Jessica Hahn and Evangelical Silence on Sexual Abuse
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Jessica Hahn and Evangelical Silence on Sexual Abuse

ByBeth Allison Barr

We are so pleased to welcome back John Wigger to the Anxious Bench. John Wigger is Professor of History at the University of Missouri and author of PTL: The Rise and Fall of the Evangelical Empire of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. #MeToo #ChurchToo In 1980 Jessica Hahn was sexually assaulted by one of the…

Romans 8:31, Chris Tomlin, And The Faith Of A Medieval Woman
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Romans 8:31, Chris Tomlin, And The Faith Of A Medieval Woman

ByBeth Allison Barr

“Water You turned into wine; Opened the eyes of the blind; There’s no one like you; None like you; Into the darkness You shine; Out of the ashes we rise; There’s No one like you; None like you” In 2010 Chris Tomlin recorded these opening lyrics to “Our God” at a Passion Conference. He couldn’t…

The Death and Historical Afterlife of a World War II Soldier
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The Death and Historical Afterlife of a World War II Soldier

ByBeth Allison Barr

Last Friday, 29 September 2017, we lost another World War II veteran.Out of the more than 16 million men and women who served in the American armed forces during World War II, less than 600,000 survive in 2017. More than 300 die every day. As the Veterans Statistics page from The National WWII Museum in…

An Ordinary Preaching Woman in a Texas Baptist Church, c. 1930
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An Ordinary Preaching Woman in a Texas Baptist Church, c. 1930

ByBeth Allison Barr

In a 2006 interview, Wayne Grudem argued that female leaders in the church (especially pastors) are disobeying God’s word and thus open to “the withdrawal of God’s hand of protection and blessing.” As Grudem explained: “A woman who serves as a pastor, preaching to both men and women, is disobeying the word of God. There…

The Medieval Counsel of Biblical Womanhood
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The Medieval Counsel of Biblical Womanhood

ByBeth Allison Barr

The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood exploded my twitter feed last week. As a Texan with both friends and family in Houston, I really just wanted to see the update on Hurricane Harvey. But the Nashville Statement dominated my news feed. I confess after scrolling through headline after headline I mostly just felt tired….

Should Women Rule? Netflix’s The Crown and Complementarian Theology
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Should Women Rule? Netflix’s The Crown and Complementarian Theology

ByBeth Allison Barr

Riding the London Eye is deceptively peaceful. The city that slowly unfolds below seems a different place from the noise and heat of the crowded South Bank. I always look first for Cleopatra’s Needle, the 3500 year-old Egyptian obelisk shipped to England in the nineteenth-century and hoisted along the Victorian Embankment Gardens. The startling incongruity…