"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!

In Becoming the Pastor’s Wife, historian Beth Allison Barr delivers a powerful critique of the role long assigned to pastors' wives—a position that, while often celebrated in theory, has functioned as a means of binding women to unpaid labor and excluding them from true leadership in the church. Building on her work in The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Barr traces how this role has evolved over time, arguing that it has consistently served to reinforce patriarchal structures within Christian communities.

Barr exposes the unrealistic expectations placed on pastors' wives: offering emotional support, organizing church life, and often functioning as unofficial staff—all without formal authority or compensation. While they are central to the life of many churches, they remain locked out of the “real” work of ministry, reserved for men in the boys’ club of church leadership.

Blending historical research with personal stories, Barr demonstrates how this role has perpetuated gender inequality and calls for a reimagining of women’s place in ministry. Becoming the Pastor’s Wife is a timely and necessary book that challenges the church to recognize and value women’s leadership in its own right, rather than as an unpaid extension of their husbands’ ministries.

A worthy sequel to The Making of Biblical Womanhood, this book will be freeing for so many people. A must-read for anyone in ministry and beyond.

Barr gives us a little history, but mostly concentrates on the SBC. I felt like that was her goal, which is fine, but I was left wondering about Lutherans and Methodists. Still, it was interesting to connect the dots from early church leaders to leading only through a pastor husband, at least in the SBC. I hope enough SBC members read the book and make some changes.

intriguing storytelling and meticulously researched

Becoming the Pastor’s Wife contains fascinating historical research and biblical history that unveils how the roles of women in ministry have shifted.
Assuming this information does not apply to you or is boring to read would be a mistake.
The Church is in desperate need of the truths laid out on these pages.

Becoming the Pastor’s Wife by Beth Allison Barr, lives up to its subtitle: "how marriage replaced ordination as a woman’s path to ministry." The book takes readers along a timeline through eras of the first century (New Testament), medieval, Reformation, and contemporary times. The quest is to answer the question of women’s leadership roles in the church - whether it comes from an inner calling by God or from marriage to a male church leader. It reads like an intriguing who-done-it and historical documentary all rolled up together.

Follow the work of Barr and her companion researchers as they sift through the archives of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to answer the question. Perhaps not as dramatic as The DaVinci Code or the National Treasure movies, the reader discovers key dates, turning points, and the stories over the centuries that brought the evangelical world to its present state concerning the role of women in leadership. The stories from the archives for the SBC matter to all evangelicals since all are influenced by each other’s work. We sing each other's songs. We read each other's books. We are swayed by each other’s initiatives, teachings, and practices. Barr presents a compelling argument for a return to a biblical practice of women in leadership proceeding from giftedness and calling by God rather than through marriage to a male pastor.
Becoming the Pastor’s Wife is a significant and encouraging contribution to bringing the evangelical world in line with biblical practice.

I can’t remember the last time a book made me want to set something on fire.

I can understand (though not condone) the adherence to an ancient idea because: Tradition.

<<insert singing/dancing Jewish Patriarch>>

But the systematic, ON FUCKING PURPOSE way women’s spiritual authority was stripped away makes me feel more than a little stabby.

Y’all count your blessings I’m a Proverbs 31 woman and not a Judges 4 woman.

BAB is, as per usual, stunning in her research, writing, and call for repentance.

Will people listen? Or are they too preoccupied covering up church sex abuse scandals?

Baker Academic eARC
Barr is an author that I love to learn about church history from, and this book was fascinating. I am in a phase of examining my beliefs, and I liked the deep look here into a very specific part of the church - pastor's wives. This book was informative and also compelling. I had no idea about how women were slowly pushed out of the pulpit, and in the SBC specifically. This book gave me a lot to think about, and I am grateful for the books she writes that encourages women in the church.

Very well written book. Dr Barr uses her background in medieval history to help the reader understand that the pastor's wife role of today has not always existed and is not Biblical. I am glad I found her first book and have thoroughly enjoyed reading this one as well.

When I was in university, I wanted to become a pastor's wife. I loved taking theology classes and leading Bible and book studies, and the best way to continue that- in my church context- was to marry a pastor. At the time, I didn't see the problem with that. Thankfully, Beth Allison Barr does.

In this book, Barr discusses the role of women in the early Christian church and in the medieval church to argue against the premise that women have never held ministry roles within the church (Chapters 1-4). She then looks at the modern evangelical church: the expectations for pastor's wives and how women's leadership roles in the evangelical American church have been relegated to unordained, unpaid positions. She often focuses on the Southern Baptist Convention, since it is the most influential organization within the American evangelical movement. There is also some discussion on how the role of pastor's wife differs between white and Black evangelical churches.

Barr doesn't come at this topic from a purely academic perspective. As of the writing of this book, she has been a pastor's wife for 25 years, and her lived experience helps illustrate many of her points. During one of her husband's interviews, she had to "stand on the stage and introduce herself to the male deacons... assuring them that writing a dissertation would not hinder her ministry". She has "loved being a pastor's wife", but she understands how the role of a pastor's wife limits women's opportunities for independence.

I debated whether to give this book a three- or four-star rating. The book was thoroughly researched and Barr's personal stories added a lot to it. The chapters on church history were overviews. She clearly showed that women were ministry leaders in the past, but I would have liked more depth. I recognize, however, that making those sections longer would have bogged down some readers, and Barr has already written a book on the history of women in the church (The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth). The chapters on modern church history felt a little repetitive and wandering. I appreciated all of her points- and I'm sure that they'll validate many women's experiences- but at times I struggled to keep going.

I would recommend this book to women who wonder if there is a different path to ministry than being a pastor's wife. I would also recommend this book to pastor's wives who feel like the role they have "married into" isn't right for them. I think the people who would benefit the most from this book are complementarian church leaders, particularly elders and deacons, who determine which roles women can fill (and be paid for) within their church. Unfortunately, I don't think staunch complementarians will read it.

My family recently changed churches. The priest's wife was the one to greet us and follow up with us, telling us about different ministries and inviting us to church events. I was pleased to learn that she is on staff at the church in her own right, and not just fulfilling the unwritten expectations of a pastor's wife.

Thanks to Baker Publishing Group for providing me an advance copy of this book through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.