Becoming the Pastors Wife, Beth Allison Barr
Becoming the Pastors Wife, Beth Allison Barr
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Becoming the Pastor's Wife
How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman's Path to Ministry

Author: Beth Allison Barr

Narrator: Connie Shabshab

Unabridged: 7 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/18/2025

Synopsis

As a pastor's wife for twenty-five years, Beth Allison Barr has lived with assumptions about what she should do and who she should be.

In Becoming the Pastor's Wife, Barr draws on that experience and her expertise as a historian to trace the history of the role of the pastor's wife, showing how it both helped and hurt women in conservative Protestant traditions. While they gained an important leadership role, it came at a deep cost: losing independent church leadership opportunities that existed throughout most of church history and strengthening a gender hierarchy that prioritized male careers.

Barr examines the connection between the decline of female ordination and the rise of the role of pastor's wife in the evangelical church, tracing its patterns in the larger history (ancient, medieval, Reformation, and modern) of Christian women's leadership. By expertly blending historical and personal narrative, she equips pastors' wives to better advocate for themselves while helping the church understand the origins of the role as well as the historical reality of ordained women.

About Beth Allison Barr

Beth Allison Barr is associate professor of history and associate dean of the Graduate School at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where she specializes in medieval history, women's history, and church history. She is the president of the Conference on Faith and History and is a member of Christians for Biblical Equality. Barr has written for Christianity Today, the Washington Post, and Religion News Service, and is a regular contributor to The Anxious Bench, the popular Patheos website on Christian history.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Robert on March 19, 2025

After Cheryl and I were engaged, I decided to change my degree program from an MA to an M.Div., so I could pursue ordination. I told her that while this move might help my academic career, she didn't need to worry about becoming a pastor's wife. It didn't work out the way I envisioned since I spent......more

Goodreads review by Camden on March 04, 2025

Meticulously researched, with dozens of pages of endnotes to prove it, Barr’s Becoming the Pastor’s Wife centers women’s stories in history, from medieval women’s ordination to the modern rise of the “two for the price of one” pastor’s wife. Barr’s main argument is that by making women’s ministry de......more

Goodreads review by Richard on December 17, 2024

The first time I encountered author Beth Allison Barr, Dr. Barr, was not long before the world was introduced to "The Making of Biblical Womanhood," Barr's 2021 Brazos Press release that would shed light on and call out Christian patriarchy in a way that shook up evangelical circles and helped many,......more

Goodreads review by Alex on April 16, 2025

3.75/5. I liked Becoming the Pastor's Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman's Path to Ministry more than 3.75/5 would suggest. I agree with the overall aim of the book - to inspire and encourage evangelicals today to both elevate women into public, recognized, ordained ministry and to ref......more

Goodreads review by Megan on April 24, 2025

To be candid, I feel like I could physically feel myself getting un-brainwashed as I read this book. I picked it up because Calvin University was hosting a talk with the author, and I have high regard for the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. I have never felt any desire to be a pastor’s wife, but I......more

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