Women Pastors and Pastor's Wives

An excerpt and invitation to an interview with author Beth Allison Barr

Hi Readers,

A very special treat for you today. I have the privilege of sharing with you a brief excerpt from a just-released book, Becoming the Pastor’s Wife, written by

Beth Allison Barr

, Baylor historian and bestselling author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood.

An Invitation: Beth and I will be sharing a ZOOM interview together, this Monday, 3/24, LIVE at 2:30 p.m. Link will be sent to subscribers early on March 24, so check your email if you’d like to attend!

Before I share the excerpt, a few words from me about why I think it’s important for my readers and Beth’s readers to read our work together.

Let me first take you back to Exponential, an Evangelical church planting conference in Orlando, Fla., circa 2014. I was a brand-new “baby pastor,” serving my first call in suburban Chicago, with a 1-year-old son at home.

My Chicago church stood in the shadow of nearby Willow Creek, one of the preeminent success stories of the corporate-styled Church Growth movement, spawning megachurches across the country. I went to the Exponential conference with fellow ELCA pastors, assuming that we needed to learn about how to “grow” our own churches, borrowing marketing and commercial strategies from our Evangelical siblings.

What I knew, deep down, having grown up in the Midwestern height of purity culture, was that those same Evangelical churches that were so “successful” in the contemporary vernacular, were also churches that were staunchly against any leading role for women in ministry. Most of them forbade women from serving at all. The few churches that did allow women to serve in pastoral roles primarily employed pastor’s wives.

One of my fellow women pastors who came on the trip with us brought a clergy collar to wear to some of the events, making her subject to quite a few stares and snickers.

I kept a lower profile, but I noticed that so many of the other women at the conference were accompanied by babies and strollers. I rarely saw them in the breakout sessions, which is when I realized that the conference had a separate track for “pastor’s wives.” You’ll be shocked to hear there was no such parallel track for my spouse, a “pastor’s husband,” an entirely unknown and anathema demographic for this set of folks.

Since that conference, I’ve become a scholar and researcher on Christian Nationalism, and I’ve come to see how the corporate, commercial uncritical embrace of capitalism supported by American Christianity at-large has made our faith susceptible to grifters, liars, charlatans, and white supremacists alike. As I worked on my books, both Red State Christians, and Disciples of White Jesus (which comes out in three days!), I documented how large a role this gender hierarchy and so-called “biblical patriarchy” played in upholding structures that diminished women’s roles and contributed to abuse.

I knew I had support from my mainline colleagues, as an ordained woman, even as we still faced sexism and unequal pay and opportunity in our so-called “liberal” denominations. But I didn’t often think or wonder enough about how pastor’s wives themselves thought about this whole thing. I didn’t always see too how they felt diminished and overwhelmed (even as my grandpa served as a pastor, and my mom told me about how her mom and their entire family were expected to provide volunteer labor for the church at all times).

This is where Beth’s work comes in, and why I want to share it so strongly with both Evangelical Christians and with the mainline and more progressive Christians/clergy (many of you who read this newsletter!)

As a historian who also has lived experience as a pastor’s wife (whose husband affirms her own vocation and pushes back against the sexism in his own church body), Beth offers an invaluable perspective - as well as opportunity to see the parallels between our shared experiences as women, how we can support one another and also draw from the historical witness of dynamic women in Church history, dating back centuries and to the time of Jesus, women whose voices and preaching and leadership have been inseparable from the Gospel’s resilience in an angry and hate-filled world.

Here’s the excerpt - and make sure to find Beth’s book at your local bookstore, library, or anywhere online!

The following text is taken from Becoming the Pastor’s Wife, by Beth Allison Barr

A Historically Anomalous Role

More than twenty- five years ago, I chose to marry a man I knew was called to ministry. He told me early in our friendship that he had chosen social work as his major to better prepare him for ministry. He told me that he felt called to be a pastor and planned to attend a Baptist seminary. I knew this when I said yes to his first dinner invitation. (Should I confess we went to the Cracker Barrel?)

He was licensed and ordained in a Southern Baptist church a few months before our wedding, and I was an eyewitness. I remember how my red dress stood out against the blue fabric of the pew as the ordained men walked forward to lay their hands on him. My father, a longtime ordained deacon, joined the group of men praying over him. My then- fiancé wore the tie I picked out. I remember how his Catholic grandmother cried with joy to watch her Baptist grandson take the vows that were next- best to becoming a priest, vows that meant she could still have greatgrandchildren. I was so proud of him (I still am).

I made my choice to become a pastor’s wife with eyes wide open.

I made my choice to join with my husband in ministry.

I have never regretted that choice.

