Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry
By Beth Allison Barr
Brazos Press, 256 pages
Published March 18, 2025
Dr. Barr is an esteemed professor of history at Baylor University. Mrs. Barr is the pastor’s wife. The confluence of these roles uniquely equips Beth Allison Barr to ask the question: how did “ministry by marriage” become the norm for women in particular Christian traditions? Is this a biblical imperative or a cultural one?
As she did in The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Barr makes the case that the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)’s definition of women’s roles is a recent historical construct rooted in cultural expectations of (mostly) White southern churches, not the biblical narrative. Becoming the Pastor’s Wife describes early and medieval churches that welcomed women as leaders — before leading to recent controversies in the SBC in which church leaders insist that female leadership is simply “unbiblical,” calling out the disconnect inherent in their teachings.
Barr is a proud pastor’s wife who feels called to her volunteer church work, yet she decries the assumption that she will provide unpaid labor at the expense of her vocation. She writes of pastors’ wives, “(i)t was assumed her high calling was to serve alongside her husband; her high privilege was to do what the church needed her to do.” Churches make no exceptions for wives who work elsewhere or express little interest in hosting, piano-playing or running the church office. Becoming the Pastor’s Wife is peppered with bizarre experiences of Barr’s, such as accompanying her husband on job interviews only to be interrogated by the wives of staff members who wondered how she would prioritize her husband’s job over her own.
(W)e tiptoe alongside Barr’s students to read aloud the names of women memorialized in stained glass at St. Martin’s in Canterbury, England, wondering, “will the intrepid church historian uncover even more evidence of women leaders in the early church?” (Spoiler alert—she will!)
Becoming the Pastor’s Wife becomes a true page-turner when Barr invites us into her research process. We tiptoe alongside Barr’s students to read aloud the names of women memorialized in stained glass at St. Martin’s in Canterbury, England, wondering, “Will the intrepid church historian uncover even more evidence of women leaders in the early church?” (Spoiler alert—she will!) When Barr realizes that Ethelburga and Margaret are depicted holding croziers, symbols of ecclesiastical authority traditionally held by bishops, we feel like one of her students, awed by this revelation.
So why would a Presbyterian read this book, given that we have ordained women for nearly 70 years? First, Barr’s work belongs with that sweet spot of scholars whose primary research is exceptional and whose writing is accessible to a mass audience (think Elaine Pagels or N.T. Wright) — she’s just that good. Second, Barr’s perspective makes explicit what is implicit in many of our churches: nominating committees know better than to ask a pastoral candidate’s wife when she plans to have children, but they might long for the good old days when the minister’s wife offered the church unpaid labor. Given that a higher percentage of women in ministry serve in part-time or bi-vocational roles, it’s fair to wonder if these traditional assumptions are more common than we realize. It’s surprising, however, that Barr doesn’t even mention the many mainline traditions that ordain women, although she does remind readers that many conservative Black churches offer space for the pastor’s wife to preach, teach and use her gifts. Despite this quibble, Becoming the Pastor’s Wife is a must-read for those who enjoy church history, cultural commentary, or a really good mystery.
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