The Preacher's Wife

The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities

By: Kate Bowler

Narrated by: Kelly Burke

Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

From the New York Times best-selling author of Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, a fascinating look at the world of Christian women celebrities

Since the 1970s, an important new figure has appeared on the center stage of American evangelicalism - the celebrity preacher's wife. Although most evangelical traditions bar women from ordained ministry, many women have carved out unofficial positions of power in their husbands' spiritual empires or their own ministries. The biggest stars - such as Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, and Victoria Osteen - write best-selling books, grab high ratings on Christian television, and even preach. In this engaging book, Kate Bowler, an acclaimed historian of religion and the author of the best-selling memoir Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, offers a sympathetic and revealing portrait of megachurch women celebrities, showing how they must balance the demands of celebrity culture and conservative, male-dominated faiths.

Whether standing alone or next to their husbands, the leading women of megaministry play many parts: the preacher, the homemaker, the talent, the counselor, and the beauty. Boxed in by the high expectations of modern Christian womanhood, they follow and occasionally subvert the visible and invisible rules that govern the lives of evangelical women, earning handsome rewards or incurring harsh penalties. They must be pretty, but not immodest; exemplary, but not fake; vulnerable to sin, but not deviant. And black celebrity preachers' wives carry a special burden of respectability. But despite their influence and wealth, these women are denied the most important symbol of spiritual power - the pulpit.

The story of women who most often started off as somebody's wife and ended up as everyone's almost-pastor, The Preacher's Wife is a compelling account of women's search for spiritual authority in the age of celebrity.

©2019 Kate Bowler (P)2019 Princeton University Press

Critic reviews

"Bowler (Everything Happens for a Reason), professor at the Duke Divinity School, explains in this excellent analysis how some evangelical women have managed to become mega-ministry celebrities by transforming the limited roles allotted to women in evangelical culture into positions of power. Framing these women's work as that of wives, mothers, homemakers, and teachers - rather than pastors or business leaders - Bowler reveals how figures including Joyce Meyer, Beth Moore, and Victoria Osteen wield enormous power in their husbands' ministries, both on stage and behind the scenes.... [This] wonderful work provocatively considers what women gain and lose in becoming 'market-ready' for evangelical communities." (Publishers Weekly)

outstanding

this was fascinating, shocking, but honestly helped make sense of the past 30+ yrs of my life as an evangelical female. From a woman's role as a pastor to homemaker, this is an excellent history of women's role in the church, how Christianity has been commercialized to fit a cultural (often outdated) narrative & honest look at how women have been sidelined, found the loopholes, & discovered their place in the Christian community. would recommend this to anyone who is deconstructing their faith, male or female.

In Depth Look Exploration of Power Within Confines

I found this a fascinating historical exploration of women's evolving role in the Evangelical Church. I thought it was incredibly well researched with many personal accounts and carries the listener through the every changing and not changing definitions of women's ability to participate and hold their own within this community. This is a PhD's deep dive so think more Ken Burn's lengthy and not rushing and lacking nuance. For some that might feel repetitive or overstated but where there is repetition we are seeing where there are threads of history that circle back on themselves and in being overstated I feel this is about trying to include as many voices as possible instead of simply cherry picking a few. I also appreciated the spectrum of difference that occurs even within groups and their experience. I felt the narrator did a wonderful job and I plan to listen to Blessed by Kate Bowler next and was happy to discover her podcast Everything Happens after enjoying this book so much. I will say her podcast would be a great place for folks to start who might enjoy short self contained conversations with individuals who are engaging in the world through things they seem to feel called to or thrust into by circumstance.

Interesting but long winded.

I love Kate Bowler, but this one just became tedious. Very interesting information but the book was written as if she just had a suitcase full of research and wanted to make sure to put every bit of it in the book. Many places felt bogged down by one profile after another. Sometimes less is more. This was super interesting, but editing out redundancies would have helped.

Enlightening inside look

Interesting look at how women are treated in the church. And how hypothetical the church can be.