Blending personal experience with church history, this book explores how the role of pastor’s wife emerged as women lost formal leadership opportunities. It shows how marriage became a path to ministry—one that offered influence, but also reinforced gender hierarchies and erased the long history of women’s ordination in the church.

I’m obviously not a pastor’s wife, but I am an ordained woman working full time as an appointed pastor. When another pastor at my church (a man, at that 👏🏻) asked if I’d heard of this book and if I’d be interested in reading it with a few other staff members for a book club, it was an immediate yes.

I’m part of a denomination (The Wesleyan Church) that has historically affirmed women in ministry—but that doesn’t mean I haven’t faced adversity. The first time I preached at the church I worked at after graduating from college, a respected couple in our congregation—who had faithfully served under me on the greeting team—stood up and walked out during my sermon introduction. They never came back.

I was a worship pastor at the time, and one of my faithful drummers (and good friend 🥲) married a woman who didn’t believe women could be pastors. They tried attending the church for a while (he had grown up there, after all), but eventually she told him she couldn’t be part of a church with a woman in a pastoral role. (Ironically, it was her, the woman/wife, telling—LEADING—him that they couldn’t go lol 😆)

I was ordained during covid over zoom (because I lived in the U.S. and my district office was in Canada), so at my church we streamed the ordination on the main screen while I stood on stage with members of our congregation watching. Afterward, at the little lunch we held, a board member/elder made a comment about how I’d probably give up my ordination once I got married. I was confused and said, “No, this is for life.” She responded, “Oh, well there was a lady who used to preach here when she was single, but she gave up her ordination when she got married.” I kindly explained that a woman’s call to Ministry is a call of her own—not dependent on her husband’s calling—and that a woman can be called to serve and lead in the church even if her husband is not called to (capital-M) Ministry. (of course, everyone’s called to lowercase-m ministry 😉)

While Beth Allison Barr’s story is more about the expectations placed on pastor’s wives (a type of woman expected to Minister without the title or the pay), our experiences still echo one another. Both shine a light on the disconnect between what Scripture actually teaches about women in church leadership and what the Church has come to practice. So how did that unraveling happen? I’m so glad you asked. Beth will passionately and articulately show you.

Thank you @brazospress for the eARC ❤️

Perfect for you if you like:
Women in church history
Empowering women in ministry
Southern US evangelical culture

Similar to:
Tell Her Story by Nijay K. Gupta (if you’re looking for historical evidence)
A Biblical Argument for Women in Ministry Leadership by Ken Schenck (if you're looking for theological evidence)
Losing Our Religion by Russell Moore (if you want the tea on the Southern Baptist Convention)

I was really excited to read this book, I had enjoyed the first one by this author and looked forward to this next installment in her history of women in the church, especially the Baptist church. One of my best friends is a pastors wife and I grew up as a pastors kid, not the same as being a pastors wife myself, but it did give me insights that some may not have. I am not a member of an SBC church, but many of the issues that they deal with are seen in evangelical and specifically Baptist churches all over north America, including those of the the role of the pastor's wife.

I really enjoyed how Beth lays out the history of women in the church, and how the role of the pastors wife existing how it does now is a really modern concept. The stories she shared were interesting and in some cases heartbreaking. I am thankful that I grew up in a house where I was not told I was less because I was a girl, and had a father who encouraged me in whatever ways I wanted to use my gifts, but I know that was not the case in many other pastors families, especially in my Baptist denomination which tends to be more conservative. This is a good book that I hope will begin conversations around this role and if there is a better way.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

This was a well written and interesting read. It explores the topic well and did good research. It can be a difficult read, but it is a topic that needs to be spoken about.

When I started this book, I was intrigued by the history and Barr's personal experience in her decades as a pastor's wife. And then I found myself facing the prospect of becoming a pastor's wife myself. Understandably, this impacted how the rest of the book landed for me. But I'm incredibly grateful for Barr's research and writing. Having a better understanding of how we got to where we are with all the baggage and expectations and weight around the role of "the pastor's wife" has been incredibly helpful. I so appreciate the way Barr demonstrates the historicity of women's ordination and the way in which it was quashed. I also appreciate the explicitness with which she condemns the millstone that has been hung around the neck of so very many women who are married to pastors. In drawing attention to the way that ordained women and pastor's wives today seem to so frequently feel at odds with each other, she reinforced my desire to support the ordained women around me and to ensure that if and when I do become the pastor's wife, I continue to do so vocally and explicitly.

