Beth Allison Barr is well-known for her two bestselling books — The Making of Biblical Womanhood and Becoming the Pastor’s Wife — but now she’s added podcaster to her resume.
Baylor University students know Barr as a history professor, but in recent years she’s gained national notoriety for documenting a different kind of history than she normally teaches in the classroom — the history of women in modern evangelical Christianity.
To supplement the content in her latest book, she partnered with Nashville social media strategist Savannah Locke to create “All the Buried Women,” a podcast hosted with The Bible for Normal People, which is led by theologian Peter Enns.
The five-episode podcast is based in large part on Barr’s research in the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville. She went there looking for content for her book on how the role of the pastor’s wife has morphed as the SBC turned more stridently against women in ministry. What she found was buried stories of women — especially as it relates to sexual abuse.
Thus, the podcast begins with a general approach to women in the SBC in episode 1 and by episode 5 has zeroed in on the stories of women whose claims of sexual abuse were buried by denominational leaders.
The podcast released this spring, in advance of the SBC annual meeting, where the ongoing sexual abuse crisis was buried for good. No action was taken on sexual abuse reform this year, but messengers did approve a resolution stressing a male hierarchy in the church and home and criticizing women who choose to be childless.
Publicity for the podcast says the intent is to “shed light on these questions by uncovering stories of women buried by their own denomination and tracing the history of the increasingly monolithic Southern Baptist Convention.”
Across the five episodes, Barr and Locke introduce key figures in the story, including former SBC President Jimmy Draper; SBC political strategists Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson; Kathy Hoppe, one of the first ordained women in the SBC; Christa Brown, one of the chief advocates for abuse survivors — among others.
One peculiar thread that emerges from the first episode to the last is the connection to the SBC Home Mission Board and its successor organization, the North American Mission Board.
The final episode tells the never-before-public story of a woman who was a pastor’s wife who was beaten regularly by her husband, who also sexually abused at least one other woman. And most of this information was known by key SBC leaders, who did nothing to help the woman or remove her husband from leadership.
The final episode draws on Saint Fabiola as a symbol of women’s enduring resistance, urging listeners to recognize the hidden stories of women who continue to challenge oppressive structures in the church.
“All the Buried Women” is available for free on major streaming platforms.
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