Beth Allison Barr is a professor of medieval and church history at Baylor University. She has written a lot about women in the medieval world. She is also an evangelical Christian and a youth pastor's wife. This puts her in a rather unique position to comment on the role of women in the evangelical church and topics like complementarianism in the more conservative churches.
Complementarianism is a church teaching that men and women have very distinct roles in family life, marriage, and the church. These roles are distinct, but of equal value, but men are given leadership roles. In more conservative churches, women are never put into any sort of leadership roles over men. They will not be pastors. They will not lead a board. They won't even teach older boys or men in Sunday school. In some interpretations, they will not teach men or older boys any topic at all.
Complementarianism is a church teaching that men and women have very distinct roles in family life, marriage, and the church. These roles are distinct, but of equal value, but men are given leadership roles. In more conservative churches, women are never put into any sort of leadership roles over men. They will not be pastors. They will not lead a board. They won't even teach older boys or men in Sunday school. In some interpretations, they will not teach men or older boys any topic at all.
The more Barr studied, the more she knew that this view was not the norm in the beginning years of the church (going back to Peter, Paul, and even Jesus), it was not the norm in Medieval times and it was not the norm in evangelical churches as late as the Great Depression/World War II era.
Barr places the blame on at least three things. One is a lack of knowledge of church history. Some denominations offer lots of training in church history or their pastors/leadership. Some churches offer practically none - and it shows. Barr demonstrates a lack of knowledge of doctrines that go back nearly 1,700 years, such as the Athanasian Creed.
She also notes that over and over again women were allowed to teach, preach, and/or lead in the Western church. To be clear, the Western Church would be the Roman Catholic Church and, after the Reformation, the Protestant breakaways. It would not include the Orthodox Church or the Coptic Church. She notes these women throughout the book and tells their stories. To be fair, they were not half or anything close to half of the teachers, preachers, and/or leaders - but they were still there - she names the names, she quotes their writings. Denying their existence is simply willful ignorance.
The other thing she blames is translation. I am going to add to her thesis a bit. I am a Spanish teacher. There is always wiggle room when you translate. Translators can emphasize certain things and de-emphasize others. This is the "art" of translation. This happens all of the time when translating from English to Spanish and Spanish to English because the two languages don't always match up perfectly even though they co-exist at the same time and oftentimes in the same place and have bumped into each other on a regular basis for centuries.
Barr argues that where translation is unclear but allows for including women, the translators have consistently chosen translations that exclude women in Paul's New Testament letters. Sometimes, they make a comment in the notes. Sometimes, they don't. In at least one case some translators appear to have changed the gender of a person who was in a leadership role. In another case, the leadership role a woman played in a local church was changed to a lesser role so the translators can support the complementarian theological position. They just changed the word to make it fit their theology and that is a bad habit to get into if you want people to read the Bible and take it seriously.
Barr places the blame on at least three things. One is a lack of knowledge of church history. Some denominations offer lots of training in church history or their pastors/leadership. Some churches offer practically none - and it shows. Barr demonstrates a lack of knowledge of doctrines that go back nearly 1,700 years, such as the Athanasian Creed.
The other thing she blames is translation. I am going to add to her thesis a bit. I am a Spanish teacher. There is always wiggle room when you translate. Translators can emphasize certain things and de-emphasize others. This is the "art" of translation. This happens all of the time when translating from English to Spanish and Spanish to English because the two languages don't always match up perfectly even though they co-exist at the same time and oftentimes in the same place and have bumped into each other on a regular basis for centuries.
Barr argues that where translation is unclear but allows for including women, the translators have consistently chosen translations that exclude women in Paul's New Testament letters. Sometimes, they make a comment in the notes. Sometimes, they don't. In at least one case some translators appear to have changed the gender of a person who was in a leadership role. In another case, the leadership role a woman played in a local church was changed to a lesser role so the translators can support the complementarian theological position. They just changed the word to make it fit their theology and that is a bad habit to get into if you want people to read the Bible and take it seriously.
And that last point - the point about changing history, the translations, and the Bible itself to fit a pre-determined theology that does not match with the Bible or past practice - that is the part that hurts the church in the short run and the long run.
I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE MAKING of BIBLICAL WOMANHOOD: HOW the SUBJUGATION of WOMEN BECAME GOSPEL TRUTH by Beth Allison Barr.
I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE MAKING of BIBLICAL WOMANHOOD: HOW the SUBJUGATION of WOMEN BECAME GOSPEL TRUTH by Beth Allison Barr.
