Beth Allison Barr

Areas of Specialization

Medieval and Early Modern England, Women’s History, Medieval Sermons, and Church History

Education

Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
B.A., Baylor University, BA, magna cum laude

Academic Interests & Research Narrative

Dr. Barr’s research focuses on women and religion in medieval and early modern England, focusing especially on vernacular sermons and devotional literature. She is interested in how the advent of Protestantism affected women in Christianity as well as how and why medieval perceptions of women in religious literature both changed and stayed the same across the Reformation era. More recently, her research has expanded to include modern evangelicalism (especially Baptists), but her approach is always rooted in the medieval world.

Biography

Beth Allison Barr received her B.A. in History (with a minor in Classics) from Baylor University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England, co-editor of The Acts of the Apostles: Four Centuries of Baptist Interpretation, co-editor of Faith and History: A Devotional, co-editor of Church History and Religious Culture Special Issue: Regendering the Narrative: Women in the History of Christianity, author of the best-selling The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth and the forthcoming Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How the Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry. Dr. Barr wrote regularly on The Anxious Bench, a religious history blog on Patheos, between 2015 and 2023, and has contributed to Religion News Service, The Washington Post, Christianity Today, The Dallas Morning News, Sojourners, Baptist News Global, etc. Her work has been featured by NPR and The New Yorker, and she is actively sought as an academic speaker. You can find more about her public writings, interviews, and podcasts on her website and at her substack Marginalia. During her tenure at Baylor, Dr. Barr has served as Graduate Program Director in History (2016-2019), received a Centennial Professor Award (2018), served as Faculty-in-Residence for the LEAD Living and Learning Community in Allen/Dawson Residential Hall (2018-2024), and served as an Associate Dean in the Baylor Graduate School (2018-2022). She is active on social media platforms Instagram and Threads as @bethallisonbarr. 

Selected Publications

Books

Forthcoming: Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, March 2025. 

Editor, with Allison Brown, Katherine Goodwin Lindgren, and David M. Whitford, Regendering the Narrative: Women in the History of Christianity, Special Issue, Church History and Religious Culture, Vol 103 (2023): Issue 3-4 (Dec 2023). 

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, April 2021. 

• USA Today Best Seller
• Publishers Weekly Best Seller
• Longlist for the 2023 Michael Ramsey Prize
• Jesus Creed (Scot McKnight) Book of the Year 2021
• Christianity Today 2022 Book Award Finalist (History & Biography)
• Featured by NPR, The New Yorker, Religion News Service, German Public Radio, Newsweek, The Dallas Morning News, Publishers Weekly, The Holy Post, Religion & Politics (John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University), Premier Christianity (UK), National Catholic Reporter, Spectrum Magazine, Sojourners, Baptist News Global, The Waco Tribune Herald, The Wacoan, as well as more than 100 podcasts and other news sources
• Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish translations published

Faith and History: A Devotional. Co-editor with Chris Gehrz. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2020.

The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2008. 

Editor, with Mikeal C. Parsons, Bill J. Leonard, and C. Douglas Weaver. The Acts of the Apostles: Four Centuries of Baptist Interpretation. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009.

Selected Activities

Refereed Grants

Sabbatical Grant for Researchers, the Louisville Institute, a Lilly Endowment Program. “Left Behind: How Southern Baptists Forgot Medieval History and Why It Matters for Women”. 2025.

Sabbatical Grant for Researchers, the Louisville Institute, a Lilly Endowment Program. Weak and Silent Vessels: The Impact of the English Bible on Christian Women. 2013-2014.

Courses Taught

• HIS 1300 | U.S. in Global Perspective: Votes for Women
• HIS 1305 | World History to 1500
• HIS 4334 | Women in Europe to 1200
• HIS 4335 | Women in Europe since 1200
• HIS 4340 | Medieval Castles
• HIS 4326 | Early Medieval Europe, c. 300-1000
• HIS 4327 | High Middle Ages, c. 1000-1450
• HIS 4341 | Tudor-Stuart Britain
• HIS 5320 | Seminar in European History for Graduate Students
  • Medieval Christianity
  • Women and Religion in England, 1350-1650
  • Women's History and Theory

Work with Students

• Accepting a limited number of MA and PhD students, especially those interested in medieval/early modern women’s religious history and/or medieval sermons/devotional literature
• Willing to direct a limited number of undergraduate theses

Current Graduate Students
Heidi Campbell
E. Joseph Wilson
Alexandra Oliver