Ada, Mich. (March 28, 2022)—Beth Allison Barr, author of the bestselling The Making of Biblical Womanhood, has signed a new contract with Brazos Press to publish two new books. Becoming the Pastor’s Wife will release in Fall 2024, and Losing Our Medieval Religion is slated for Fall 2026. Brazos has exclusive world rights. The projects were agented with Giles Anderson with the Anderson Literary Agency. “Beth Allison Barr captures exactly what we want Brazos to be: scholarly yet accessible, connecting historical Christian faith to contemporary issues in the church and the world,” said editorial director Katelyn Beaty. “Our team is thrilled to partner with her again.”
Becoming the Pastor’s Wife
A Baylor historian and Baptist pastor’s wife traces the history of the role, showing how it rose to prominence at the same time that women’s ordination became forbidden in many Protestant circles.
This book builds on the premise of Barr’s runaway hit, The Making of Biblical Womanhood, resembling its successful blend of historical research and personal narrative. It moves this conversation forward, both uncovering for evangelicals the historical origins of the pastor’s wife role as well as revealing how its emergence has contributed to evangelicals forgetting the historical reality of ordained women.
Losing Our Medieval Religion
A medieval historian traces church history to show the depth of amnesia within the American church and the impact it has had on contemporary theology and practice.
Beth Allison Barr (PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is James Vardaman Professor of History at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where she specializes in medieval history, women’s history, and church history. She recently served as president of the Conference on Faith and History (2018–2021) and is an active supporter of Christians for Biblical Equality. Barr is a regular contributor to The Anxious Bench, the popular Patheos website on religious history, and has written for Christianity Today, the Washington Post, Religion News Service, The Dallas Morning News, Sojourners, and Baptist News Global. Her work has been featured by NPR and The New Yorker. She is also a Baptist pastor’s wife and the mom of two great kids.
Contact: Shelly MacNaughton, (616) 450-5560, smacnaughton@bakerpublishinggroup.com