The title immediately caught my attention—and I was really intrigued by the premise. I’ve found the historical research and the stories Beth shares to be fascinating. She does a great job tracing how women have gradually been pushed out of formal ministry roles, and how being “the pastor’s wife” has become one of the few remaining avenues for women to be involved in church leadership.

That said, I was really hoping for more depth from a biblical perspective. I wanted her to lay a stronger foundation by spending more time exploring what Scripture says about women’s roles in ministry—then dive into how church history and tradition have shaped things. Her arguments from history were strong and well-researched, but the biblical reasoning felt a little weak to me. I found myself more interested in wrestling with the question, “What does God actually want for women in ministry?” rather than just looking at how things have played out over time.

There were also moments where the tone of the book felt a little disgruntled—like her own tough experiences as a pastor’s wife were bleeding into the writing. I felt sad for her, but at the same time, it made parts of the book feel a bit off-putting or even a little ranty. Still, I absolutely respect the work she’s done. Her scholarship is solid, and the stories she included were super interesting.

Even though I’m not fully convinced by her position, this book has definitely sparked a desire in me to keep learning and asking questions. What is the role God has for women in ministry? I’m still digging into that—and this book has added some helpful pieces to the puzzle.

Barr is a good writer. However, unlike her first book, which I read through in a day, I wasn't as engaged in this title, possibly because the focus was narrower. While how pastor's wives are viewed does impact Christian women generally, it didn't seem as directly relevant to me as did her first book. I did like how Barr intertwined personal stories and thoughts with good academic research. I especially loved learning about Milburga. I hope Barr does continue to shine light on forgotten Christian women throughout history.

This book details how women used to have the ability to serve to their full capacity in the evangelical church and then lost it. She mainly focuses on the SBC and shows how women were slowly diminished in the denomination and left with only being able to serve through their husbands. Coming from a denomination in which I was taught men and women are "separate but equal" meaning we are equal in worth but women cannot do certain roles I grew up feeling less than. This book helped show me how women were truly considered equal once upon a time. I hope we can get back to that someday and stop limiting Christians who want to serve.

Another excellent book from Barr, this time considering the role of the pastor’s wife in the 21st century Evangelical church, how we ended up with this role, and what the Bible actually says about pastors’ wives (spoiler: not much). Barr’s tone is conversational, her research is well-conducted, and she makes the entire conversation approachable and accessible. I appreciate how she continues to call out the foibles and folly’s of the evangelical church from within, refusing to abandon the baby with the very, very dirty bath water. Hopefully she will continue to help Christian’s rethink and shift how we treat women, particularly women in leadership and leadership-adjacent spaces in the church.

The book is thought provoking and nicely written. Barr asks some good questions like: Where do we find the role of the pastor’s wife in the Bible? What about women that want to be ministers as a career/calling- what do we call them? What is central to ministry- prophecy and prayer? I may
not agree with everything that was written but it
was thought provoking.
Thank you to Net Galley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

"Given the amount of emphasis placed on 'biblical' womanhood in complementarian spaces (what women did or didn't do in the biblical text dictates what women should or shouldn't do in the modern church), it strikes me as odd that a role with such tenuous biblical evidence has become the primary role highlighted for women."

"Becoming the Pastor's Wife" is a well-researched and accessibly-written book about the emergence of Pastor's Wife as an informal but expected ministry role. As I understood it, Barr's thesis is that (1) this is a role that didn't exist in NT times, (2) nor in Medieval Christianity; (3) rather, we see evidence that women served in both formal and informal positions of ministry, not as a function of marriage to a minister but as a function of the Spirit's calling. (4) The role began to emerge in the American church as other paths for women to serve in ministry were shut down by changes in church polity over the last 50 years, driven partly by culture war and partly by US tax policy. (5) The consequences of those changes, which she argues amount to devaluing women and their contributes to the Church, include unwillingness to listen when women report clergy misconduct.

