Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to Becoming Church, the podcast where we discuss how the message and movement of Jesus is not just about becoming Christians, but about becoming the church. I'm your host, Kristin Mochler Young, and my guest today is someone who I have admired for many years, Dr. Beth Allison Barr. She's a women's history professor at Baylor University, but like most people, she is so much more than her title. Do you have any of those people in your life who have shaped you in a way that's foundational, even though you've maybe never met them? Dr. Barr is one of those people. For me, she has revolutionized the way I see women in scripture and in ministry, and she really opened my eyes to some things that are hiding just below the surface of our faith principles, things that try to stay hidden, but really affect our beliefs in a serious way. Now, this is not just an episode for women. It would actually be a really great one for you to share with someone who doesn't claim that qualifier, you know, in the name of education and all that. Here's my conversation with Beth Allison Barr.
All right, well, Beth Allison Barr, or just Beth, thank you for being with us today on Becoming Church.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: I'm so glad to be here.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So you. We were chatting a little bit a few minutes ago. People might know you from your book, the Making of Biblical Womanhood, which we've certainly talked about on this podcast before. But you have a new one coming out, and I've got it right here called Becoming the Pastor's Wife, which we want to talk about. But before we get really deep into that, I want to give people a little bit of a picture of who. Who you are and kind of your background. So, I mean, from the basic, basic, like, did you grow up as a Christian or in Christianity?
[00:01:54] Speaker B: I did. I do not remember a time when I didn't know the story of Jesus. I grew up in a Baptist home, mostly in Texas. My father was in the Army. He was an army doctor. So we moved around a little bit. And my father was from a Methodist background, and my mother was from a North American Baptist background.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: And so she was a. Not a Southern Baptist, but we ended up in a small Texas town. And in small Texas towns, Baptist churches then in the early 80s were always Southern Baptist. And the town we grew up in there was really only three primary churches, and one of them was the Methodist Church, and one of them was the Baptist church. And so all of my friends either went to the Baptist church or the Methodist Church. And that was the environment that I grew up in. And I made a profession of faith at a, at a young age and have always been known Jesus ever since then. So.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Yeah, well, thank you for that explanation. I know my, my follow up question was going to be like, what kind of Christian were you?
[00:03:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very different. I grew up Baptist, so it's, it's in, it's in my DNA, I suppose. And I grew up. My husband, I married a Southern Baptist pastor.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: And he went to a Southern Baptist seminary. And so that is the world that we grew up in and lived a significant portion of our life in.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Okay. Are you guys still in the Southern Baptist soul?
[00:03:27] Speaker B: We are Texas Baptist. Texas Baptists are sort of weird. Texas is a highly independent area and during the Baptist battles of Texas Baptists sort of created their own thing. And it's the Baptist General Convention of Texas. And you can be, be part of the Southern Baptist and be in the bgct. You can also be in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and be in the bgct, or you can just be bgct.
And so Texas Baptist, there's a whole wide gamut. So we are not officially affiliated with the sbc. Okay. But we are in the bgct.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Okay. It is so funny to me that we're like, this is again why I had to, to qualify. What kind of Christian are you? Because it seems like you can't just say anymore like, yes, I'm a Christian or yes, I church or even I'm a Baptist. Because there are a thousand iterations of what that could even mean.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: That's exactly right. Yeah. The Baptist world is crazy. There's so many Baptists.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, it seems like just anybody can just go. I don't agree with this part. So I'm going to like break off and start my own thing. Like, is it really that easy?
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's the, that's the. In some ways that's a definition of being a Baptist because Baptists believe so strongly in what's called local autonomy. And they also believe in the ability of individuals, Christians to make their own decisions. It's called soul competency. And so the soul competency and local autonomy means that if you are filled by, you know, filled by the spirit, that you need to go and do this, you can go and do that, and you're still Baptist. You don't have to be a part of the sbc, which is sort of, it's a. You know, they don't like the word denomination, although they are a denomination. They're really an association of people coming Together. And so all Baptist associations are like that, but you can still be Baptist and not be a part of any of them. So that's why we have all these independent Baptists running around out there.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: It's a beautiful part of being Baptist, and it's a terrible part of being Baptist.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Okay, well, and I was thinking. I'm, like, laughing because I'm hearing you say, like, autonomy and you can do what you want to do. But then I also know, like, how women are often treated in the Baptist church. I'm like, so not so, like, yes, but not for everybody. Like, is there, like, a caveat on this?
[00:05:54] Speaker B: There is a caveat in that. And that's actually been one of the struggle in the Baptist world, because very early on, women in the Baptist world were like, hey, yeah, of course we can do all these things because of soul competency, because we believe this and we're called. And then the Baptist churches, as they grew, pushed back on that, and the more organized they became, the more likely they were to write women out of leadership roles.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: So which is a pretty. Which is a pretty constant story throughout church history.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I want to get into that. I know, like I mentioned, you have multiple books where you've written on the view of women and the role of women in the church. Is this something that you have always had a voice for or, like, how did this happen?
