Beth Allison Barr: Becoming the Pastor’s Wife

“The pastor’s wife, in many ways, embodies the history of the Protestant church….Refocusing on her and putting her at the center helps us to understand the bigger picture of the role women play in church history and how women are overshadowed by these patriarchal structures.”  — Beth Allison Barr

Historian and professor Beth Allison Barr joins us on the podcast to discuss women’s leadership in the historical church and the cultural cost of forgetting our roots.

What happens when historical evidence for women’s leadership in church is buried and even forgotten? Historian and professor Beth Allison Barr joins us on the podcast to discuss her recent book Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry. Beth traces the way centuries of women’s leadership were swept aside as female ordination declined and the role of the pastor’s wife was elevated in the white evangelical church. We talk about Beth’s scholarship, including some of her practices regarding teaching and collaborative research, and we hear Beth’s reflections on our current cultural moment and how we can thrive as women academics. And if you listen to the end of the credits, you’ll hear an excerpt from our podcast where Beth shares her thoughts on the benefits of working with a supportive writing group.

So jump right in! We're so glad you're here.

You can listen on iTunes or at The Women Scholars and Professionals Podcast. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.

Further resources for this interview:

• Becoming the Pastor's Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry by Beth Allison Barr
• Beth's website
• Beth's Substack writings Marginalia
• Beth's podcast series All the Buried Women
• Beth's previous interview at The Women Scholars and Professionals Podcast (August 2022)
• Finding Phoebe: What New Testament Women Were Really Like 
  by Susan E. Hylen
• Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood — Chapter 15: "Church History: Women in the History of the Church — Learned and Holy, but Not Pastors" by William Weinrich
• The Venerable Bede
  
• David Pooler's interview with Beth Allison Barr on All the Buried Women
• "How to Start a Writing Group" by Beth Allison Barr

Photo by Alejandro Avila on StockSnap