As a historian, you help modern Christians understand this broader, richer history of women in the church in the premodern, medieval, late medieval church, even Reformation era — that we see examples throughout church history of women leading and teaching authoritatively. And one of the biggest claims of your new book is that there’s a causal link between the slow erasure of those roles for women and the rise of the role of pastor’s wife. So talk about how the two are connected.
What we begin to see is that model, those images of those women, begins to fade significantly. What we begin to see focus is the image of women as wives, and that the primary calling for women in ministry is through their marriage. And as this image gets more traction in churches, we start seeing the spread of biblical womanhood that is being led by pastors’ wives. We begin to see a demonization of women in independent ministry roles — that women who are doing separate ministry are doing it out of pride, out of sin, out of feminist rebellion because God doesn’t call women to preach. I cite some research studies of people in more conservative churches — when you ask them, “How do you feel about your church not supporting women in ministry?” — they’re like, “Our church supports women in ministry! Look at the pastor’s wife — women in our church can do anything. Look how visible they are.” And of course, what they don’t see is that those women are not getting paid for that labor, and those women would not be able to be in those positions if it wasn’t for their marriage to a pastor. It creates this image of women being very active in ministry in these conservative churches but without having to give women the titles or pay them for their job.
If my book does nothing else, I hope maybe it calls out in these conservative spaces how many challenges and difficulties and unfair things they have done to the women married to their pastors.
This article originally appeared here.