I do not regret making pancakes at 2 a.m. for teenage girls laughing in my living room. I do not regret hosting small groups, baby showers, Bible studies, and even game nights for junior high boys who left Dr Pepper cans and spilled M&M’s all over my house. I do not regret the hard conversations with hurting young people, the late-night assembly lines putting together binders for student retreats, the early mornings spent driving boxes of doughnuts to hungry kids and coffee to their sleep- deprived leaders, the long afternoons of teaching summer Bible studies. I do not regret trying to sleep in a lumpy bunk bed with muffled snores and talking all around me, or even the time I had to deal with bleary- eyed and drenched teenage girls after our tent flooded in the middle of the night (although that was the last time I agreed to go camping with a youth group).

I do not regret sharing my life and my faith with so many people, not even after experiencing— as I tell in The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth— the painful firing of my husband from his youth pastor job.

I do not regret my life as a pastor’s wife.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t have regrets.

When I first got married, I didn’t realize how strange the pastor’s wife role is. For me, these expectations were normative. It hadn’t occurred to me how inappropriate it was to interview the wives of pastoral candidates as participants in their husbands’ jobs. Or that it was wrong that these women had to endure questions about their fertility (or lack thereof) and personal careers (for those who had them). Or what it meant that my childhood church would encourage the pastors’ wives to hold friendly holiday competitions showcasing their homemaking skills within their parsonages. I would just put on my velvet dress and help serve punch, because this was what we did.

It wasn’t until near the end of my PhD program that I began to understand how unusual the expectations placed on pastors’ wives really are.

I mean, how common is it for your husband’s former boss to greet you by leaning over and shouting at your stomach, “Anyone in there?” on the eve of your dissertation defense?

How usual is it to be chastised by another pastor on staff for not making the childcare arrangements for a church conference, despite you being one of the speakers and never having been on the children’s ministry staff?

How usual is it to find that the requirements of your job application had become the subject of an elders’ meeting, prompting a discussion about whether pastors’ wives should be allowed to work outside the home? As my vocation transformed from “Beth is in school” to “Beth is a professor,” I found that the expectations that my job take a back seat to my husband’s job became more pronounced.

How usual is it for some of the duties of a husband’s paid job, for which he has been trained, to be separated out and reserved for his unpaid wife, regardless of her individual calling, gifts, and vocation?

As my research for The Making of Biblical Womanhood progressed, I saw more clearly how anomalous the pastor’s wife role is. Unlike other authoritative roles in church history, the role of pastor’s wife is not based on leadership skills, ecclesiastical office, or spiritual gifting. It is a role based on a human relationship— marriage. The calling of a husband assumes the calling of his wife. While some women who marry pastors feel called to vocational ministry (as I do), other women do not. Yet the general parameters often are the same. She will do the bulletin, play piano, teach children’s Sunday school, organize Vacation Bible School, lead the fellowship committee, maybe even share the pulpit, and— always— behave the way she is expected.

I saw more clearly, too, how the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest and most powerful white evangelical denomination in North America, has both informed and exemplified this version of the pastor’s wife role during the last half of the twentieth century. The SBC, peaking at over 16 million members in 2006, comprises the largest percentage of US evangelical churches, which in turn form the largest percentage of Protestant churches in the US. While the SBC has worked to maintain a distinctive identity, even refusing to join the National Association of Evangelicals, it nonetheless embodies the full range of evangelical characteristics. These include David Bebbington’s classic evangelical quadrilateral (a focus on the Bible, the atoning work of Christ, evangelism, and activism), an emphasis on revival over reformation— both extremes of Wesleyan and Reformed theology— and the conservative white culture that historian Kristin Du Mez describes as centered on “patriarchal authority, gender difference, and Christian nationalism.” The SBC, whether it wants to or not, epitomizes evangelicalism. Given its sheer size and power (both political and economic), it is not surprising that the SBC also casts a long shadow on the evangelical world. “The major players in Southern Baptist conservative life more frequently overlapped with those of the religious right, and disproportionate numbers in the religious right were also from the South,” writes historian Elizabeth Flowers. “To fully understand American evangelicalism in the postwar period . . . it is essential to cast our gaze on Southern Baptists.” In the same way, to fully understand the pastor’s wife role within American evangelicalism, we must “cast our gaze” on the conservative white culture of the SBC.

The role of pastor’s wife was born in the Reformation era, but it wasn’t until the second half of the twentieth century that it was elevated as the highest calling for many Protestant women, waxing in importance as more independently authoritative roles for women waned. The 1970s, for example, saw an explosion in the number of denominations supporting women’s ordination, leading to more women attending seminaries and becoming ordained. Southern Baptists initially expanded opportunities for women too, ordaining Addie Davis in 1964 (the first SBC woman ordained into ministry) and witnessing an increase in women studying theology at the SBC’s six seminaries. Remarking on this trend, Baptist historian H. Leon McBeth wrote in 1977, “One may no longer assume that women seminarians are preparing for the traditionally ‘feminine’ church jobs. Many of them are preparing and planning to be ministers; some are frankly aiming at the pastorate.” By 1984, twenty years after the ordination of Davis, the number of ordained women in the SBC had increased to around 200—a “twenty- fold increase in less than a decade,” which placed the SBC “on the same trajectory as the mainline, liberal denominations.”

