Terrified and hopeful

On the eve of the inauguration, my thoughts two months out from publishing Becoming the Pastor's Wife......

I’m sitting in my kitchen, my bandaged leg propped up beside a sleeping dachshund. I can feel the cold through the glass of our patio doors. I’m wearing shorts despite the freezing temperature because they are easier than pants on this 5th-day post surgery. In 6 months I will be grateful to have fixed the torn and deteriorating tendon in my left ankle that was causing mobility issues as well as multiple other problems in my foot. But right now I’m stir-crazy and tired of the fuzzy brain from pain medication (not to mention the pain that keeps surprising me whenever I fail to take the meds in time).

It is nice to have time to think, though.

My life usually moves so fast that finding a few moments to sit down and think, much less write, is challenging. Just in the past month alone I have wrapped up teaching an upper-level undergraduate course (Women in Europe to 1200), a graduate course (Medieval Sermons), overseen the completion of a dissertation on women in Paul’s Cross sermons (which is excellent and being defended in February by the 4th PhD student to finish with me, Heidi Campbell), hosted three Christmas parties in our house (including one for the History department at Baylor University and for our church), chaired two sessions at an academic conference, reviewed several graduate student applications for those interested in working with me as their advisor, interviewed for two podcasts (just the beginning of book release season for me!), recorded the narration for 4 episodes of the All The Buried Women podcast (more about this shortly) as well as providing the interview for the final episode, organized and travelled on a research trip to the UK for 8 days, and then underwent a 3 1/2 hour surgery on my ankle/foot. Did I mention Christmas with my family too?

So, sleeping as much as I have the past 5 days as well as sitting still is different, to say the least. I have time to think.

Not all of my thoughts are comforting. Part of me is terrified. In two months, Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry officially releases. Yes, I have been through this before with The Making of Biblical Womanhood. But I was naive then and now I am not. I know what can happen.

Becoming the Pastor’s Wife is the hardest book I have written to date. Not only does the historical narrative span more than 2000 years, but many of the stories I tell (especially those connected to the Southern Baptist Convention) are difficult and include living people. I have combed and combed over wording; sent passages and entire chapters to people connected to the stories for review; sent panicky emails to my editors; and struggled with my desire as a historian and Christian to tell the truth vs. my fears about telling the truth.

But I also am confident in my decision to write this book because I approach it with understanding as an insider as well as the historical expertise of a scholar. I am a pastor’s wife; I love being a pastor’s wife; I believe the role is important and worthwhile. But as a historian I have learned (after two years of research) the context in which the role was created and how it has been used to undermine women’s independent ministry. As I explain in the introduction:

“The role of pastor’s wife authorized ministry opportunities for women. It offered ways for women to exercise leadership. It legitimized the spiritual significance of women’s roles as wives and mothers.

But what if the role of pastor’s wife came at a cost for women too?

What if, even as it authorized women’s independent leadership, it simultaneously deauthorized women’s independent leadership, especially within the white evangelical movement? Could it be that the graduate aligning of the pastor’s wife role with the conservative ideal of biblical womanhood (as happened within the Southern Baptist tradition) helped to obscure women’s independent leadership in Protestant spaces? Could the exclusion felt by single women within white evangelical spaces be linked to the erosion of independent leadership opportunities for women? Are white evangelical ideas about women beginning to seep into the Black church, constraining what has historically been a more welcoming space for women leaders?….

Unlike The Making of Biblical Womanhood, this book isn’t my confession. It isn’t even my story, although it does tell some of my story. Becoming the Pastor’s Wife is the history of how Christian women gained a new and important leadership role.

But it is also the history of how this gain came at a cost for women, too.”

Both my high regard of the role as well as my critique can be found in this book, which will upset as many people as it encourages.

I’m terrified, y’all.

I’m also hopeful.

You see, I followed archival evidence for months across thousands of miles to tell the historical truth. I believe that the specificity of the story I uncovered in chapter 8 of the book and in episode 5 of the podcast miniseries All the Buried Women, which tells about the life of a pastor’s wife named Maria, drives home more clearly than ever before the connection I asserted in The Making of Biblical Womanhood between complementarian theology and sex abuse. By telling the historical truth about the pastor’s wife role, Becoming the Pastor’s Wife makes visible the inherent dangers of complementarian theology—a theology that renders God’s highest calling for women as dependent on the fallibility of male authority. It also helps us understand unequivocally that when Al Mohler, or anyone in the SBC and/or conservative evangelical world, claims that women’s pastoral authority is unbiblical and a product of modern feminism, they are wrong. Full stop.

(And the evidence that the SBC is wrong can be found in their own archives………teaser for All the Buried Women, too)

I know not everyone is going to like what I have to say.

But I also know what I have to say, especially when it is read alongside books like The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Jesus and John Wayne by

Kristin Du Mez

, and The Spirit of Justice by

Jemar Tisby, PhD

, and reinforced by podcasts like All the Buried Women, has the potential to change the church.

So I am hopeful.

In my conclusion of the book, I quote

Candice Marie Benbow

. She wrote a phrase in Red-Lip Theology: For Church Girls Who’ve Considered Tithing to the Beauty Supply Store When Sunday Morning Isn’t Enough that I have never forgotten. “God expects us to be human,” she writes. “Within that expectation, though, is the hope that we will do the right thing and course-correct when we don’t.” (p. 54 in God and Other Reformed Helicopter Parents).

My hope for Becoming the Pastor’s Wife is that it will help the church do the right thing and course-correct regarding how it has treated women.

This is the hope I have.

This is the hope I offer to you.

Becoming the Pastor’s Wife is coming, y’all! Stay tuned for announcements about the launch team coming soon!

P.S.: It helps authors like me so much if you pre-order. The best price can be found on the Baker Book House website. Plus you are eligible for pre-order bonuses! Learn more about these here. But you can also order from your favorite bookstore or website as it is available anywhere. Some of my favorites can be found at https://www.bethallisonbarr.com

P.P.S.: All the Buried Women is a 5-part miniseries podcast based on Becoming the Pastor’s Wife but exploring so much more. I have had the joy of partnering with

Savannah Locke

and The Bible for Normal People. Please follow us at AllTheBuriedWomen on Threads and Instagram for updates and don’t forget to listen and share when it releases February 27.

P.P.P.S.: I know I haven’t finished my series on books to end Christian patriarchy. I will! I’m just always trying to do more than I can accomplish, but I will get caught up. Thanks for your patience!