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Yes, that's an interesting question.
So I have always had, I think, what I would. A voice for justice issues. That's something I knew, you know, very early on. Things that would get me upset even as a teenager were often things on the issue of justice. And. But I still grew up in a conservative Baptist church, and for a significant portion of my life, I would have argued for women not being biblically able to be in these leadership roles. So it. However, at the same time, I still was very aware of the discriminatory way that churches treated women, even women who played by the rules. And so that is probably what began to push me out as I begin to explore the roots of that, the discrimination against women, which was also part of my graduate school. You know, I went to a PhD program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and I was interested in women. And so my PhD is rooted in women's studies. And so as I begin to understand the root cause of the discriminatory practices against women, I begin to realize how much the church's practice actually was not anything new or different, but it was simply a part of this continuing problem of Patriarchy just manifesting in culturally specific ways. And so that was probably my wake up moment.
And I've been teaching, you know, my technical role at Baylor. I've been at Baylor on the history department since 2008, and I'm technically the European women's history professor, so I teach women's history courses. And it's really hard to teach women's history courses and not begin to realize how much the church is participating in this continued discrimination and harm to women, which leads to speaking out. So.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: So it wasn't like you had to go out actively seeking women in the church. It just kind of was very evident.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: I guess it. It. Because especially when you look at it from a historical perspective, what the church is doing and how they treat women is just no different than the patriarchal practices we see around us.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: So you use the word patriarchy, which I know that some people listening, they only have this picture. Thank you. The Barbie movie of like, 10 and fur coats and horses, you know, and then I think other people are like, patriarchy is just a way for women to, like, whine about whatever they want to whine about. But I want to talk about it for a second. Like, is patriarchy. I'm asking you this question that I know the answer, but I'm like, let me ask it for the listener. Anyway, is patriarchy really still a thing in the church? And like, how does history or research or data or whatever actually support.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Yes. So I actually, I love the Barbie movie.
It just. It solved me having to convince students that patriarchy is real. You know, all I have to do is show clips of the Barbie movie now. And when, you know, people, you know, I've heard people get upset about how Ken is treated in the movie. And I'm like, well, you know, this is just. It's not saying that's right. What the movie is showing is how this is how women are treated, right? And this is how women have always been treated. And so even at the very end of the movie, it's somewhat disturbing where Ken's like, can we have a, you know, position on the Supreme Court? And they're like, well, maybe you could start with the lower levels. And it's funny, but it's also disturbing because that's exactly what's been happened to women. You're, like, given little gateway pieces to make you feel better, but you can't actually have any positions of power or authority. So, yes, patriarchy is still a significant part of the church just to help people. All patriarchy is. Is simply if you It's a. It's a culture that centers men and women are on the periphery. That's all it is. It's a culture that centers men where men are the. Are the normal sort of measure. So you can think about that when even, for example, when you. About the medical world and physicians now have begun to realize that a lot of the medicines and the treatments that they prescribe don't work as well for women as they do for men. And the reason is because medical testing was traditionally done on men, on male bodies. This is patriarchal society. This is. The male body is the normal. And what they have found is that women's bodies don't work the same. And so therefore women, when you're testing medicine or testing treatments, you have to test them on women as well as on men to make sure they work. And so that's just an example of the patriarchal society.
And you think about churches, you think about how even if there are some women in leadership roles, even if you see women occasionally on the pulpit or on the stage of your church, you can also think about the pattern is usually, usually men in those positions and women are the anomalous ones who are entering into it.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: Well, and even we give them. We give them titles of like, oh, she's a female pastor.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Well, she's a pastor, actually, that is.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Totally happens to be female.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: We never say like, oh, here's my. Here's my male pastor. We just say, here's my pastor. But then we have to specify one is a female. I mean, that even in and of.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Itself, that qualifier is just evidence of the patriarchal system because male pastor. Pastor is considered male. So that's normative. So we have to qualify that it's a woman pastor. Right. Very good example.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: Well, and even medically, like you were saying, you know, the testing and how things don't work the same. But even, and this is so clear, you don't have to dig deep to find this. Like, if you look at the number of products or treatments or whatever that are available for erectile dysfunction versus for menopause, yes, there are lots of options for this. We can call it a problem for men, but like, they're fine. Like, it's affecting their whole lives versus women in menopause, like, it affects a lot more than just that one area. But. But we have nothing. There are no solutions and there is no research and there are no options available, you know, to help this.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And most doctors, and I can say my. I grew up in a medical family, so most Medical training. Up until very recently, the treatment for the discussions of menopause were, like, very short.
And they, you know, my father said that they got like an hour lecture on menopause and that's it and everything else that's going on. So it's just this treatment where women are put on the margin and men are centered, and that's. That's all patriarchy is.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Do we see it, like, biblically? Is there patriarchy in Scripture? Where does this come from?
