Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 35:2 (Spring 2021)
Article: Book Review "The Making Of Biblical Womanhood: How The Subjugation Of Women Became Gospel Truth" By Beth Allison Barr (Brazos Press, 2021)
Author: Kelly Schmidt

PP 35:1 (Winter 2021) p. 10

Book Review
The Making Of Biblical Womanhood: How The Subjugation Of Women Became Gospel Truth
By Beth Allison Barr (Brazos Press, 2021)

Kelly Schmidt

Kelly Schmidt is a pastor with the Foursquare denomination and an adjunct professor at Life Pacific University. She specializes in discipleship, leadership development, and change management. Currently based in Southern California, she is a PhD candidate in organizational leadership at Eastern University. When not working on her dissertation, she likes to throw axes, hike, and visit national parks.

In The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, Beth Allison Barr shares her personal story of rejecting complementarian views on male headship and female submission. Growing up, Barr had internalized the complementarian notions of “biblical” womanhood from the teaching of evangelical influencers such as Bill Gothard, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Beverly and Tim LaHaye, and others. A variety of disturbing and hurtful interactions faced by Barr and her husband prompted a deep examination of the topic. A history professor at Baylor University, Barr weaves her personal story with church history and current events, using women’s history as the mooring for her work investigating patriarchy. Barr examines attitudes about the female gender originating in ancient cultures (Israel’s and others), Paul’s writings on the topic, and the evolution of attitudes about women within the church from medieval to modern times. Although her examination isn’t exclusively theological, the central question of her work is, “What if patriarchy isn’t divinely ordained but is a result of human sin?” (25).

Her expertise in medieval history brings insight from the likes of Margery Kempe, an apologist who challenged the English archbishop, which suggests that the historical stories told about women in the church are far from the domesticated, devoted, doting homemaker which is often upheld as ideal in current complementarian settings. “The medieval church was simply too close in time to forget the significant roles women played in establishing the Christian faith throughout the remnants of the Roman Empire,” writes Barr (88).

As she traces church history, she identifies places where power struggles, economic advantage, and gender issues intersect: the rise of the priesthood and sacramental theology in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a shift in the view of marriage during the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation (which elevated being a wife and mother to the height of holiness), and the conservative religious resurgence of the 1980s and 90s against progressive secular culture. Barr argues that the current evangelical understanding of womanhood ste...