Author | Beth Allison Barr |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | American evangelicalism Women in Christianity |
Publisher | Brazos Press |
Publication date | April 20, 2021 |
Pages | 256 |
Awards | USA Today Bestseller |
ISBN | 978-1-587-43470-9 |
Website | http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-making-of-biblical-womanhood/404050 |
The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth is a book written by Beth Allison Barr and published in 2021 by Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group. The book discusses women in Christianity and argues that the restrictive position known as complementarianism is a recent development inconsistent with the historic roles of women in the church. [1]
The central argument of the book is that "Patriarchy may be a part of Christian history, but that doesn't make it Christian." [2]
The book received widespread coverage, including in secular media such as Newsweek , [3] The New Yorker , [4] and NPR, [5] as well as Christian outlets such as The Gospel Coalition [2] and Christians For Biblical Equality. [6] After The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood criticized the book and the church where Barr's husband serves as pastor, the church received more than $15,000 in donations. [7]
Eliza Griswold, writing in The New Yorker, noted that "Barr's central argument is that modern evangelicals often mistake cultural forces for Biblical ones, especially in regard to the role of women." [4]
A reviewer on Premier Christianity said "This powerful book is forcing the Church to re-think what the Bible says about women". [8]
Kevin DeYoung gave the book a negative review in Themelios , a journal published by The Gospel Coalition, [2] prompting Australian theologian Michael Bird to defend the author in a YouTube video. [9]
The book was reprinted five times in less than six months. [10] Korean and Portuguese translations are in progress, to be published in 2023. [10]
James Innell Packer was an English-born Canadian evangelical theologian, cleric and writer in the low-church Anglican and Calvinist traditions. He was considered one of the most influential evangelicals in North America, known for his best-selling book, Knowing God, written in 1973, as well as his work as an editor for the English Standard Version of the Bible. He was one of the high-profile signers on the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, a member on the advisory board of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and also was involved in the ecumenical book Evangelicals and Catholics Together in 1994. His last teaching position was as the board of governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, in which he served from 1996 until his retirement in 2016 due to failing eyesight.
Covenant Theological Seminary, informally called Covenant Seminary, is the denominational seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Located in Creve Coeur, Missouri, it trains people to work as leaders in church positions and elsewhere, especially as pastors, missionaries, and counselors. It does not require all students to be members of the PCA, but it is bound to promote the teachings of its denomination. Faculty must subscribe to the system of biblical doctrine outlined in the Westminster Standards.
Richard Albert Mohler Jr. is an American evangelical theologian, the ninth president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and host of the podcast The Briefing, where he daily analyzes the news and recent events from an evangelical perspective.
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) is an evangelical Christian organization promoting a complementarian view of gender issues. According to its website, the "mission of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is to set forth the teachings of the Bible about the complementary differences between men and women, created equally in the image of God, because these teachings are essential for obedience to Scripture and for the health of the family and the church." CBMW's current president is Dr. Denny Burk, a professor of biblical studies at Boyce College and director for The Center for Gospel and Culture at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Its 2017 "Nashville Statement" was criticized by egalitarian Christians and LGBT campaigners, as well as by several conservative religious figures.
Donald Arthur Carson is an evangelical biblical scholar. He is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and president and co-founder of the Gospel Coalition. He has written or edited about sixty books and served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2022.
Richard Rohr, is an American Franciscan priest and writer on spirituality based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church in 1970, founded the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati in 1971, and the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque in 1987. In 2011, PBS called him "one of the most popular spirituality authors and speakers in the world".
