Member Review

"Biblical Womanhood" is not, in fact, biblical.

This is the key message that flows throughout Baylor University historian Beth Allison Barr's informative and engaging "The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth," due to be released by Baker Academic & Brazos Press in April 2021.

If you know me, you won't be surprised that I embrace this key message.

It's a key message that acknowledges historical truths, truths of which Barr is well aware, and yet it's also a key message that faces passionate rejection to this day by many within conservative evangelical circles.

The simple truth is that "Biblical Womanhood," or the belief that God designed women to be submissive wives, virtuous mothers, and joyful homemakers, is less about biblical adherence and far more about the ways that human civilization creeps its way into church teachings and church polity and church practice.

To read "The Making of Biblical Womanhood" is to take a journey through not only biblical history, but also Beth Allison Barr's own journey. She weaves together beautifully historical truths and personal testimony, taking us through precise historical moments that perpetuated the continuation of biblical womanhood while also giving us glimpses, at times quite painful ones, of her own journey within evangelical complementarianism and the moments that finally made it all fall apart for her.

I certainly do not understand what it feels like to be a woman in ministry. However, as a person with a disability who has served in ministry I do have some understanding of the societal blinders that cause the gifts of many to be rejected or minimized. Because of a body that seldom acts like I wish it would act, I have a very clear understanding of what it feels like to have my ability questioned.

Over and over and over again.

I suppose I'm glad that, somehow, I grew up differently. It's weird, really. I grew up a Jehovah's Witness, a denomination that certainly did not embrace women in leadership roles. Yet, I also grew up with spina bifida, a disability that caused me to have well over 50 surgeries before I was 18-years-old and to be told repeatedly that I could never survive and never thrive. Quite honestly, I survived because of the skill and the strength and the passion and the tenderness of women. While I certainly had males who treated me, much of my childhood was spent around female nurses and aides who believed in me when no one else did.

I thrived because they refused to allow me not to thrive.

Once I was away from the Jehovah's Witnesses, though I should say kicked out for the first of what would be two experiences with churches telling me to leave, I began to realize there was a different kind of God I'd never experienced. By my early 20's, I joined a small interfaith church led by a former nun who would mentor me and whose church would eventually ordain me.

It was the first of several experiences of women in ministry that made me study and learn and seek to understand. Just this past year, as I entered a hospital for what would be my third amputation, I recall the steady presence of Rev. Anastassia, an incredible minister whose presence stays with me even as she has departed for a pastoral position on the East Coast.

"The Making of Biblical Womanhood" made me shout. It made me ache. Like Barr, I understand what it's like to stay someplace because it's familiar and safe and family and the alternative is scary.

I also understand what it's like to kick myself for doing so.

"The Making of Biblical Womanhood" is extraordinarily researched, yet it's equally as remarkable in its transparency and vulnerability and absolute presence. Barr refuses to hide behind her choices, acknowledging all those little difficult places in her journey that helped her finally reach this point of say "No more."

She shares the journey of her life, her college days and her marital journey including a journey with her husband that is best experienced through her own words but is quite revealing and memorable.

There are very few writers, Kate Bowler perhaps being one of the best, who can so expertly weave together such precise and comprehensive research along with rich, emotionally resonant personal testimony. The beauty and the power of "The Making of Biblical Womanhood" is that it does both in abundance.

"The Making of Biblical Womanhood" goes beyond the exploration of Greek grammar into the realms of ancient, medieval, and modern history to explore the cultural influences that created and continue to foster biblical womanhood. She weaves in stories from her own experiences as a Baptist pastor's wife and, appropriately so, explores the #ChurchToo movement and the abuse controversies that have plagued Southern Baptist circles and the broader evangelical movement.

Beth Allison Barr theologically smashes the patriarchy, yet she does so in a way that is far from malicious and, in fact, is quite loving. She's simultaneously someone you'd love to sit down to have coffee with, yet you're acutely aware she's so intelligent that you'd probably not understand a good majority of what she's saying.

Until it clicks. And it will. It will because even in her writing she works to make things accessible and understandable. You can feel it in her teaching, as well. She knows what she knows, but she truly wants you to understand it. It's really quite extraordinary.

In all likelihood, "The Making of Biblical Womanhood" is my final book in what has been an active year of reading. It is a book I was excited to read and it's a book that not only lived up to my expectations but surpassed them. From beginning to end, I found myself engaged and informed, emotionally involved and even a little entertained. At times, I set the book aside so I could chew on her words for a bit. Likewise, at times I set the book aside so I could look things up and understand even more.

I already embraced women in ministry and leadership prior to reading "The Making of Biblical Womanhood," but Barr helped me develop a stronger academic and theological argument to support my beliefs and to inform others. She also challenged me to become an even better and more outspoken Christian, a Christian who not only believes in ministry and leadership for women and others but someone who actively engages and empowers those with gifts who are often left on the sideline by the Church.

There's so much that I loved about "The Making of Biblical Womanhood" and I look forward to sharing it with my circle and following Barr's teachings and writings for years to come.