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Absolutely. The Bible was written in a patriarchal world. And this is the. You know, the question is, is. Is the patriarchy in the Bible something that we are supposed to mimic, or is it something that God has given us a way to resist and has shown us that this is not actually doesn't work well for human flourishing? And I would argue that the Bible, as much as it is a patriarchal text, in the sense that human culture is patriarchy, we also see a threat of resistance of God. God initiated resistance. You know, I always start off with the story of Hagar, that the first woman, the first person who names God, is Hagar, and she names God the God who sees. And so. So the Bible starts off with a story of God seeing a woman who is being mistreated in a horrific way and stepping in and giving her the same promise that he gives to Abraham and Sarah. And it's just a beautiful story of how God sees women. And we see that type of resistance. You know, even the fact that there's four women in this. In the nativity story of Jesus, that is countercultural, so to speak. And the women that are in there are not women you would expect, expect, you know, Rahab the prostitute, Bathsheba, who is often seen as a seductress, although she was not. But nonetheless, even these. These are moments of resistance. What Will Gaffney calls the God beyond the text. Yeah. And I. So patriarchy's there, but that doesn't mean that God wants patriarchy for the church.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. There are a lot of things in the Bible that, guess what, we are not still putting into practice.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: So what do you do when. And this can be as practical or, like, theoretical as you want it to be. What do you do when people come at you with scripture to, like, back up that this is how the church should be, you know, by the men?
[00:16:10] Speaker B: It's always my favorite moments when people quote 1st Timothy 2 or 1 Corinthians 14, and it's just. I just have to, you know, I sometimes I don't respond as well as I should, because those are so. Those are so irritating sort of questions. And. But usually the teacher in me prevails. And so I can come out and I'm like, yeah, it's great that you're looking at those texts, but have you thought about how those texts work? With texts like Romans 16, how if God is telling women that they cannot ever serve in positions of authority in First Timothy 2, or that women are always to be silent, as in First Corinthians 14, then what do we do with the fact that Paul supports women as deacons, apostle, and church leaders? What do we do with Prisca, whose name is mentioned 4 out of 5 times ahead of her husband, suggesting that she is the dominant ministry leader?
[00:17:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: How do you reconcile those texts? And that usually gives people some of a pause. You know, when people quote Bible at you, it's always best just to take them back to the Bible and show them that they're. While they're saying a part of scripture, they are not showing the whole part of scripture. Yeah, it sometimes works. Mostly people just double down on those texts and you just move on.
But at the same time, time, you cannot take. You cannot take scripture out of context, and you cannot take only one part of scripture and apply it to the whole Bible.
You know, I think famous phrase that I heard first from Ben Witherington as a text without a context is a pretext to say whatever you want.
And it's a lovely phrase. And that's exactly what we see people doing is text without context become pretext to say whatever they want. And often the pretext context is patriarchy.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. I'm gonna write that down. I gotta.
[00:18:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great phrase. Yeah.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: We talk a lot about context over here and how much it matters. So.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Well, you, Beth, you've been a pastor's wife for 25 years.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: 27.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: 27 years.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: Seven years. Yeah. When I started writing the book, it was 25.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: It is a process. Well, before we dig into the book and learn from your wisdom, I wanna know, like, one of the most cringe moments that either you experience or, you know, from someone else. As a pastor's wife, if you have some, like, eye roll story that you just want to share with us, part.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: Of being a pastor's wife is just living with cringe all the time. It's just, you know, things happen to you and you see things happen to other women, and it's just horrific.
You know, I.
One of the. Some of the most cringiest Moments I have probably revolved around the time that I was having babies. I had two.
And in between those, you know, people would come up and would like literally grab your stomach and ask you if there was anyone in there or when you were going to have someone in there. And I mean, just really. And I'm not a super touchy person anyway, so having people come up and grab your body when you're not even pregnant is just so weird. And in some ways, pastors wives are sort of communal property in the church. It often was seen like they're the ones who make all supposed to make all the food. You know, I. Some of my other cringe moments have to do with the church building where people would like call me up to let them into the church building when they couldn't get a hold of my husband or another pastor or they would. And I actually one of my acts of defiance as a pastor's wife is I refuse to have keys to the church building.
I just refused to have them. And I started that practice early on because people assumed that I was such an extension of my husband that if they needed to get in the building and they couldn't get him, they could get me.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: Because clearly there's nothing. What else are you doing?
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly.
So it. But it's sort of this idea again too, with like a woman's bot. With a pastor's wife body. It's sort of like it belongs to the church. So you can ask questions that you wouldn't ask other people.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: That's a very good point. Yes. If you would not ask this question to your pastor or someone else, then maybe don't ask it to her either.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. Yeah.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: Novel idea.
Before we jump into her latest book, Becoming the Pastor's Wife, I want you to know that this is only one of many fantastic resources out there on women in scripture and the history of women in Christianity. I've linked up some of my favorite favorites in the show notes in case you want to further your education. These links will take you to Amazon because it's the easiest place to keep them organized and accessible for you to purchase. But many of them are also available on Audible or. These are not the kinds of books that I can never get from the library because I take too many notes in the margins. But many of them are available there as well. Let's get back to learning about the role of pastor's wives.
