'The Making Of Biblical Womanhood' Tackles Contradictions In Religious Practice
Biblical womanhood is a pervasive concept among evangelicals. A new book by historian Beth Allison Barr argues those ideas may be more secular than scriptural.
White evangelical women are often taught that their calling is to be passive in the church, to be submissive to their husbands, and to stay out of the pulpit.
History, though, says otherwise.
In her new book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, historian Beth Allison Barr traces cultural sources of patriarchy that have all but erased women's historical importance as leaders of the faith.
Barr is a Southern Baptist and a pastor's wife. In an interview with NPR, she describes the day she realized that "what we found in the Bible about what women were supposed to do did not match with what my church was
