The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Biblical Truth

 

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Biblical Truth – by Beth Allison Barr

When many evangelical Christians essentially started worshipping Donald Trump instead of Jesus during Trump’s presidency, it raised a lot of doubt and uncertainty within my soul. I never wavered from my faith, but I had a lot of questions about the evangelical movement (which to some extent I was part of) and I was given very few answers. None of them made any sense.  The more I studied the history of the church, the more I came to understand that so many of the biblical “truths” that today’s evangelicals cling to weren’t considered infallible and unquestionable until the last few hundred years.  I mean, our Bible wasn’t even a Bible until around 450 years after Christ.  So I had a lot of questions.

So does Dr. Beth Allison Barr.  Her main beef, for obvious reasons, is the role of women throughout the history of Christianity. This is a wonderfully well-written book. Part of what makes this book so captivating is that Barr alternates between her present-day situation and travails within the church around this particular issue, and the history of Christianity going all the way back to the apostle Paul.  Dr. Barr, until recently, was a member of a church in Waco, Texas where her husband was on staff.  She and her husband were essentially kicked out of their church when they started challenging the notion that women weren’t allowed to teach men.  So in many ways this book is Barr’s personal journey as well as a deep dive into church history.

Dr. Barr is a historian. What better person to learn history from than a historian.  Well, sadly, the church doesn’t think so. This shouldn’t really be that surprising. Think of how many evangelicals refuse to listen to geologists when it comes to the age of the earth, or epidemiologists when it comes to the advantages of vaccination. So why should they act any different with Barr’s concerns about women and their real history of leadership within Christianity?  She’s obviously frustrated with how so many churches interpret this matter, but she keeps a level head throughout. This book never comes across as angry, but it’s definitely a major concern to the author that she would like to see addressed.

She starts with the epistles of Paul, and works her way forward. She makes excellent points throughout. Although she remains Protestant, her claim is that the role of women really took a turn for the worse around the time of the Reformation during the 16^th century.  Her claim is that rather than letting Christianity shape the world around it, the church let the world shape the faith instead. Since many cultures have incorporated various themes of subjugation of women, it trickled into the Christian church  and began its cancerous growth. 

What we all need to acknowledge is that “power” is very addictive, and the evangelical church has sadly showed us that it consistently craves such power. If the world (and the church) is led by a buncha white men, some of those white men will do everything to keep things status quo. Who wants to be a “minority?” they probably say to themselves. Oddly, that shouldn’t be an issue unless, of course, the majority is treating the minority poorly which is, in fact, the case within so many elements of society.  Although many within the Christian church would be insulted by the accusation, this is a fact within the church as well; especially the “men” part.

She lists several examples in the book of just how damaging these sentiments can be. Essentially, there are “Christian” men in power, who blame every problem within a marital relationship on the woman (John MacArthur comes to mind.)  I’ve heard instances, for example, where a Christian church leader cheats on his wife and has sex with an underage girl.  The leaders of the church blame, of course, the man’s wife.  They argue that if the man’s wife had been giving him “enough” sex, he never would have had to stray and seek pleasure elsewhere.  Now THAT example isn’t in this book, but Barr does include several examples of such warped behavior that exists within the sanctuaries of too many churches.

She even goes as far as to give good reasons for believing many of today’s Protestant evangelical churches have tweaked their “vision statements” to accommodate the subjugation of women.  In doing so, they essentially haven managed to make these new vision statements actual Arianism versions of heresy.  So, yes, this is a book that badly needs to be written and read. Sadly this book probably won’t change the mind of many obdurate men who are already in power.  Maybe it will change a few minds though.  I would imagine that it might be easy to claim that women were intellectually inferior than men hundreds of years ago. But living in the 21^st century has proven that such notions are ridiculous, and to hold such opinions and state them out loud is highly offensive and malodorous. One could lose their job for stating such nonsense. I would argue this is a good thing.  If your response to this is that “That’s how God designed it”, well, reading this book just might change your mind.  It’s time for Christians to start being more Christlike and do their due diligence and study the history of their faith.