Beth Allison Barr - The Making of Biblical Womanhood

To control the future, you must control the past, George Orwell observed. The churchs failure to understand its own history through the experiences of women cripples our very comprehension of Christianity. The Making of Biblical Womanhood is a profound historical examination of patriarchys impact from the perspective of Christian women. Without this book, we cannot fully know ourselves or our faith.

Mimi Haddad , president of CBE International

The Making of Biblical Womanhood will send shock waves through conservative evangelical Christianity. Powerful personal testimony, a solid handle on the theology and biblical issues at stake in the debate over the role of women in the church, and a historians understanding of how the past can speak to the present inform Barrs convincing challenge to patriarchy and complementarianism. This book is a game changer.

John Fea , professor, Messiah University

In this timely, valuable volumewritten with pluck and aplombBarr shows that biblical womanhood is more a socio-historical construct than a scriptural prescription. I trust this deeply personal and purposely provocative book will be widely and carefully read, especially by those in patriarchal, Protestant evangelical circles who will be tempted to dismiss it out of hand.

Todd D. Still , professor, Baylor University, Truett Seminary

The Making of Biblical Womanhood is an exceptionally thoughtful and valuable contribution to debates in contemporary American religion. Barr combines an autobiographical approach to her topic with exemplary textual and historical scholarship, all presented in admirably lucid writing. The resulting book is at once convincing and moving.

Philip Jenkins , author of Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions

I have never lived in the world of complementarianism, but I have seen its damage up close in many students and their churches. Barrs searing report of her own journey makes her account of the bankruptcy of complementarian interpretations of the Bible and church history urgent and compelling. To borrow her conclusion: its time for this travesty to stop!

Beverly Roberts Gaventa , professor, Baylor University

Barr shakes our shallow historical foundations by revealing how much of so-called biblical womanhood reflects the culture rather than Christ. By taking us through her own heartbreaking journey of exclusion from her faith community, she demonstrates the temerity that we need to live the simple, yet disruptive truth that all women and men are created in the image of God.

Jemar Tisby , CEO of The Witness Inc.; New York Times bestselling author of The Color of Compromise

This is a book unlike anything Ive read before. Drawing on her extensive research into the history of Christianity, Barr upends everything you thought you knew about Christianity and gender.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez , professor, Calvin University; author of Jesus and John Wayne

The Making of Biblical Womanhood has done in one volume what many other books in recent years have done in part: it demonstrates that so-called biblical womanhood is not actually biblical. Though Barr explores and analyzes church history and theology in this well-researched book, it is no boring academic tome. She weaves together personal narrative to remind readers of the humanity of this issue too. I have waited my entire adult life for a book like this, and I am excited that it has finally arrived.

Jonathan Merritt , contributing writer for The Atlantic ; author of Learning to Speak God from Scratch

I love how Barrs expertise in medieval church history contributes to the discussion of women in the church. While I may not align completely with Barrs argument, I affirm with her the need to acknowledge the different ways women have led in church history and should now. I affirm with her that Christ calls women in his church to teach. And I affirm with her that so-called complementarianism isnt the only option, or even a good one, for those who uphold the authority of Scripture. Im glad she wrote it.

Aimee Byrd , author of Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and No Little Women

The Making of Biblical Womanhood is a journey into the sometimes pained, sometimes joyous heart of Barrs own story but also into the secret rooms of a conservative Christian doctrine of biblical womanhood that is no more biblical than choir robes or three-point sermons, or Christian nationalism. The number of mistaken theological interpretations present in evangelical complementarianism Barr exposes are too many to count. I could not put this book down.

Scot McKnight , professor, Northern Seminary