Beth Allison Barr, PhD

James Vardaman Professor of History | Faculty-in-Residence LEAD LLC – Baylor University

Beth Allison Barr is the U.S.A. Today’s bestselling author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. An academic by training and a pastor’s wife by calling, Beth uses her unique voice to speak out on the relevance of medieval history to our modern world—especially concerning women in both medieval and modern Christianity. Her work is described as “smart,” “powerful,” and “a game changer” for women in modern evangelicalism. The Making of Biblical Womanhood was also named one of the best books about women in the Middle Ages by Sara M. Butler, the King George III Professor in British History at the Ohio State University.

Barr is currently the James Vardaman Professor of History at Baylor University, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses, but she also speaks and writes as a public intellectual. She has been featured by NPR and The New Yorker, and her bylines include Religion News Service, The Washington Post, Christianity Today, The Dallas Morning News, Sojourners, and Baptist News Global. She also continues to write regularly on The Anxious Bench, a popular religious history blog on Patheos.

With her ability to connect to both academic and lay audiences, Barr speaks at international and national venues–such as the University of Notre Dame, Duke Divinity, Sarum College in Salisbury, England, the University of Calgary, Parks Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, the Evangelical Free Society of Canada, Newbigin House in San Francisco, California, and Brite Divinity School in Ft Worth, Texas.

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 has served as the president of the Conference on Faith and History and president of the Texas Medieval Association, as well as remaining an active member of the International Medieval Sermon Studies Society, American Society of Church History, Sixteenth Century Society, and American Historical Association. In addition to The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, Barr is the author of The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England and co-editor of The Acts of the Apostles: Four Centuries of Baptist Interpretation and Faith and History: A Devotional. Since receiving tenure in the History department in 2014, Dr. Barr has served as Graduate Program Director in History (2016-2019), received a Centennial Professor Award (2018), and served as an Associate Dean in the Baylor Graduate School (2019-2022).

In addition to all this, Beth is also a Baptist pastor’s wife and mom of two great kids.