Becoming the Pastor's Wife

How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman's Path to Ministry

By: Beth Allison Barr

Narrated by: Connie Shabshab

As a pastor's wife for twenty-five years, Beth Allison Barr has lived with assumptions about what she should do and who she should be.

In Becoming the Pastor's Wife, Barr draws on that experience and her expertise as a historian to trace the history of the role of the pastor's wife, showing how it both helped and hurt women in conservative Protestant traditions. While they gained an important leadership role, it came at a deep cost: losing independent church leadership opportunities that existed throughout most of church history and strengthening a gender hierarchy that prioritized male careers.

Barr examines the connection between the decline of female ordination and the rise of the role of pastor's wife in the evangelical church, tracing its patterns in the larger history (ancient, medieval, Reformation, and modern) of Christian women's leadership. By expertly blending historical and personal narrative, she equips pastors' wives to better advocate for themselves while helping the church understand the origins of the role as well as the historical reality of ordained women.

©2025 Beth Allison Barr (P)2025 Christian Audio

Fantastic book

I loved Barr’s book, “The Making of Bjblical Womanhood” and I knew I would enjoy this one. What a story Barr weaves by walking readers through pieces of history! Women have a role in the church, and it’s a role that stands firm on its own without being attached to a spouse. Loved this!

Historically rich

Excellent historical account of the trajectory of women’s ministry roles. This is the story (spanning centuries of church history) of how we got here as the western evangelical church in America.

Excellence

What a tragic yet hopeful work Barr has told. She gives historical receipts and context to show that the modern perception of pastor’s wives in white evangelical spaces is a product of culture, the reformation, and Christian men trying desperately to hold on to authority even when theology demands they shift their rationale for why that authority should be exclusively theirs in the first place.

Rich history of women’s struggles

I appreciate all her work to bring us the struggles our sisters have had in working and serving in evangelical spaces. Thank you for penning this and May God continue to give you the courage to add to the pile of good women being to the world !

Clear title

I enjoyed this journey through women in ministry historically, and the thesis that the pastor’s wife as an evangelical Christian woman’s current route to ministry. As a pastor’s wife outside of the SBC, it still resonated. Thank you for openings this conversation further.