Conservative Christianity, also known as conservative theology, theological conservatism, traditional Christianity, or biblical orthodoxy is a grouping of overlapping and denominationally diverse theological movements within Christianity that seeks to retain the orthodox and long-standing traditions and beliefs of Christianity, it is contrasted with Liberal Christianity and Progressive Christianity which are seen as heretical heterodoxies by theological conservatives. Conservative Christianity should not be mistaken as being synonymous with the political philosophy of conservatism nor the Christian right which is a political movement of Christians who support conservative political ideologies and policies within the realm of secular or non-sectarian politics. The two major subdivisions of Conservative Christianity within Protestantism are Evangelical Christianity and Christian Fundamentalism while the Confessing Movement, Confessionalism, and to an extent Neo-orthodoxy make up the remaining within Protestantism. Theological conservatism is also found in Roman Catholicism and is also found within Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Church of the East; and throughout all of Mainstream-Nicene Christianity in both Western Christian and Eastern Christian traditions, although not every community has had a direct connection with the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy.
Timothy James Keller was an American Calvinist pastor, preacher, theologian, and Christian apologist. He was the chairman and co-founder of Redeemer City to City, which trains pastors for service around the world. He was also the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and the author of The New York Times bestselling books The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (2008), Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (2014), and The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (2008). The prequel for the latter is Making Sense of GOD: An Invitation to the Skeptical (2016).
Complementarianism is a theological view in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, and religious leadership. Complementary and its cognates are currently used to denote this view. Some Christians interpret the Bible as prescribing complementarianism, and therefore adhere to gender-specific roles that preclude women from specific functions of ministry within the community. Though women may be precluded from certain roles and ministries, they are held to be equal in moral value and of equal status. The phrase used to describe this is "ontologically equal, functionally different".
Junia or Junias was a Christian in the first century known from Paul the Apostle's letter to the Romans.
Jennings Ligon Duncan III is an American Presbyterian scholar and pastor.
Logos Bible Software is a digital library application developed by Faithlife Corporation. It is designed for electronic Bible study. In addition to basic eBook functionality, it includes extensive resource linking, note-taking functionality, and linguistic analysis for study of the Bible both in translation and in its original languages.
Christian egalitarianism, also known as biblical equality, is egalitarianism based in Christianity. Christian egalitarians believe that the Bible mandates gender equality and equal responsibilities for the family unit and the ability for women to exercise spiritual authority as clergy. In contrast to Christian complementarianists and Christian patriarchists, proponents of Christian egalitarianism argue that Bible verses often used to justify patriarchal domination in gender roles are misinterpreted. Egalitarians believe in a form of mutual submission in which all people submit to each other in relationships and institutions as a code of conduct without a need for hierarchical authority.
The roles of women in Christianity have varied since its founding. Women have played important roles in Christianity especially in marriage and in formal ministry positions within certain Christian denominations, and parachurch organizations. In 2016, it was estimated that 52–53 percent of the world's Christian population aged 20 years and over was female, with this figure falling to 51.6 percent in 2020. The Pew Research Center studied the effects of gender on religiosity throughout the world, finding that Christian women in 53 countries are generally more religious than Christian men, while Christians of both genders in African countries are equally likely to regularly attend services.
Eliza Griswold is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and poet. Griswold is currently a contributing writer to The New Yorker and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. She is the author of Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, a 2018 New York Times Notable Book and a Times Critics’ Pick, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the Ridenhour Book Prize in 2019. Griswold was a fellow at the New America Foundation from 2008 to 2010 and won a 2010 Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a former Nieman Fellow, a current Berggruen Fellow at Harvard Divinity School, and has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine.
Kevin Lee DeYoung is an American Reformed theologian and author. He is currently the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church, in Matthews, North Carolina. The church he previously pastored, University Reformed Church, shifted to the Presbyterian Church in America in March 2015 after having been a member of the Reformed Church in America.
The Gospel Coalition (TGC) is a network of evangelical and Reformed churches.
Karen H. Jobes is an American biblical scholar who is Gerald F. Hawthorne Professor Emerita of New Testament Greek and Exegesis at Wheaton College. She has written a number of books and biblical commentaries. In 2015, she received the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's Christian Book of the Year Award for "Bible Reference" books.
Beth Allison Barr is an American historian who is currently the James Vardaman Endowed Professor of History at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Her specialities include European women, Medieval & Early Modern England, and church history. Her 2021 book The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth received widespread media coverage.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez is an American historian. She is a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.