So your latest book, which is comes out very, very soon, is called Becoming the Pastor's Wife and has a photo on the front of this, like, stereotypical, you know, 50s housewife whose shadow then is a much more medieval woman. I love the magnet that came in my little box where they flip back and forth. So what is it that you're hoping to communicate, Beth, with this cover, when people walk by and see it?
[00:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that was when we were discussing the COVID That was one of the things. I'm usually pretty low key. I let marketing people do their jobs, and they were like, what do you want to communicate? And I said, I want to communicate that this is not just a modern story, that there is a. This is a long story in church history that is connected to the early church and the medieval church. And I said, I really want to convey that. And so, in fact, one of the things that they asked me, they were like, if you had a poster, if you had a picture in your mind that you're thinking of. And I said, well, my whole family were Star wars fans. And I was like, you know, the. The poster that came out for the Phantom Menace, which is not one of my favorite Star wars movies, but the image of Anakin with the shadow of Darth Vader was always. Was such a wonderful poster. And I like. I really like that image. And they were like, okay, we can go with that. And so that's what we started working on and the image that we have. What I want to convey is, first of all, is the deep history that the pastor's wife role did not just appear out of nowhere. It is also not a historical.
Has not always been there. That was the other thing that she has not always looked like this. Right.
And then the other part of that I wanted to communicate is that with the rise, especially in the latter half of the 20th century, the rise of the pastor's wife role, it has come at a cost for women's independent ministry. And that shadow of Catherine of Alexandra, which is the image of the medieval. She's actually an early Christian saint. But that image is from a 16th century famous painting of Catherine of Alexandria of Alexandria. And she was a preaching woman in the early church.
And she became. She was one of the virgin martyrs. But she was known for her preaching and for her.
Her public interactions, dialogue, arguing with male leaders in the Roman world and convincing them of the truth. You know, she was preaching the gospel and converting people to Christianity. And so she's this really good. And again, as this virgin martyr, Catherine of Alexandria does not stand with. She does not stand with a man. She does not have. That's not part. She stands alone with the authority of God. And so I wanted to see that contrast of this woman's independent leadership and as well. And then what the pastor's wife is, which is an important role.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: But it is a different role, and it is a role that is dependent on the job of the husband.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: Yeah, Well, I. I'm not a pastor's wife, but I am a pastor whose husband is not a pastor. So I. In a. In a similar but different way, I relate to a lot of the things that you talk about in this book. And what I really love about the COVID is the shadow. I mean, I love the idea of the shadow. It just reminds me that I'm like, I'm standing on my own. My husband's very supportive. Like, I'm not saying he's not here. He's very supportive of my ministry. He's just not in ministry, because guess what? I was called to it, and he wasn't.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: You know, But I love this idea that, like, we've got the shadow. We've got the women behind us. We're tied to all of these women and all of these stories. And so even when I feel like I'm out here on my own, floating on my own, I'm like, no, there are so many women that have come before me. I always. Mary Mags is my absolute favorite it. And so I always just remember, I'm like, we are part of the same story. Like, Mary Magdalene paved the way for me and for us and for so many women, and there were so many. You tell a lot of stories in here, but I just love that idea that it's not like them side by side, but it's the shadow.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: This is where we've come from. And then guess what else? We also get to cast a shadow with what we're doing for my daughters or whoever in the future then is called to ministry, regardless of their marital status. You know?
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Exactly. It's that great cloud of witnesses that has always been with women. Exactly. And that I do think that we. We need to remember it more, and because it does empower us, and it can give us courage to keep going.
[00:26:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So you mentioned Catherine of Alexandria, and you tell the story of a lot of different women in these pages. Is there one in particular that like. Like, kind of pops up in your mind more often than the others?
[00:26:52] Speaker B: So, you know, that's a. That's a hard question. I had to make a lot of choices about the women that I included and the women that I didn't include. And so the women that I included were Ones that I found really important to the story.
So one of my favorite women that I talk about is of course, a medieval woman. She's a medieval abbess, and her name is Milberga. And, you know, a woman nobody has heard of before, I'm quite certain.
And I love her because she had such a significant position in the medieval church and she was ordained by the Archbishop of Canterbury. And I love that because that's a. People all the time come at me and they're like, tell me about a woman who was ordained like a man. And I'm like, well, you know what? I know a woman who was ordained by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the early church, and she was put in a pastoral position. And in fact, she's depicted with the symbol of a bishop, that crozier that she's always depicted with that. And I'm like, if she does not fit your definition of an ordained female pastor, I don't know what does. Right.
But I think the woman that comes to my mind the most when I think about the book is the story of Maria, which is the woman that I tell in the next to last chapter. It was not a story I expected to find, and it is the story of a pastor, pastor's wife, who lived her life to the fullest. I mean, she was just such a beautiful.
