You shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you're hungry, you probably shouldn’t write on a subject that requires nuance when you’re in pain either.
The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr has been on my read list for time. The cover design is striking, it’s bright pop-arty image of a handmaid drew my gaze, but I knew from the subtitle it wasn’t going to be a balanced exploration of the subject: “how the subjugation of women became gospel truth” and the back cover “it is time for Christian patriarchy to end.”
Hey I like to be challenged as much as the next guy, and it’s definitely helpful to engage with strong forms of your opponents arguments. But this book isn’t that. It’s poorly argued, full of logical non sequiturs and there’s so many baby’s being thrown out with bath waters I could barely catch them all. Allison Barr reasons from emotion, deals in either-or, black and white logic and makes dozens of uncharitable assertions about people she disagrees with.
It was frustrating to read, but it wasn’t all bad. She’s a good writer to read and some of the stories she’s dug out from history are superb (after all she is historian - something that, rather bizarrely, she reminded me twenty times in the book!).
This book is alarming however for at least two reasons.
Firstly it’s an illustration of why the discussion about women in ministry is so hard to have. It’s hard to have because a) some women have been lamentably mistreated by some men in church and some churches (b) seem weirdly paranoid and fearful of godly women transgressing scriptural boundaries. Mainly however it’s because (c) people’s conclusions are being decided before any evidence has even been considered. When people in this position do get round to reading the Bible they lack any humility before history, ignore the Holy Spirit’s role in the church and bend over backwards to re-read and re-think the historic and plain meaning of texts.
It’s also alarming for the sheer fact that, if Allison Barr is to be believed, then all Christian women, for all of history have been oppressed… until the 1970s. Barr is radicalising people using emotive and faulty logic and she doesn’t do justice to or engage with any of the strong forms of her opposing viewpoints. Even more alarmingly she likens the traditional and historic reading of the scriptures to chattel slavery and the Klan! How any woman who reads this book and believes it can be at peace in Jesus’ church ever again is beyond me. Anyone who genuinely believes her argument is enlisted in her revolution - women of the world unite!
For my money an egalitarian viewpoint is an incredibly contingent perspective. It’s reliant upon the Industrial Revolution, and other factors such as the reduction of sex distinction due to mechanisation of labour. It’s also a viewpoint that over emphasises utility and is therefore meaning light. The former of these factors (the historical perspective) is oddly overlooked from Allison Barr’s book. As a historian(!) I’d have expected her to have shown a little more nuance in the face of the social factors that shaped the past three hundred years. Nancy Pearcey and Danielle Treweek are two women genuinely worth reading on this.
There is much to lament in this book including of course, her own story and experience. Although… her experience, that is largely one of not being permitted to preach in church and being discouraged from seeking work outside of the home, is nothing compared with what actual patriarchy does to women! The fact that she co-opts the image of a handmaid for the cover of her book, and so likens traditional Christianity with a novel about the oppression and institutionalised rape of women, is truly concerning.
It grieves me, but then I supposes this is always the challenge when reading a book you disagree with isn’t it? For six hours you’re subject to a one way monologue with no opportunity to reply. That’s part of why I blog I suppose…
In the past year I’ve read five books and I’ve listened to close to 30 hours of content on the subject of women in ministry and it continues to sadden me that this has become such a contentious subject. It’s sad because the scriptures, and the Spirit’s witness in history, and the plain differences between the sexes are clear. But it’s also sad because of the factors that have caused it to become such a necessary pushback to be made, and the reason it’s become so necessary for the pushback is precisely because so many women, so many sisters in Christ, clearly resonate with the narratives of being de-valued and under appreciated in the body of Christ.
Egalitarians say: Jesus got it right, but that people have then misread Paul and created oppressive cultures ever since. “Jesus got it right” they say, but seem to overlook the fact that he appointed twelve male leaders to succeed him, who then appointed men to succeed them. They did so for a reason, and it wasn’t because they were misogynistic or afraid of challenging the culture (Jesus didn't bow to anyone or anything). The Spirit leads his people in interpreting the scriptures and establishing churches, he has done ever since the Father sent him. The Spirit has not been incompetent in his leadership, and we might do well to show a bit more humility both: in light of how he has led his church to read the scriptures, but also in the face of how he has gifted and equipped women among his people.
I know not all egalitarian’s are the same, but the fundamental challenge we have to acknowledge is that whilst I am happy to acknowledge that my egalitarian friends are operating out of good motives, and I can respect and admire them for the wrongs they are trying to right even whilst disagreeing with them. The feeling is not mutual in the reverse.
According to egalitarianism’s tenants complementarian theology is not just wrong, it’s misogynistic, patriarchal and abusive, and it must therefore be overthrown. If women are to have any hope of freedom and flourishing they must unite and topple complementarian theology wherever they find it, to not fight is to be complicit in the suffering of your sisters down through the ages!
That’s the message of Beth Allison Barr’s book, and it's really quite worrying to me that many people could easily believe her and be misled by her. Perhaps it's time for the more positive case to be made for the full flourishing of the sexes. Jesus' revolution overturned the world and defeated actual patriarchy. There's much in the world today that would suggest misogynistic patriarchy is making a comeback, whether seen in the rise of militant Islam or the popularity of Andrew Tate. Patriarchy like this needs to be opposed but I'd suggest we stand the best chance of defeating it when we learn from how Jesus' revolution defeated it in the first place.
Jesus smashed the patriarchy but he did so, not by ignoring male authority but by putting it to proper use.
Smash the patriarchy! Start by admitting male authority, and then point to Jesus' use of that authority and power. In other words: husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church...
(Should anyone be interested, a thorough review of the book by Kevin De Young can be found here: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the-making-of-biblical-womanhood-a-review/)