As we celebrate Women’s History Month, the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing, in partnership with Brazos Press, invited author Beth Allison Barr to Calvin on Thursday, March 20, to discuss her newest book, Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry, published on March 18, 2025. This book is a continuation of her previous work, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: A Call to Return to the Word, which recently achieved sales of 100,000 copies.

Beth Allison Barr is a historian who focuses on medieval and early modern church history and is currently the James Vardaman Endowed Professor of History at Baylor University. She is also the wife of a Baptist pastor and, as mentioned in her bio, a mother of two great kids.

That evening, Calvin’s chapel was filled with men and women, all holding eerily similar notebooks alongside Barr’s orange-themed covered books. Barr approached the pulpit with confidence, knowing that nothing could stop her from speaking out loud what she had to say.

Biblical womanhood — a view of women’s roles and character as defined by the Bible, often emphasizing submission, domesticity and nurturing — is regarded by Evangelical Christians as Gospel truth. As a historian specializing in medieval and early modern church history, Barr helps us realize that this view is far from the Gospel truth. She takes the audience to the early process of her research on and writing about women in the church. 

In her first book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood, she provides evidence that Evangelical Christians who push women out of church roles do so for the sake of power. By targeting Christian patriarchy, Barr wants readers to understand what the church has become today.

Barr hadn’t initially planned to write her second book; she would have been content with the success of her first book. But part of her knew there were deeper reasons to keep writing filling her heart. Encouraged by words from a friend, she decided to write her newest book. Her friend advised, “Don’t publish anything unless you have something to say, but if you left something unsaid in the first book, you have a chance to say it.”

“Well, I had something else to say,” Barr said, leaning toward the standing microphone.

Though having already written her first book on defending women in Christian patriarchal settings had sparked debates — such as whether Barr’s interpretation of Scripture is too limited or whether her views reflect a narrow, conservative reading — she felt compelled to say more.

She took us on a journey of why the discomfort she feels living within white Evangelicalism pushed her to write further on this topic. Barr shared personal stories, including literal journeys to places like Whitby Abbey in England, a 7th-century monastery founded by Abbess Hild, a woman. She recounted how profoundly stunned she was when standing near a picture of a Christian woman — with orthodox theology and a status roughly equivalent to that of a bishop — exercising authority over both women and men.

And where are we now?

Barr claims that “churches are moving backwards on women’s roles,” because she believes that God calls both men and women, and that in turn, women, just like men, should be able to live out their callings.

Through five archive trips and research involving 150 books about “pastor’s wives,” Barr wrote Becoming the Pastor’s Wife. This book presents a deep argument about the visibility of the pastor’s wife — especially as she herself is one. Her words are closely watched by critics, pastors and pastor’s wives alike.

This is because Barr argues that the role of the pastor’s wife has been reshaped into something Evangelical Christians call “biblical,” and that if women don’t follow these prescribed roles, they cannot use their God-given gifts. She concludes that Christian patriarchy continues because women remain subordinate.

“But what if it doesn’t have to be this way?”

Barr displayed this question on the final slide of her presentation. Perhaps this is why she chose to say more.