A beautiful example of a woman who poured her life into the church. And yet because of her precarious role, her life was very difficult. I tell the story of her husband was involved in a clergy sex abuse scandal. And also that her life at home was had.
Suggests that it was one of significant domestic abuse. And yet she lived her life married to this pastor for 40 years.
And what was amazing was when I was talking with some of the people who knew her and all they, you know, what they remembered was that the whole church knew how difficult her life was, but they also knew, I mean, this is something the church, they knew it was going on, but yet at the same time, they all loved this woman. Just the way that they spoke about her was just incredible. And so I just think about that, how. I think about how her life could have been different.
You know, I've learned things about her now. She spoke several different languages. She felt called to ministry herself. It's possible she was ordained. I actually haven't found the ordination certificate, but it's possible she was ordained. She was also in slated to be in the Olympics right before World War II, the ones that were canceled. I mean, it was. It was insane what she was able to do.
And what happened to her because of the way that the evangelical world moved where they began to emphasize this dependent role of women, begin to elevate the pastoral and elevate the stories of men over the stories of women. Maria's voice wasn't heard, and the life that she lived was not to the fullest that I believe God had planned for her. And so her story is one of. It's a beautiful story, but it's also a terrible story.
And I think about it when, you know, I think about the pastor's wife role, on the one hand, the incredible energy that women called to ministry who are in partnership with their husbands, or the opposite, men called to ministry. You know, these ministry teams that we know God calls. It's a powerful position, but yet, at the same time, because of the sin of patriarchy, it is a precarious position for women. And it is often one where women suffer so much and are never able to speak.
And that's. That's the story of Maria.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: What can we do, Beth, from. From her story? And I mean, just the book as a whole. And I obviously recommend people to read it so that they can learn. But what. What can we learn? Like, what can we learn in. From these stories so that we don't keep perpetuating the same patterns?
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Gosh.
I think one thing we can learn is that God calls women. God has always called women. God calls women to a multiple of different types of roles. God calls women to lead independently, regardless of their marital status. God calls women to lead with partners who they are married to. God calls sometimes women who are married to ministers. God does not call those women specifically to ministry. Just as you know, this is a pattern. Very common that we see with pastor husbands is that fewer pastor husbands seem to share the calling of their wives, whereas that expectation. Expectation is put on the wives of pastors.
[00:32:31] Speaker A: Right. No one expects my husband to quit his job and come sit next to me on the front pew every Sunday.
[00:32:38] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: Show up at everything that I'm at.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And bring a casserole.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: He can't take care of the kids, which he does actually do on Sundays.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Right. But. Yeah, but those aren't the expectations for him. Instead. And I can imagine that you might get things sometimes, like, you're so lucky that your husband will get the kids ready. You know, you're like, like, does anyone ever say that to a pastor's wife? And guess what?
[00:33:00] Speaker A: He's their dad. I'm not paying him child.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: So it's just a weird. So. So I would say I'D say one thing we can do to stop perpetuating these is to examine our own preconceptions about our expectations for women in the church.
Why do we have these. Why do we assume that if a pastor's wife is not at a church event, that she's doing something wrong, or that there's a problem in the marriage, or that we have to ask, you know, why do we have to assume that she always has to be there or she's not supportive of his ministry?
Why do we assume that she needs to lead ministries within the church if she doesn't ever feel called that way?
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Just because she's female doesn't mean that she needs to be in charge of children's ministry, which I know you mentioned in the book, too. Not everyone can handle kids or wants to.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's.
That was one of the things that always irritated me the most as a young pastor's wife was the expectation that I would be involved in children's ministry and that I. That I liked taking care of other people's baby. Now, I have to say this carefully because part of it is because people's expectations that all women are maternal. Some women are more maternal than others. And I loved my baby.
I have two wonderful kids.
But I'm not a baby person in the sense that I don't walk into rooms and gravitate and want to hold everybody's babies, et cetera, like that. It's just. That's not my. I connect much better with teenagers. I always tell people I can't teach people until they can think metaphorically, you know, so when they're in the literal stage where everywhere they can't think metaphorically. I'm not a good teacher.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: Someone else. Yes.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: I just don't. I can't do that.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: I will keep them at that age. And then as soon as they start thinking too, I will pass them to you. See, we need different people.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Different. Exactly right. That's exactly right. That's where I. I'm really good at that. That stage. That's why I love teaching college. I mean, in some ways, they're just advanced teenagers, so I'm really good at that stage. But instead of allowing women to have this diversity of how God has created us, we tend to funnel them into a very particular role. And this is what's happened with the pastor's wife role. Even for women who aren't pastor's wives, the pastor wife has become the epitome, the type, the Christian woman, the biblical woman.
She epitomizes that. And so even though all women aren't expected to be her, all women are expected to model her.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: And this is, you know, so there may be lesser variations on women in evangelical churches, but the things that are expected of them are all similar to what you expect of your pastor's wife. It's just your pastor's wife is the super biblical woman who has to do all of it and exemplify all of it.
