The Making of Biblical Womanhood (November Safe Church Webinar)

Where do the ideas about womanhood that have long circulated in the evangelical Christian community come from? Are they biblical?

In this webinar, Dr. Amanda Benckhuysen and Rev. Elaine May talk with Dr. Beth Allison Barr about her new book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood and discuss what the Bible does and does not say about women and women’s roles. They also reflect together on the impact ideas about biblical womanhood have had on women, the church and abuse.

Watch the Webinar at Safe Church Ministry's Youtube Channel here!

This was the sixth webinar of the 2021 Series: On Being a Safe Church. In these webinars, we have been hearing from a variety of people that have been inspiring us to wonder together at how best we can create healthy and safe cultures in our congregations and communities.

Who: Dr. Amanda Benkhuysen (Safe Church) and Rev. Elaine May (Women’s Leadership) hosted our special guest Dr. Beth Alison Barr

When: Wednesday, November 17th.

Dr. Beth Allison Barr is a Professor of History and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies. She received her B.A. from Baylor University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on women and religion in medieval and early modern England, especially in how they are viewed and portrayed in sermon literature. How the advent of Protestantism affected women’s roles in the church has carried her research beyond medieval Catholicism into the world of early modern Baptists.

Beth is the author of The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England, co-editor of The Acts of the Apostles: Four Centuries of Baptist Interpretation, and author of more than a dozen articles (published and forthcoming). She is currently working on her next book, Women in English Sermons, 1350-1700. She is also a regular contributor to The Anxious Bench, a religious history blog on Patheos which has paved the way for her contributions in Christianity Today and The Washington Post. She is also a Baptist pastor’s wife and the mother of two great kids (Baylor.edu).

Dr. Barr’s Books

In Progress: Women in English Sermons, 1350-1700

The Acts of the Apostles: Four Centuries of Baptist Interpretation, eds. Beth Allison Barr, Mikeal C. Parsons, Bill J. Leonard, and C. Douglas Weaver (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009).

The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England, Beth Allison Barr (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2008).

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Becomes Gospel Truth, Beth Allison Barr (Brazos Press; 2021)