Overview

The debate over women's roles in the Southern Baptist Convention's conservative ascendance is often seen as secondary to theological and biblical concerns. Elizabeth Flowers argues, however, that for both moderate and conservative Baptist women - all of whom had much at stake - disagreements that touched on their familial roles and ecclesial authority have always been primary. And, in the turbulent postwar era, debate over their roles caused fierce internal controversy. While the legacy of race and civil rights lingered well into the 1990s, views on women's submission to male authority provided the most salient test by which moderates were identified and expelled in a process that led to significant splits in the Church. In Flowers's expansive history of Southern Baptist women, the ""woman question"" is integral to almost every area of Southern Baptist concern: hermeneutics, ecclesial polity, missionary work, church-state relations, and denominational history. Flowers's analysis, part of the expanding survey of America's religious and cultural landscape after World War II, points to the South's changing identity and connects religious and regional issues to the complicated relationship between race and gender during and after the civil rights movement. She also shows how feminism and shifting women's roles, behaviors, and practices played a significant part in debates that simmer among Baptists and evangelicals throughout the nation today.

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9781469618920

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Reviews

A serious read for those wanting to understand the nature of the debate over women's ordination in evangelical circles through the lens of the Southern Baptist denomination. But, it is also a delightful and heartfelt read for those who want to hear the v

Both conservative and moderate Baptist women could read this book and feel like their perspective was fairly and thoroughly represented. Moreover, her book weaves the voices of women in leadership and women in local churches into a seamless whole. This book is an excellent work of scholarship on an important issue. -- Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. -- Choice

Flowers has convincingly unmasked the core issue of the 'Southern Baptist battles.'-- North Carolina Historical Review

Author Information

Elizabeth H. Flowers is assistant professor of American religious history at Texas Christian University.

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