And I think one of the saddest things in, you know, I mean, I've lived in the pastor's wife world, so I've been around lots of pastor's wives. And one of the saddest things that I read, we examined 150 pastor's wife books and I had two graduate assistants who worked with me on this project. And so when I say we, that's who it is. But we examined 150 pastor's wife books. And one of the saddest things that I found was in the latter half of the 20th cent, the 80s and the 90s, you start hearing these books telling pastors wives that they can't have friends in the church, that it is too dangerous for them to have friends in the church. And because they might gossip with them or people might think they're favorites and you can just think about. And I remember being at conferences where we were told this, that you can't, that you always have to be careful because you're always protecting your husband's image and you can't get too close with other women in the church. And I'm like, what have we done to these women Only.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Where we have put them on this pedestal, given them all these expectations and then told them they can't have friends.
It's just what we have done to pastors wives breaks my heart.
But it also I found these, reading all of these women's stories so encouraging because women, regardless of how hard the church has made their lives, still manage to do amazing work for God. And that I think is so encouraging that women always do what they're called to do, despite the challenges that are put in their way.
And so all these pastors wives who worked in terrible conditions, but yet like Maria, who still hosted the Christmas pageants where the children in the church who are now all grown still talk about what she invested in them. See what. That's just an amazing, I think testimony.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Yeah. What a legacy to just show up and do faithfully what you've been called to.
[00:38:08] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:08] Speaker A: And my hope when as people are listening to this too is not that just that they would listen and go, oh, well that's an interesting story, but that we would internalize that this. Right. And start to think about, okay, what are we saying to our pastor's wives or pastors who are female or other ministry leaders or whatever? Just what are the questions that we're asking? What are the assumptions that we're making? Like you said, if somebody, if my pastor's wife, who is also a pastor, if she does not show up to the women's ministry event, let it be because is she is emotionally spent or she's peopled too much and that is okay. Like, you know, I think we just have to look at these assumptions that we make about women and go, yeah, like they're also humans.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: Right? That's exactly right. Yeah. You know, I think some of the chapters that bothered me the most in the pastor's wife books that I read were the ones that talked about a woman's appearance and how important it was for pastors wives to, to have a good external appearance and the amount of pressure that this put on women. You know, I mean, one book in specifically said that if your body is, if you are overweight, that that is a sign that you're not with the spirit, you're not walking with the spirit. And I mean, just, I'm just like, why do we tell women these things?
[00:39:36] Speaker A: It's just inside thoughts that should not come outside. Beth, These are. No, no.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: I know.
It's amazing to me that women do as much as they can and are as well adjusted as they can given what the church has done to them and what women in the church have done to other women.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes, yes. And listen, if you didn't know better then Grace, but now you do. So now let's do right, let's do better.
[00:40:03] Speaker B: Now that's a good, good, good story.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Well, let's speak to women who do feel called to ministry.
Not to discourage them, but just to give a realistic picture. You know, what are some roadblocks that you think they are likely to hit so that we can give them encouragement of like when this happens, here's how you can handle it.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Yeah. No, well, they have to realize that they are in a space that the norm, the normative is masculine. Masculine is men. So everything is built to support men within these structures.
And so they're going to hit more. You know, anytime they ask for something that is outside of that male normative, it's going to be seen as, you know, possibly as, you know, being, being extra stuff or needy, demanding, etcetera.
And so realizing that this is an education issue issue, that we have to re. Educate people, that we have created a space that is masculine and now we need to create a space that allows both women and men to flourish. And that's going to take work and that's going to take changing people's expectations and assumptions, including the men. So I would say one of the things is if something makes you uncomfortable, if something makes you feel like you are being being pushed out, not included, that your voice is not as important, speak up immediately. Speak up and tell people exactly why this is making you feel. You know, I still remember this conversation with, after the making of Biblical Womanhood came out with this, this mega church pastor. And he told me, he said, well, we keep asking women to, you know, be chairs of committees and to serve in these ways. And they keep telling us no. And I said, well, have you asked him why they say no? And he just like dead just stared at me. And he had never asked, considered, never considered asking women why they said no. And I was like, maybe you're holding meetings at a time that women can't make. Have you thought about that? Like, if you say we always meet at 7pm on Monday night, that may not be a really great time for a woman with small kids to meet because of other, other expectations you have on her.
So have you thought about, you know, adjusting that time? And so I think women, we have been taught to be so small and we have been taught especially in the church, to always acquiesce and to not cause problems, to go with the flow that we, we don't speak up, we don't advocate for ourselves.
[00:42:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: And so advocate for yourself. If you are in a room and you feel like your voice is being silenced, then interrupt. Women can interrupt. It is okay to interrupt when your voice is being silenced. If somebody interrupts your thought, you can say, I'm sorry, I was speaking.
[00:43:05] Speaker A: I wasn't finished.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: Yes, I wasn't finished yet. You can say it nicely. I wasn't finished yet. Let me finish that thought.
