Ten Theology Books to Watch For – March 2025

Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry

Beth Allison Barr

( Brazos Press )

“Provides a blistering critique of the narrowing options for female leadership in the evangelical church. . . . A powerful indictment of an unequal system.”–Publishers Weekly

As a pastor’s wife for twenty-five years, Beth Allison Barr has lived with assumptions about what she should do and who she should be.

In Becoming the Pastor’s Wife, Barr draws on that experience and her academic expertise to trace the history of the role of the pastor’s wife, showing how it both helped and hurt women in conservative Protestant traditions. While they gained an important leadership role, it came at a deep cost: losing independent church leadership opportunities that existed throughout most of church history and strengthening a gender hierarchy that prioritized male careers.

Barr examines the connection between the decline of female ordination and the rise of the role of pastor’s wife in the evangelical church, tracing its patterns in the larger history (ancient, medieval, Reformation, and modern) of Christian women’s leadership. By expertly blending historical and personal narrative, she equips pastors’ wives to better advocate for themselves while helping the church understand the origins of the role as well as the historical reality of ordained women.
 

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Evangelism in an Age of Despair: Hope beyond the Failed Promise of Happiness

Andrew Root

( Baker Academic )

“Evangelism” is a contested, even conflicted word. But churches are declining in numbers and resources. What if we aren’t thinking about evangelism in the right way, culturally or theologically? This book contextualizes evangelism in our late modern times and reimagines what the call to outreach means in today’s world.

Our sad times are made sadder by the realization that our all-out pursuit of happiness has made us stressed, anxious, lonely, and depressed, says leading practical theologian Andrew Root. The French thinker Michel de Montaigne taught us to focus on making ourselves happy, but Blaise Pascal pointed out that we are creatures of soul as much as self–so happiness does not satisfy. Root offers a vision for how a theology of consolation can shape a hopeful approach to evangelism. We all need consolation, others to care for us in our sadness; if we can find such a minister and lean into our sorrow, we will find the presence of Jesus Christ.

Root uses a fictional church to show rather than tell us how consolation evangelism works. For support he looks to the ministries of Gregory of Nyssa and his sister Macrina, Jean Gerson, Johann von Staupitz, and Martin Luther, who all contend that consolation is central to our transformation into the life of God.

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