On Thursday, Barr tweeted that the church had received $14,316.34 in donations, saying, “We just got this update. There are not (sic) words.” Barr went on to share photos of the different spaces in the church, from the main worship space to kids’ classrooms and the space where she teaches Sunday school to adults.
On Friday morning, Barr updated her Twitter followers with the new running total: $21,400.
“This might help save our church,” Barr said.
ChurchLeaders original article written on November 10, 2021:
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), an organization promoting a complementarian view of gender issues, criticized authors Kristin Kobes Du Mez and Beth Allison Barr in their November newsletter, calling on supporters to donate to CBMW in light of Du Mez’s and Barr’s work. Both authors have called certain beliefs and practices of CMBW into question with their writing.
Written by CBMW executive director Colin J. Smothers, the newsletter also takes aim at Barr’s church, where her husband serves as pastor.
Du Mez is the author of “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,” and Barr is the author of “The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth.” Both books have garnered attention among evangelicals for presenting critical arguments against the American church’s theological framework regarding power and masculinity.
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“Many in the publishing industry, even within the Christian publishing world, seem bent on putting what they think will be the final nail in the coffin of male-female complementarity, especially male leadership in the home and the church,” Smothers wrote. “Over the past year, several books have been published to that end, including Kristen Kobes Du Mez’s book, ‘Jesus and John Wayne,’ and Beth Allison Barr’s book, ‘The Making of Biblical Womanhood.’”
Smothers has taken Du Mez’s and Barr’s criticism of CBMW as nothing less than an assault on the Bible itself, saying, “Both [books] took aim at CBMW in particular. But the Word of God will stand forever.”
Smothers then took aim at First Baptist Church of Elm Mott, where Barr’s husband is the pastor, drawing attention to the church’s statement of faith, which says, “We value the Bible as the divinely inspired record of God’s revelation of Godself to us. It serves as the authoritative guide for life and ministry.”