By 1984 the SBC was taking steps to reverse this trend. The resolution— passed June 13, 1984, at the national convention in Kansas City— asked “local Baptist churches to cease ordaining women ministers since ‘the Bible excludes women from pastoral leadership because the man was first in creation and the woman was first in the Edenic fall.’” It was also in the 1980s that published books for pastors’ wives, including those that emphasized male headship and female submission, became more common. In 1981, for example, Betty J. Coble—a well- known SBC pastor’s wife and educator— published The Private Life of the Minister’ Wife with an SBC press. “In marriage the man is assigned leadership,” she stated. “The husband’s God- given assignment is to make the final decision, which becomes the marriage decision.” Submission, which she described as a “followship role,” is God’s assignment for wives, including the minister’s wife.

While people have hotly debated female ordination, historians and lay leaders have overlooked the connection between the decline of female ordination and the attendant rise of the pastor’s wife role. Moreover, a hyperfocus on the historical continuity of women’s exclusion from church leadership roles has pushed out a more nuanced understanding of why women have been excluded from these roles. Barring women from institutional leadership may be everywhere in church history, but it is not everywhere the same.

I argue that these are critical oversights. As historian Kate Bowler recently affirmed, “The long history of women’s struggle for ordination and an institutional expression of spiritual equality had left most women in the precarious position of seeking permission for the authority to teach.” The role of pastor’s wife authorized ministry opportunities for women. It offered ways for women to exercise leadership. It legitimized the spiritual significance of women’s roles as wives and mothers.

But what if the role of pastor’s wife came at a cost for women too?

What if, even as it authorized opportunities for women in the local church, it simultaneously deauthorized women’s independent leadership, especially within the white evangelical movement? Could it be that the gradual aligning of the pastor’s wife role with the conservative ideal of biblical womanhood (as happened within the Southern Baptist tradition) helped to obscure women’s independent leadership in some Protestant spaces? Could the exclusion felt by single women within white evangelical spaces be linked to the erosion of independent leadership opportunities for women? Are white evangelical ideas about women beginning to seep into the Black church, constraining what has historically been a more welcoming space for women leaders?

As one young woman recently said to me, “When I told my youth pastor I felt called into ministry, he said it meant I would marry a pastor.”

Unlike The Making of Biblical Womanhood, this book isn’t my confession.

It isn’t even my story, although it does tell some of my story. Becoming the Pastor’s Wife is the history of how Christian women gained a new and important leadership role.

But it is also the history of how this gain came at a cost for women too.

Both the cost and the gain are bigger than we have yet realized.

Content taken from Becoming the Pastor’s Wife by Beth Allison Barr ©2025.

Used by permission of Brazos Press.

P.S. …

A Few Notes:

First, a huge THANK YOU to all subscribers. I get a little email notification every time someone signs up, and every time I get one, I feel joyful and honored that you want to spend part of your day with this community. I mean it when I say: “I’m listening,” to you as well, and please don’t hesitate to share with me your thoughts + ideas for what you’d like to read in this space.

To PAID SUBSCRIBERS: I am humbled and honored that you’ve chosen to spend part of your limited budget on this newsletter. To borrow words from another newsletter I love, you are directly funding freelance journalism with your subscription, and I have to thank you more than ever for your continued support. Our world’s media and journalism is in a state of crisis, with fewer and fewer billionaires in control of global news outlets, and journalists being either laid off or threatened with violence for their work every single day; with fewer and fewer newsroom positions paying a living wage. I pledge to you to steward your paid subscription faithfully + use it to support honest, hard-working, and LOCAL journalism. One of my goals in this first year is to open this newsletter to other journalists, and pay them a fair wage for their work.

THANK YOU for your support. If you’re not a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one.

On free vs. paid-subscriber posts only: My plan right now is that the Friday + Sunday posts, focusing on news + spirituality, in that order, are available for subscribers only (I am going to continue sharing a sample, with a line where the paywall cuts off for our paid subscriber community). My plan is that the Tuesday blog-style posts will always be free, to enable as much access as possible, while creating a smaller and more intimate experience for paid subscribers, who are also able to comment and share in community in fuller ways.

Free Trial: Substack always offers a free week-long trial subscription to this newsletter, so you can get a taste of the Friday + Sunday posts and see if you’d like to subscribe!

If a paid subscription is a hardship for you, but you’d like access to the Friday + Sunday posts: PLEASE do not hesitate to reach out. I will be happy to provide a complimentary subscription for you.