And these help educate people that they need to remember that you're in the room and that you matter just as much as they do. Yeah. And so I think women, we need to, and other women need to not teach women to be so small. We need to not expect women to be so small. And I think, I think that's a, I think learning to advocate for ourselves and that you're not being needy, you're not being emotional, you're not being demanding when you say this is what I need to flourish in the ministry that God has given to me. Yeah.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: Well, I think, Beth, it goes so much farther, even beyond ministry. I think women and girls who are raised in the church are taught so, like, like you said, not only to put other people first, but don't. Don't rock the boat. Like, you know, make everybody else happy, keep things calm. But for me, when I was coming into ministry and also realizing, as I say with a smirk, like, how quote, unquote, extra I am and how I was trying to balance the two things, I did get small for a while. Yeah, I got smaller. I became less authentic to who I was because while I knew I was never going to fit the actual box of, like, what a female pastor is supposed to be, I was trying to get closer.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: Right.
[00:44:37] Speaker A: And what I realized was I actually did not value myself the way that God values me. And I think that's something. Whether women are called to ministry or not, whether they're 12 or, you know, 80, I think we have to be able to accept how God created us in a way that is like God's perception, only, like, what is God's view of you? And. And let everybody else's opinion fall away. And that is what really changed it for me, because I'm like, oh, if God did give me this voice, and God did make me extra, by the way, and he gave me these giftings and callings and speaking style and all of this stuff, who are any of these people to tell me that it's not right or it doesn't fit?
[00:45:23] Speaker B: Exactly. And, you know, I think that's one of the reasons why I wrote this book. I wrote it for two reasons. One of the reasons was I didn't finish everything I wanted to do in the making of Biblical Womanhood. And one of the things I hadn't been able to talk about was what happened to the story of women's ordination. So this is. In many ways, this book is the history of women's ordination and how it connected with the rise of the pastor's wife role and began to diminish as the pastor's wife role begin to be the dominant ministry role for women in evangelical spaces. So that was one of the reasons I wanted to tell the story of women's ordination.
The other reason is because I wanted to explore what women's roles in the church in a variety of different perspectives. Not just women called to independent ministry, but God also gifts and calls women within ministry space that aren't called to the pastorate, that aren't Called, you know, people like me, I never felt called to be a pastor. I feel called to ministry. But I am very happy working alongside my husband. And we've this. And that, I feel like, has really been my calling for this. So I do feel there is a calling for spouses who support their ministry partners, and that can be in a variety of different ways. Ways. And so what we have done to women is we have created a very narrow model of what we think they should be. And that's sort of my 1950s pastor's wife on the COVID And we've said, this is the way that all women called to ministry are to be. Whereas, like, that shadow behind her, that's just not true. That's not historically accurate, that's not biblically accurate. And that women throughout church history have served in a variety of ministry roles, from independent to dependent models. And we need to. What if we lived in a church that embraced women serving in all of these roles and supported women serving in all of these roles, and what would that church look like? And that was one of the questions I wanted to explore.
[00:47:40] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. So you've been. You've been in the church world. You've been doing this for years.
What positive change have you seen take place? And then on the other side of the coin, where do you think the church still really needs a lot of work when it comes to recognizing women, making space for them?
[00:47:59] Speaker B: I. A positive change is, I think, women, I think because of the changes in social media, because of the. The changes in things like podcasts like this, because of the awareness, the connectiveness that has grown, I think because of social media in the church, these stories about women serving in the church, these stories about how hard women have fought to live out their callings in the church, it. We can't unsee those. Yeah, I think, you know, in women's history, we've always talked about how women always have to start over, that, you know, you have a time where women are moving and they're doing all of these things, and then there's sort of this retraction and pushback, and we forget.
I think we live in a world now where we can't forget that anymore.
We can't forget, you know, women who live who are in very conservative spaces, who are told that the only thing they can be is. Is not that they can't be a wife and mother, but when you're told that's all that God has called you to and anything else is wrong and that all other women should be called to exactly that same type of role that women who live in those spaces and then they look over and they see other women like Beth Moore, and they see other women, you know, they see women out who are doing and God is clearly moving. You know, I tell my students, once you hear Beth Moore preach, you will never say a woman can't preach. Preach.
[00:49:34] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: So they, they can't unsee that. And so it causes dissonance. It's like, well, are you the. Because if this woman is not doing what God is calling her to do, but yet she's living, seems to be a fully authentic Christian life, loves Jesus, doing all. What does this mean?
[00:49:55] Speaker A: Right?
[00:49:55] Speaker B: And I think it's really hard. We can't hide those stories anymore. And I think this is a real positive for women because it allows us to always be able to ask questions and it gives us other options because we can be like, my church isn't going to let me do this.
Okay, Maybe it's time for me to go to a different church. And I think the church is going to start feeling this before long. You know, give it 10 years. And I think conservative spaces that are shutting women out are going to really start feeling this, this.
However, I do think that the church has not made a lot of progress on women serving in ministerial roles and being fully supported in ministerial spaces, despite the fact that we've been talking about this for decades now in the modern US Church.
