‘Making of Biblical Womanhood’ Author Responds to Accusations She Supports ‘Child Abandonment’

Barr responded to Smothers’ tweet, “Really? I honestly don’t know what is wrong with y’all.” Separately, she said, “Y’all, I have never endorsed child abandonment. This is such a desperate attempt again to try to get people to not read #MakingBiblicalWomanhood. I will not let @colinsmo and @DennyBurk (who jumped in the thread) get away with it.”

Burk responded Friday with a blog post defending his position and denying that he and Smothers were attacking Barr’s motherhood.

This is not the first time that CBMW has clashed with Beth Allison Barr. In a November 2021 fundraising newsletter, Smothers called out Barr, along with “Jesus and John Wayne” author Kristen Kobes Du Mez. “Both [of the women’s books] took aim at CBMW in particular,” he said, stating that the authors “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.” 

The newsletter also criticized Barr’s church, where her husband serves as pastor, for using the term “Godself” on its website. Quite a few people, outraged by the newsletter, decided to donate to the church, which raised over $21,000 in donations as a result. More recently, Burk wrote a blog on Jan. 24, alluding to Du Mez and Barr and arguing that rejecting complementarianism was a slippery slope on the way to rejecting biblical authority.

“They have continually gone after my orthodoxy,” said Beth Allison Barr in a tweet Friday morning. “They tried to raise money by going after my church; & now they use my example of St Paula to claim I ‘commend; child abandonment. It would be funny if it wasn’t so awful.” She added, “I’m not letting them off the hook. Enough is enough. They should never have done any of it.”