Beth Allison Barr – författare

USA TODAY BESTSELLER ● OVER 100,000 COPIES SOLDIt is time for Christian patriarchy to end.Biblical womanhood--the belief that God designed women to be submissive wives, virtuous mothers, and joyful homemakers--pervades North American Christianity. From choices about careers to roles in local churches to relationship dynamics, this belief shapes the everyday lives of evangelical women. Yet biblical womanhood isn't biblical, says historian Beth Allison Barr. It arose from a series of clearly definable historical moments. Barr presents historical insights and shares a better way forward for the contemporary church by ● giving context for contemporary teachings about women's roles in the church ● explaining why biblical womanhood is more about human power structures than the message of Christ● interweaving her story and experiences as a Baptist pastor's wife● shedding light on the #ChurchToo movement and abuse scandals in Southern Baptist circles and the broader evangelical worldThis book moves the conversation about biblical womanhood beyond Greek grammar and into the realm of church history--ancient, medieval, and modern--to show that this belief is not divinely ordained but a product of human civilization that continues to creep into the church."A powerful work of skillful research and personal insight."--Publishers WeeklyChristianity Today 2022 Book Award Finalist (History & Biography) ● Foreword INDIES 2021 Finalist for Religion

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERForeword INDIES 2025 Book of the Year Finalist (Religion)"A blistering critique of the narrowing options for female leadership in the evangelical church. . . . A powerful indictment of an unequal system."--Publishers WeeklyAs a pastor's wife for twenty-five years, Beth Allison Barr has lived with assumptions about what she should do and who she should be.In Becoming the Pastor's Wife, Barr draws on that experience and her academic expertise to trace the history of the role of the pastor's wife, showing how it both helped and hurt women in conservative Protestant traditions. While they gained an important leadership role, it came at a deep cost: losing independent church leadership opportunities that existed throughout most of church history and strengthening a gender hierarchy that prioritized male careers.Barr examines the connection between the decline of female ordination and the rise of the role of pastor's wife in the evangelical church, tracing its patterns in the larger history (ancient, medieval, Reformation, and modern) of Christian women's leadership. By expertly blending historical and personal narrative, she equips pastors' wives to better advocate for themselves while helping the church understand the origins of the role as well as the historical reality of ordained women."Barr's work belongs with that sweet spot of scholars whose primary research is exceptional and whose writing is accessible to a mass audience (think Elaine Pagels or N. T. Wright)--she's just that good."--The Presbyterian Outlook"You will find new heroines to admire in the pages of Becoming the Pastor's Wife."--The Banner

The Acts of the Apostles: Four Centuries of Baptist Interpretation is a landmark work of research, containing examples of specific ways that Baptists have used Acts in their confessions, sermons, tracts, commentaries, monographs, devotional and denominational literature, speeches, and hymns. Including the entirety of the Acts as translated by Baptist luminary Helen Barrett Montgomery, this commentary beautifully illustrates the diversity of Baptist responses to this book of Scripture, and in so doing, a variety of hermeneutical approaches within the Baptist tradition.

Join over forty Christian historians as they journey through the biblical and historical past, reading God's word in light of the experiences of those made in God's image. Along with an invitation to study Scripture from Genesis through Revelation, Faith and History: A Devotional provides a link between modern Christians and faithful believers from the past - reminding us of all we share in our faith in the present day, as well as how different were the past worlds of our sisters and brothers in Christ.With Faith and History, you will read the Gospels in light of the Civil Rights Movement and the Holocaust and pray the psalms alongside Frederick Douglass and Isaac Watts. Learn more about well-known Christians such as Billy Graham, C. S. Lewis, Aimee Semple McPherson, John Perkins, and St. Patrick, and meet historical figures who are less known but no less significant, such as faith healer Kathryn Kuhlman, Anabaptist martyr Felix Manz, and medieval mystic Margery Kempe. Each scriptural passage pairs with a historical reflection, suggests questions for further consideration and discussion, recommends resources for historical study, and closes with a short prayer. This unique devotional integrates historical reflection with study and prayer to help Christians meet their ongoing need for spiritual formation. Faith and History is also intended to help Christians better understand their relationship to the past at a time when history, memory, and heritage are so hotly contested in American politics and society.

USA TODAY BESTSELLER ● OVER 100,000 COPIES SOLD�It is time for Christian patriarchy to end.Biblical womanhood--the belief that God designed women to be submissive wives, virtuous mothers, and joyful homemakers--pervades North American Christianity. From choices about careers to roles in local churches to relationship dynamics, this belief shapes the everyday lives of evangelical women. Yet biblical womanhood isn''t biblical, says historian Beth Allison Barr. It arose from a series of clearly definable historical moments. Barr presents historical insights and shares a better way forward for the contemporary church by ● giving context for contemporary teachings about women''s roles in the church ● explaining why biblical womanhood is more about human power structures than the message of Christ● interweaving her story and experiences as a Baptist pastor''s wife● shedding light on the #ChurchToo movement and abuse scandals in Southern Baptist circles and the broader evangelical worldThis book moves the conversation about biblical womanhood beyond Greek grammar and into the realm of church history--ancient, medieval, and modern--to show that this belief is not divinely ordained but a product of human civilization that continues to creep into the church."A powerful work of skillful research and personal insight."--Publishers WeeklyChristianity Today 2022 Book Award Finalist (History & Biography) ● Foreword INDIES 2021 Finalist for Religion

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"A blistering critique of the narrowing options for female leadership in the evangelical church. . . . A powerful indictment of an unequal system."--Publishers Weekly"Barr''s work belongs with that sweet spot of scholars whose primary research is exceptional and whose writing is accessible to a mass audience (think Elaine Pagels or N. T. Wright)--she''s just that good."--The Presbyterian Outlook"You will find new heroines to admire in the pages of Becoming the Pastor''s Wife."--The BannerAs a pastor''s wife for twenty-five years, Beth Allison Barr has lived with assumptions about what she should do and who she should be.In Becoming the Pastor''s Wife, Barr draws on that experience and her academic expertise to trace the history of the role of the pastor''s wife, showing how it both helped and hurt women in conservative Protestant traditions. While they gained an important leadership role, it came at a deep cost: losing independent church leadership opportunities that existed throughout most of church history and strengthening a gender hierarchy that prioritized male careers.Barr examines the connection between the decline of female ordination and the rise of the role of pastor''s wife in the evangelical church, tracing its patterns in the larger history (ancient, medieval, Reformation, and modern) of Christian women''s leadership. By expertly blending historical and personal narrative, she equips pastors'' wives to better advocate for themselves while helping the church understand the origins of the role as well as the historical reality of ordained women.

A close examination of religious texts illuminates the way in which parish priests dealt with their female parishioners in the Middle Ages.The question of how priests were taught to think about and care for female parishioners is the topic of this book. As neither misogynist villains nor saintly heroes, clerical authors of pastoral vernacular literature persisted both in their characterization of women as difficult parishioners and in their attempts to recognize women as ordinary parishioners who deserved ordinary pastoral care. Focusing on the important vernacular writings of John Mirk, his Festial and Instructions for Parish Priests, the author reveals how even a small number of influential sermon compilations, exempla, and pastoral guides could have significantly shaped the perceptions, attitudes, and- perhaps - actions of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century priests. Shedding light on the mental universe of the late medieval parish, this study offers important new insights into the reality of how priests perceived and fulfilled their spiritual obligations to the women they served. BETH ALLISON BARR is Assistant Professor of European Women's History at Baylor University.