And I think part of that is, is because we haven't fully understood the systemic impact of patriarchal structures. And you know, I say that in people's minds just glazed over. Let me just, you know, let me just give you an example of that. What women are paid, women still make less than men. And this is in ministry spaces. Lifeway, which is the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, had a study on women in ministry that came out in 2023. And what they found in that is over 80% of women serving in ministry roles in Southern Baptist churches, churches are volunteers part time, not paid the same salaries or given the same type of recognition. Even if women are not even wanting to be pastoral roles, they're still not being paid for their work. Women's work is not valued as much as men's work.
And I think this is a place that if we valued women's work the same as men's work, we would pay women, women the same as we paid men.
[00:51:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:51:49] Speaker B: We wouldn't accept.
[00:51:50] Speaker A: No question about it.
[00:51:51] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, that's the thing. You know, I, I have a. One of those stories That I tell is this, this image of this woman in the Priscilla Catacombs where she is, this seems to be this independent preaching woman. She's very controversial figure. And one of my colleagues at Baylor, he was just like, he was like, if she was a man, no one would ever question that she was an authoritative leader in the church.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:52:17] Speaker B: It's just because she's a woman that we question it. And so I. That is still with us.
And it's going to take a lot of work to undo that.
This is why even in egalitarian spaces, spaces that support women or theologically claim to support women fully, we still have sex abuse scandals, we still have misogyny clearly rampant where women get pushed out, their voices are not listened to, they're not valued as much as men.
This is because we still haven't rooted out that basic underlying assumption that women are less valuable than men.
And that's going to take a long time. Time. It's patriarchy and racism are both horrible monsters that take a long time to eradicate.
[00:53:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, Beth, last question for you, because a lot of people that listen are not necessarily in like, vocational ministry or they don't have maybe power or leadership in their churches. But how can people that are listening help the church shift to become a more equitable, inclusive place? What can they.
[00:53:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
Suggest women that, you know, I'm in a Baptist space. Baptist spaces, we always have meetings at the end of the year where we nominate people for different committee roles and for different, you know, chairs of different committees nominate women.
That's always nominate people of color. If you see that most of your committees are mostly dominated by a particular type of person who all look the same. Same.
Suggest some different people. And it's, you know, I'm married to a white man. I have a white man as a son. It's not saying that they shouldn't be there. It's saying that we need other people there too.
[00:54:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:14] Speaker B: And so you cannot, you know, nominate other people in there. Recommend for like Sunday school classes for people who are preaching from the pulpit, who are perhaps, you know, visiting pastors, et cetera. Suggest when women suggest women.
Suggest women in the pulpit. Make sure when they invite women that they pay them the same type of salary, pulpit salary as they would give to a male pastor who's doing supply and invite them. Suggest women to teach Sunday school classes, encourage women and then also teach or help get some sort sort of place in place in your church that actually equips women to do these things. So women's Bible Studies actually equip women really, really well. It's just that women don't often make that next leap. Like, whoa, I've been doing Bible study for 20 years. You know what? I could probably teach this now.
[00:55:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:13] Speaker B: I've been being equipped and so help women make that. Be like, hey, you've just gone through this huge study on Romans. I think you could probably teach a Sunday school class on Romans.
[00:55:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:23] Speaker B: And giving women that opportunity. So I think just speaking up for women, nominating them to positions of leadership, and just paying attention to how women who are in leadership in your church are treated and the assumptions that you make about them.
And if you hear somebody talking about the pastor's wife not being present at an event or something, you know, encouraging people to cut them some slack and treat women in leadership positions as humans.
[00:55:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:59] Speaker B: Just like everyone else.
[00:56:01] Speaker A: Yeah. That's so good. Well, I will say again for people to get your books. This one is fantastic. I've read the Making of Biblical Womanhood. I've referenced it multiple times.
And that's part of it, too, I think. List reading, you know, female authors, listening to their stories, believing their stories, championing them, empowering them.
Just the way that we treat women in the world, I think will affect the way that we view women in the church.
[00:56:31] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:56:33] Speaker A: Thank you so much for being here, Beth. I will link up all of your books and everything. It really has been so lovely. I'm, like, all encouraged now to go out and inspire some women. So thank you so much.
[00:56:46] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[00:56:52] Speaker A: If you're a woman who's listening, I hope that you feel empowered. I hope, like Hagar, that this was a reminder that God sees you not because of your connection to anyone else, but because God made you exactly as you are on purpose, because he likes you like that. If you're struggling to live into the fullness of who you are and how God made you, either because of purity, culture or the way you were raised to be a people pleaser, or maybe because verses like 1 Timothy 2 or 1 Corinthians 14 were used to control you, please reach out. I'm Kristen Mockler Young on social media, or you can send me an email through BecomingChurch TV. If you're not not a woman, I hope that you were able to listen with humility to better understand the women in your life and that you'll allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the places that patriarchy may be influencing your voice or your assumptions. Thanks so much for listening. And until next time, keep becoming church to the people around.