Her argument doesn't respond to any particular ecclesiology or specific form of ordination, and that may frustrate some readers. Instead, she is primarily concerned with showing that "Pastor's Wife" is a culturally defined role that emerges from marriage to a minister and includes an unwritten, unspoken expectation of devotion to service to the minister and his church. This is different from the expectation that every Christian will use their spiritual gifts to contribute to the Church; it is a set of obligations that constitute a unique call to ministry, parallel to a man's call to pastoral ministry. In most evangelical churches, for a woman to formally participate in ministry in a church setting, the most straightforward path is marriage to a minister.

I think Barr makes her case well! I wish the writing were a bit less repetitive, but I'm grateful for this work. It demonstrates critical engagement with a difficult question, making accessible evidence from Barr's field that wouldn't be accessible to most.

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 dependent to a man (through marriage to a pastor), we have limited women’s independent ministry roles (such as ordained pastor): “Because the pastor’s wife role provides an acceptable way in complementarian theology for women to serve in ministry, it has been weaponized to condemn women’s ordination and exclude women from pastoral positions.” Barr boldly calls out the SBC’s obsession with limiting women’s leadership, while simultaneously dragging their feet on addressing clergy sexual abuse: “The SBC thought it was more important to vilify women preaching the gospel than to protect the sexual victims of male pastors.” This book will appeal to anyone looking to forge a path for women’s equality in the Church by looking back at what history can teach us. Because women have always been pastors.

There are too many motherless "single-parent" (little c) churches.

This well-researched book has left me hopeful for the needed changes that must come to the Church with regard to women in ministry. Those who attend churches where the female voice is silenced in pastoral/shepherding/teaching/preaching roles are being raised in what I think of as a "single-parent home" (with the mother being the absent parental figure, in this case).

I admire Beth Allison Barr as both an author and a Christian. Her heart for God and his people is evident throughout her writing. In her research and historical evidence she presents critical information necessary to understanding the "newness" of the role of pastor's wife. As a lifelong student of the Bible, the things I admire most about Dr. Barr are the way she digs deep into Scripture and the original languages and clearly presents the historical events leading up to the pastor's wife role while interacting with Scripture itself. Many books are simply opinions and thoughts, but this one is based on research and the Bible. Definitely worth reading!

I am not a pastor's wife, and I have never wanted to be one. Yet I couldn't help but be struck by some of the overlap from simply spending my life in Evangelical circles. I found myself nodding along with descriptions of expectations--clean house, well-behaved kids, SAHM, etc. And yet I can't begin to imagine how much worse it is for pastor's wives.

If we want to support women and build a better world for them, we should understand the history of how we got here. This book does a fantastic job describing just that, exposing the problems as well as the incredible legacy women of the Church have left. This is such an important book, and I wish all Christians--but especially those in ministry--would read it.

Thanks to Brazos for offering me an ARC via NetGalley.

I love how Beth Allison Barr weaves her own experiences with historical context in considering the role of the pastor’s wife. In this follow up to The Making of Biblical Womanhood Dr. Barr does a wonderful job exploring women’s roles in the church and how the pastor’s wife role is not only unbiblical, but has been used to undermine women’s authority. A fascinating and accessible read for anyone who wants to learn more about the history of women working in the church

It’s an interesting experience reading a history book about a period of time and a movement that you’ve been a part of. Such was my experience reading about pastors wives and women in ministry, particularly in the Southern Baptist Convention. For a decade I was an SBC pastor wife before the system chewed us up and spit us out and we left for my physical and mental health.

Barr’s writing is both accessible for everyday readers and deeply researched and cited for her academic audience. It weaves personal story and experience with historical sources in a way that kept me turning pages.

