and/or have been willing to cover up the sexual harassment and abuse of fellow pastors in order to advance their institutional agendas and power. But she wants to presume this is a patriarchy problem, as if we have to tear down patriarchy in order for there to be justice for such women. This is dangerous for two reasons: one, it presumes there would not be such abuse and cover-up in egalitarian contexts, and human sinfulness and misguided expressions of loyalty should sharply warn us against any such naive high-mindedness. And secondly, the last thing anyone should want is for concern regarding sexual harassment and abuse to be made thus partisan. However unintentionally, Barr has thus given a great gift to the Christian patriarchalists: they can point to her book and use it to make the argument concern regarding sexual harassment and abuse is a Trojan horse to justify a fully egalitarian position. In truth, if the patriarchalists took their own ideology sufficiently seriously, they themselves would be on the front lines regarding care and concern regarding sexual harassment and abuse in the name of protecting women.

I want to be very clear: the story Barr told regarding sexual abuse and its coverup was terrible and awful, and all involved should be ashamed of themselves. The Lord Jesus will judge justly. But this kind of story is too terrible to be made fodder for the culture war.

And that’s the challenge in the end: from beginning to end, the goal is to right the wrongs of power dynamics. It’s understandable when patriarchially minded people have justified men having far more power and standing than was truly given them by God in Christ. But Matthew 20:25-28, Ephesians 5:21 should remind us regarding how all such power plays are ultimately demonic: in Christ we all should be about the divestment of power, to mutually submit ourselves to one another out of reverence to Christ. Yes, that means men need to sit in that and ask themselves why they might feel uncomfortable submitting to a sister in Christ out of reverence to Christ.

But it also means that there should remain fundamental discomfort with making it all about power dynamics. All Christians should be active in ministry and service (Ephesians 4:11-16). We all should be serving one another. Yes, there is a long heritage of patriarchy in Christianity, and it has led to many abuses which need to be called and and reckoned with. Yes, one such way patriarchal systems thus worked involves the expectations imposed upon “pastor’s wives,” and that involved plenty of complicit women as much as men.

The distortions involved in the system of “pastor’s wives” as developed in conservative Evangelicalism writ large, and especially within the SBC, have thus been well documented and noted. That’s an important contribution. But does it automatically follow that the solution should be the kind of full egalitarianism the author would advance? It’s far more questionable than the author would seem to allow. In the end, her argument would cut both ways: just as so much of the “pastor’s wife” role is really culturally conditioned, so the current push for full egalitarianism is also culturally conditioned. There are many valid concerns and critiques of how the New Testament has been interpreted for generations regarding the role and work of women; yet the arguments set forth by the critics themselves come with valid concerns and critiques. For too long, not enough was made regarding Romans 16:1-16, and much more was of 1 Timothy 2:8-15; but would it be any better to make so much of Romans 16:1-16 as to dismiss or try to suppress or make little to nothing of 1 Timothy 2:8-15?

Patriarchy masquerading as complementarianism and egalitarianism are locked into significant argument in our current religious culture war. Each side is better able to critique their opponent than to construct an unassailable argument for their own position. In this environment, we must confess and lament the abuses and distortions of the past in the heritage of Christianity. We should appreciate every contribution which helps to expose how culture got baptized and justified, and the various reasons why, how it has “worked,” and how it hasn’t. And we do well to try to learn from such things and do what we can to best reckon with the whole witness of the evidence from the New Testament and best apply them in our current cultural moment and context.

But the likelihood either side has fully and appropriately captured the fullness of what God has made known in Christ through the Spirit should be significantly doubted. It would be great if charity were to become the hallmarks of these conversations as opposed to the partisan denunciations and condemnations which currently mark the spirit of the dispute. Neither side looks to be able to fully “win,” and it’s hard to see, at least from my perspective, how either side is really looking to find any kind of patience or toleration of the other.

Can there be space for those who wish to confess and lament the abuses of patriarchy, who want to honor and value the contributions of women in their work of service and ministry, but uphold qualified men as appointed to the office of the eldership and to maintain male evangelists before the full congregation in mutually agreed upon ways in order to honor 1 Timothy 2:8-15, 3:1-8? Can we expect such men to uphold the witness of the apostles regarding the equal value of men and women before God, and thus to effectively shepherd both their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, or must we be castigated as supporting patriarchy by maintaining such expectations? Can those who wish to promote full egalitarianism accept and tolerate people who do not feel they can go as far as they do in their convictions without castigating them as if they are no different from the full-bore patriarchalists?

I can’t answer those last questions. But I don’t think it would be healthy for the discourse, or the state of this particular “culture war,” if there is no space left in the middle ground. show less