Barr, B. A. (2025). Becoming the pastor’s wife: How marriage replaced ordination as a woman’s path to ministry. Brazos Press. Beth Allison Barr is a writer, mother, and pastor's wife. She's also James Vardaman Professor of History at Baylor University having earned her PhD in Medieval History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I didn't want to read this book, knowing it would likely make me angry. As predicted, my husband would hear me ranting and raving, to which he'd reply, "You know how it is. Why do you subject yourself to this?" Then he'd grin. And he was right. I got angry, my hubster said exactly what I expected, and we both laughed about the predictability of it all. While I didn't grow up Southern Baptist (the focus of this book), I was raised in a church where women's roles were clearly defined: we could not lead or teach men, but were welcome to teach children, sing in the choir, and handle kitchen duties. Later, while attending a Christian university—where it was commonly joked that women were there to earn their "MRS. degree"—I dated a guy aspiring to become a youth pastor. The first time I accompanied him to church, I wore my favorite red dress with dangly earrings, red nail polish, and heels. A well-meaning older woman promptly took me aside to explain that my attire was "inappropriate" given that I was "going to marry a youth minister." That conversation marked the beginning of the end of our relationship, as I discovered there was an unwritten code of conduct specifically for ministers' wives. When he agreed with the woman's assessment, his fate was sealed. In the years since, I've encountered countless young women in love with ministers who ask how to navigate these rigid expectations. Even now, it makes me want to scream. Through Barr's meticulous historical exploration of women's roles and authority combined with an analysis of 150 books published for and by ministers' wives spanning a century (1923-2023), she uncovered a consistent pattern: "The pastor's role is by design a two-person job in which only one person receives a salary, title, and official position" but, it hasn't always been this way. Barr's historical perspective. demonstrated this arrangement wasn't always the norm. Women once enjoyed spiritual authority and leadership positions within church communities, with numerous historical examples supporting this claim. The modern narrative that women's pastoral leadership is "unbiblical" while serving as a pastor's wife represents "biblical womanhood" is a relatively recent theological innovation. Barr tracks how this shift accelerated in the late 20th century, noting a marked increase in submission language from the 1990s onward. Three pivotal developments shaped this trend: the 1989 Danvers Statement (expanding on the Southern Baptist Convention's 1984 declaration limiting pastoral roles to men), John Piper and Wayne Grudem's influential 1991 work "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood," and subsequent revisions to the Baptist Faith and Message that formalized female submission and male-only pastoral leadership. These shifts codified complementarianism, a patriarchal system born in mostly white evangelicalism that uses the Bible to justify privileging male authority. Barr highlighted how the Southern Baptist Convention—America's largest evangelical denomination—exerted "disproportionate influence over evangelical culture" between 1987-2000, making "decisive and public demonstrations affirming the 'biblical teaching of male headship and female submission.'" Barr emphasized that women have always performed ministry functions; "the question has always been whether their function of ministry is recognized as paid, professional ministry. With this historical foundation, she envisions "another, better way forward" for women in church leadership. Yet another book, I'd love to have coffee with some friends and discuss.