I voluntarily read a gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Wow! What a challenging book. Challenging my preconceived notions about what I knew about church history and the history of women in the church specifically. One of my favorite parts was the discussion of Abbess Milburga in the 7th century. I was totally unaware of "double monasteries" composed of both men and women. Milburga's ministry and shepherding of such a monastic house was eye opening! There are so many other fascinating stories in the book, and an excellent discussion of the ways church organization and the development of ordination, sacramentalism, and hierarchy in the 13-15th century church pushed out women leaders. Barr also traces the changing face of women in ministry through the Reformation until the present with a special emphasis on her own SBC and changes in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Another area she explores that was almost unknown to me is the role of the pastor's wife in the black church. As a pastor's wife herself she has unique insight into the issues she discusses. This is an excellent introduction to discussions about the role of women in church leadership and how the role of pastor's wife has offered leadership opportunities to women but how that has come at the cost of their independent leadership.

My husband and I are a clergy couple, each with a distinct and separate call to ministry. Although we have served different churches for most of my 28 years in ministry, I have often encountered the “two-for-one” mindset (see Chapter 5) and the lingering expectations placed on pastors' wives. Becoming the Pastor’s Wife sheds light on how, in many traditions, opportunities for women’s ordination were diminished and replaced by the role of the pastor’s wife.

Beth Allison Barr, a scholar well-versed in church history and women’s history, writes in an engaging and accessible way that brings these stories to life. She highlights the significant contributions of women leaders from the earliest days of the church to the present, with a particular focus on the Southern Baptist Convention. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the decline of women’s ordination in evangelical churches and the broader implications for women in ministry today.

I found the book fascinating. The author obviously did a lot of research and was able to pull together stories of women from over the ages: queens, saints, and abbesses from history and missionaries and pastor's wives from more modern times. She interwove their stories to highlight both similarities and stark contrasts.

The comparison of two pastors' wives in chapter 8 was especially eye opening. One wife who apparently had a good and kind husband rose to prominence and used her platform to advocate for wives to submit to their husbands and for women to not be ordained. The other wife, who had a cruel and abusive husband, had no platform to advocate for herself or her children (partly as a result of this view of women). "The greatest difference between Maria Acacia and Joyce Rogers stemmed from their greatest similarity: they were pastors’ wives in a culture that privileged male authority and increasingly emphasized female submission. But the way they experienced that culture was different."

As I reflect back, I think one of the greatest strengths of the book could also be its greatest weakness, and that is that it tends to be more descriptive that prescriptive. It tells a lot of stories of a lot of women. For many of the more modern women the stories say, "This is problematic, can't we do better?" And for many of the more medieval women the stories say, "It used to be different, and we can change."

This can be a strength. Stories are powerful, and letting the stories speak for themselves allows different traditions and denominations to take the critique and find their own solutions and ways to address it. While a lot of the examples were from the SBC, the author didn't offer much in the way of SBC specific application, which could allow her critique to reach a wider audience.

On the other hand, I sometimes found myself frustrated by a lack of straight-forward critique and possible applications. The author finds the current state of women in ministry, where many women are only allowed to minster because of their marital status as a pastor's wife, problematic for a number of reasons. But she doesn't seem to have a definite vision of the way forward. Again, this may allow for different congregations to find different ways forward, but I wonder if it will also make it easier for some congregations to make a few small changes in the name of broadening women's ministry, without actually addressing the core problem.

I also wish the author would have done more to address the women in the church today who are gifted and trained, but not married to a pastor. That was perhaps beyond the scope of the book, though.

Change is need. The church need to see and treat women differently. I hope many people will read this book and start working on change.

Becoming the Pastor's Wife is a compelling account of the factors that have contributed to the diminishing of women's autonomy and leadership authority in the church. The history is thoroughly researched and comes alive with stories from "real life". Some of those stories are incredibly painful to hear, especially in light of the current political environment in the U.S., in which there is an attempt to limit women's influence even more. The book is very well-written and brings to light factual evidence of women's contributions and leadership throughout church history. It strongly contradicts statements by people like Al Mohler who claim that women have not held significant leadership roles in the 2000-year history of Christianity. An important work contributing to the long-hidden history of the role of women in advancing the cause of Christ. It should be noted that this is an important read for anyone in Christian ministry or interested in women's role in the Church. It goes far beyond the realm of the pastor's wife experience, although certainly, that is an audience that needs to hear this message!