My blogs on Aimee Byrd’s Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood stopped abruptly. At the time, I was a little confused; I still had some things to say. However, I obeyed the Holy Spirit’s promptings – and I’m so glad I did. With each book I’ve read, we’ve gotten closer and closer to my pain – and thus my anger. The anger makes it hard to stay true to my goal for this blog, which is to help other people as they deconstruct and tell them that God hasn’t abandoned them.
That last part – about God not abandoning you during this time – is the key. If I had continued my blogs on Bryd’s book, it was a key I would have lost.
I have a lot of anger. It’s justified, although I won’t go so far as to say it’s righteous. And in anger, it’s so easy to start trying to “prove” why the Evangelical doctrine of complementarity is so damaging. I started writing in my defense rather than shining a light for others; I was writing for those who wounded me rather than for those I’m trying to help.
It will be a constant, prayerful challenge for me to focus on those the doctrine of complementarity has wounded. What’s interesting is that the change of focus may not change what I write about; it simply changes how I write it.
Remembering my goal seasons my anger with grace, as well as gets to God’s heart – which is showing others how much he loves them.
Beth Allison Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood
This blog will be very different than the others. First, I’ll be incorporating some of my thoughts on Aimee Byrd’s book alongside my thoughts on Beth Allison Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood. The two books dove-tale quite nicely (Barr even references Byrd several times), so it works perfectly.
Second, Barr discusses a lot of personal things that helped me in my own deconstruction. Until I read her book, I hadn’t realized other people had gone through the same things I did – down to types of Sunday School lessons. It was eye-opening, but also comforting. It made me feel less isolated. But that means there will be quite a lot of *actual* blogging about my thoughts and feelings. (Shocking, I know!)
However, you should note: this is a history book. Barr is upfront that she is not a theologian.[1] Her goal is to show how “biblical womanhood” was created by men (and some women); how it’s not god-ordained, but the consequence of historical movements. There is some analysis of biblical text, but it is mostly kept to the realms of historical context. (If you’re not a fan of history, I do want to say that Barr’s book is probably the most readable history book you’ll ever find!)
On the other hand, Aimee Byrd’s book, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, is definitely a theological work, peppered with some historical analysis.
As I’ve mentioned before, though, this was my second read-through of this book. It’s well worth it, and out of all of the books, I would recommend this one the most. Then again, I might be biased…
My First Read-Through
My deconstruction journey began before the 2020 election. Andrew and my dissatisfaction led us to seek out like-minded believers. I’m not sure how we found it, but we started listening to Phil Vischer’s Holy Post Podcast. (For those of you who grew up on VeggieTales, Phil Vischer created them…and a host of other really amazing children’s shows/books.)
Sidenote: I highly recommend The Holy Post Podcast if you’re struggling to reconnect with God on your deconstruction journey. It showed me I wasn’t alone, as well as gave me valuable resources as I deconstructed.
Anyway, one of the podcasts featured an interview with Beth Allison Barr. I was hooked as soon as she began to speak, and I instantly got her book from the library. Then I bought it on Google Play. And then I asked for a hard copy for Christmas.
It literally ripped down the yellow wallpaper for me. Experiences I thought were simply my own were revealed to be a shared experience among women of my generation and the generation before. It’s a raw, honest view of what it’s like to be a woman in a complementarian church. It’s also packed with eye-opening facts; facts that cannot be ignored any longer.
Because of that, this book will always hold a special place in my heart. I hope it helps you in the same way it helped me.
Notes
[1] Beth Allison Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth (Brazos Press, 2021), 205.
