Marginalia with Beth Allison Barr

Watching fireworks on the banks of the Brazos in Waco several years ago with family and friends. I have mixed feelings about celebrating the Fourth of July. I hate how my country is treating our neighbors (immigrants to the U.S. as well as fellow Americans to both the north and south). Marginalia with Beth Allison Barr is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I am going to start with something not Southern Baptist. So just hang on. Last year I read Ian Forrest’s Gender and Authority in the Late Medieval Church. It helped me sort out a tension I face between the reality of male dominance in church leadership and the reality of women’s recognized leadership & authority in church history. Marginalia with Beth Allison Barr is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

From my research trip last week inside the SBC headquarters in Nashville. *this post blends some abridged & summarized text (in block posts) from Becoming the Pastor’s Wife with new material to help you better understand why SBC pastors’ wives were so critical to the success of the SBC’s quest to institute a male-only clergy. *Trigger alert: I include a letter written to Dorothy Patterson that may be triggering for women who have lived in controlling relationships.

Let's start my feminism series by looking at how the most influential Protestant denomination in US has portrayed it I’ve been thinking about this post for almost a year. Last spring, a woman sent me a podcast episode title, “A Pastor’s Wife Role in Ministry,” at the Pastor Well podcast with Hershel York. York is a self-described pastor-scholar and Dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

If you aren't sure, if the word makes you uncomfortable or afraid, this post is for you. This is me, a feminist. This is the year I got tenure at Baylor University. I had a 3 year-old and a 9 year-old and spent most of my weekends (and Wednesday nights) doing youth ministry with my husband. I made my daughter a sandwich this morning. Like my husband and son, she prefers a toasted sandwich.

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My garden has accidental sunflowers. A tribute from the birds, I think. A seed tithe, given back to me in thanks for keeping their feeders full. My garden is one year old. I tried to start it, pulling the weeds and prepping the ground, in Winter 2025. But I couldn’t manage on a knee scooter, courtesy of foot surgery in January. I graduated to a walking boot in March and began laying landscape fabric. My husband surprised me with a wooden swing and, later, a bird bath.

Yesterday I was quoted in the New York Times in an article by Vivian Yee. (I also was quoted in People magazine this week, it turns out, but that is for a different story.) Yee reached out to me after reading The Making of Biblical Womanhood. She wanted to know what I thought about “biblical patriarchy” (a.k.a. complementarian theology on steroids). As we talked, the conversation turned toward an idea gaining momentum in biblical patriarchy circles: repealing the 19th Amendment.

The modern statute of Alice Kyteler, the witch of Kilkenny, in the house that she owned in the early fourteenth century. I originally wrote this post almost ten years ago on the Anxious Bench. I decided to update it and repost it after going to Kilkenny today. Marginalia with Beth Allison Barr is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

St. Brigid’s Cathedral in Kildare. The 13th century building was restored in the 19th century. The original church and monastery, which held St. Brigid’s tomb, was destroyed by Vikings in the 9th century. Today was cold. My red raincoat, originally my sister’s that she bought at The Gap in 1998 and gave to me in the early 2000s, kept me dry but not warm. Wind gusts pelted icy rain drops as I walked from the train station. My feet were wet and my fingers numb.