Becoming the Pastor’s Wife, Beth Allison Barr. Brazos Press (ISBN: 9781587435898) 2025.

Summary: Examines the connection between the decline of female ordination and the rise of the role of pastor’s wife.

Beth Allison Barr is the wife of a minister. She is also a full-time Professor of History at Baylor University. While joining in her church’s ministry, she does not fit the stereotype of “the pastor’s wife.” She does not see “pastor’s wife” as a calling for all women married to ministers. And in this book, she makes a case that the elevation of the role of “pastor’s wife” corresponds to the decline in the ordination of women, particularly in evangelical churches.

She begins by observing what we see in the New Testament accounts. There are women like Phoebe, Prisca, and Junia who engaged in ministry. Junia is “among the apostles.” And then there is Peter’s wife. Barr asks, “where is she?” The silence of scripture suggests that there is no role definition for her, unlike the growing consensus in conservative church circles treating “pastor’s wife” as a calling. (Barr and her researchers even compiled the literature on the subject, which appears as a special bibliography.)

Rather, for the first millennium, Barr shows that there were women who were priests. She describes the Priscilla Catacombs that portray a women leading liturgical prayer. There were the presbytera who served communion and otherwise participated in ministry. And she points to stained glass representations of women with croziers and to the powerful role of Milburga as abbess over a double community of women and men. Such an ordained position was the equivalent of a bishop’s. Likewise, there is the example of Hildegard of Bingen, who preached throughout Europe.

Barr traces the decline of women in such positions to the celibate male priesthood. Female bodies became a problem as the “Geese” of the Cross Bones Graveyard attest. Located near Winchester, it was unconsecrated burial ground for women prostitutes working in brothels under the bishop’s jurisdiction. And when the Reformation came, the priest’s whore became the pastor’ wife.

From here, the book takes a turn to the role of the pastor’s wife in the Southern Baptist Convention and the elimination of ordination as an option for women. Here, Barr brings in her study of books written for pastor’s wives. The picture is one of the church getting “two for the price of one” in addition to being the dutiful homemaker who served all her husband’s needs. She traces the evolution of the Willie Turner Dawson Award, recognizing the best pastor’s wife.

She explores how women were ordained in the Southern Baptist Convention–as missionaries. And prior to 1973, women were ordained to ministry positions. At this point, complementarianism began to be increasingly embraced, and with it, women’s ordination increasingly opposed. And during this time, sexual abuse and misconduct and coverups became part of the Southern Baptist culture. Barr juxtaposes the story of the 2023 vote to disfellowship churches ordaining women with the story of Maria Acacia. An SBC missionary to Toronto, she found herself in an abusive relationship with her husband. Church leadership covered up the abuse. He remained in leadership. She filed for divorce. No one spoke to or for her.

Barr concludes the book proposing the the role of pastor’s wife can be different, pointing to the Church Mother role in Black churches. She contends that women can minister as co-pastors with their husbands. And men and women can team together in ministry.

It was my privilege to work alongside amazingly gifted women in campus ministry, striving together for God honoring excellence. We had clear policies and good training about sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior. So I would applaud Barr’s vision.

I also applaud her calling out the stultifying expectations of the “pastor’s wife” role and the injustice of the “two for one” system that made wives unpaid employees of churches. I’ve seen the oppressiveness of these expectations, the harm to marriages, and the children alienated as a consequence.

The pivot in the second half of the book to a focus on the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) came as a surprise. While this is a significant body that exemplifies beliefs and practices of other evangelicals, Barr’s account seemed ‘inside baseball” to this outsider. It was helpful to bring in examples from the Black church. However, the title and promotional material material about the book didn’t prepare me for the heavy SBC focus of the book. And counter-examples from other church bodies, if such exist might have been helpful.

In sum, Barr’s research on the role of “pastor’s wife.” and the corresponding decline of women’s ordination is an important contribution. It highlights, for me, the constrictions we have placed on the gospel freedom of women and the loss to the whole church that has resulted.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

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