Women’s History Month Reading List
Women throughout American history have repeatedly been accused of “stepping out of their places” as many have fought for more rewarding roles in the church and society. In this book, Susan Hill Lindley demonstrates that just as religion in the traditional sense has influenced the lives of American women through its institutions, values, and sanctions, so women themselves have had a significant effect on the shape of American religion through the years.
3. The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr
Biblical womanhood–the belief that God designed women to be submissive wives, virtuous mothers, and joyful homemakers–pervades North American Christianity. From choices about careers to roles in local churches to relationship dynamics, this belief shapes the everyday lives of evangelical women. Yet biblical womanhood isn’t biblical, says Baylor University historian Beth Allison Barr. It arose from a series of clearly definable historical moments.
This book moves the conversation about biblical womanhood beyond Greek grammar and into the realm of church history–ancient, medieval, and modern–to show that this belief is not divinely ordained but a product of human civilization that continues to creep into the church. Barr’s historical insights provide context for contemporary teachings about women’s roles in the church and help move the conversation forward.
Interweaving her story as a Baptist pastor’s wife, Barr sheds light on the #ChurchToo movement and abuse scandals in Southern Baptist circles and the broader evangelical world, helping readers understand why biblical womanhood is more about human power structures than the message of Christ.
4. Clothed with the Sun: Biblical Women, Social Justice and Us by Joyce Hollyday (PCUSA STORE)
The Bible holds a great treasure of amazing women. They are judges and prophets, caregivers and teachers, prominent matriarchs of large clans or quiet disciples, women who suffered alone or sang joyous praises to God amid the crowds. Their stories come alive in these pages as they are interwoven with the lives of modern women, bound together by common threads of strength and courage in the face of vulnerability and violation. From Eve to Revelation’s woman clothed with the sun–from the first creative impulse to the close of time–female energy has been and will continue to be a river of life and wisdom, of dignity and hope.
5. A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband ‘Master’ by Racheal Held Evans
Have you ever wondered what God truly expects of women? Is there really a prescription for biblical womanhood? Does the Bible’s idea of womanhood have a place in modern Christianity? New York Times bestselling author Rachel Held Evans embarks on a year-long study of what it means to live by the standards of biblical womanhood.
Strong-willed and independent, Evans couldn’t sew a button on a blouse before she embarked on a radical life experiment–a year of biblical womanhood. Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decided to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible for a full year.
Along the way, Evans explores the rich heritage of scriptural heroines, models of grace, and all-around women of valor that we come to know in the Bible. She consults with women who practice these ancient biblical mandates in their own lives–from an Orthodox Jewish woman who changed the way Evans reads the Bible to an Amish community that taught her the true meaning of modesty.
In A Year of Biblical Womanhood, Evans shares her courageous and often humorous journey of:
- exploring what a “woman’s place” is according to the Scriptures
- applying the Bible’s teachings to day-to-day life, sometimes to literal extremes
- focusing on virtues like domesticity, obedience, beauty, submission, and grace
- developing a “Biblical Woman’s Ten Commandments” to serve as a guide for daily living
Join Evans as she dives deep into the lives of the women we meet in Scripture and redefines what it means to live biblically.
Other Books not on the Main list
1. Resist and Persist: Faith and the Fight for Equality by Erin Wathen
We are in the age of double standards and impossible expectations; a never-die patriarchy that is sanctioned by every institution: capitalism, government, and even—maybe especially—the church itself. We need to change the conversation.
Pastor and author Erin Wathen provides a new language of resistance that can free women and men from the pernicious power of patriarchy. This is a book for a new generation of feminists who have more opportunity than our mothers and grandmothers ever dreamed of. It is also for all the women who have never felt they had a place in this fight. The work of equality must include women of every age and ethnicity, as well as men who will be allies, advocates, and partners for the journey.
But even more than that, if women are ever going to be fully free and equal in modern culture, it is going to take the voice of the church calling loudly for that equality. The language and stories of our faith point to an ethic of justice, inclusion, and empowerment. Without women’s voices fully heard, we cannot be faithful to that gospel calling. Resist and Persist is a conversation in the direction of change.
Perfect for group study, there are questions for reflection and discussion at the end of each of the ten chapters.
2. Just Wives? Stories of Power and Survival in the Old Testament and Today by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld (PCUSA STORE)
Giving astute attention to social worlds of women of both ancient and modern times, Katharine Sakenfeld explores the stories of eleven women in the Old Testament. In clear and engaging fashion, she reveals the complexity of these women’s lives, drawing out the issues they faced and relating their struggles to those women around the world face today. By encouraging women from across the world, in various cultures, to bring their own experiences to the biblical texts, and sharing the interpretation of some who already have, Sakenfeld allows her readers to see new possibilities for meaning in the Scriptures.
3. Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle’s Vision for Men and Women in Christ by Cynthia Long Westfall
Respected New Testament scholar Cynthia Long Westfall offers a coherent Pauline theology of gender, which includes fresh perspectives on the most controverted texts. Westfall interprets passages on women and men together and places those passages in the context of the Pauline corpus as a whole. She offers viable alternatives for some notorious interpretive problems in certain Pauline passages, reframing gender issues in a way that stimulates thinking, promotes discussion, and moves the conversation forward. As Westfall explores the significance of Paul’s teaching on both genders, she seeks to support and equip males and females to serve in their area of gifting.
4. What Jesus Learned from Women by James McGrath
Dehumanization has led to serious misinterpretation of the Gospels. On the one hand, Christians have often made Jesus so much more than human that it seemed inappropriate to ask about the influence other human beings had on him, male or female. On the other hand, women have been treated as less than fully human, their names omitted from stories and their voices and influence on Jesus neglected. When we ask the question this book does, what Jesus learned from women, puzzling questions that have frustrated readers of the Gospels throughout history suddenly find solutions. Weaving cutting edge biblical scholarship together with an element of historical fiction and a knack for writing for a general audience, James McGrath makes the stories of women in the New Testament come alive, and sheds fresh light on the figure of Jesus as well. This book is a must read for scholars, students, and anyone else interested in Jesus and/or in the role of ancient women in the context of their times.