Stained Glass Ceilings: How Evangelicals Do Gender and Practice Power

by Lisa Weaver Swartz

This book speaks to the intersection of gender and power within American evangelicalism by examining the formation of evangelical leaders in two seminary communities.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary inspires a vision of human flourishing through gender differentiation and male headship. Men practice “Godly Manhood," and are taught to act as the "head" of a family, while their wives are socialized into codes of “Godly Womanhood" that prioritize prescribed gender roles. This power structure that prioritizes men yet offers agency to their wives in women-centered spaces and through marital relationships.
 
Meanwhile, Asbury Theological Seminary promises freedom from gendered hierarchies. Appealing to a story of gender-blind equality, Asbury welcomes women into classrooms, administrative offices, and pulpits. But the institution’s construction of egalitarianism obscures the fact that women are rewarded for adapting to an existing male-centered status quo rather than for developing their own voices as women.
 
Featuring high-profile evangelicals such as Al Mohler and Owen Strachan, along with young seminarians poised to lead the movement in the coming decades, this book illustrates the liabilities of white evangelical toolkits and argues that evangelical culture upholds male-centered structures of power even as it facilitates meaning and identity.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gender, Theology, Faith, Feminism, Sociology, Religion

190 pages, Hardcover

First published October 22, 2022

Reviews

[Kirsten Kroeker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book written for the average reader. You're reading an academic study - and it's interesting, but it's not a quick or easy read. For someone like me, who has very little context for the two seminaries studied, I had to remind myself why I care as a Canadian in an egalitarian Baptist context. But I do care, because she's telling a story that I've lived and matters to me, and my daughters, and women all around me. I've navigated complimentarian and egalitarian spaces and left both places bruised, and this study pays attention to how and why that happens.

I can't say it answered or resolved those questions for me - but noticing the damage gender-blindness does, paying attention to unrecognized cultural forces and even the grief over the isolation women felt with no opportunity for shared lives was healing.

It was a fascinating read and expressed some of the tension I've felt in both camps, and helped explain why.

I think, mostly what this book has done, is point me to the next step in understanding my own experience. I've heard the criticism against color-blindness (and now, gender-blindness) but confess I don't fully understand it, so that's where I'll lean in next.

[Melanie Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Among this books primary arguments is that both religion and gender are constructed. They are "lived" in community and "done" through social practices that appeal to human emotion and to our drive for rootedness and transcendent meaning."

This book gives language to some of the tensions of gender and religion.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stained Glass Ceilings is an academic study comparing and contrasting how gender is theologically taught and practiced at two prominent seminaries. Swartz interviews students and professors at both Southern Seminary (a Southern Baptist denomination based seminary) and Asbury Theological Seminary (a Wesleyan, non-denominational seminary). The whole book is only 4 chapters - how gender is theologically taught at both seminaries and then how gender plays out in practice at both seminaries. Her basic finding is pretty sad to me - Southern is a complementarian theology so they have VERY prescribed roles for both men and women particularly when it comes to ministry/church leadership. Asbury is an egalitarian theology so they are open to women being called to full time ministry and/or church leadership - yet it doesn't play out that way in real life. Asbury focuses on gender-blindness and seems to think that since they support women in ministry/church leadership that that is the end of the discussion/issue. When in reality women's experiences DO matter because if you never hear about the problems women have in ministry you can't help correct them. By seeing it as a non-issue you actually invalidate any issues that someone does have - this can obviously apply to other issues beyond gender as well. It was also shocking to me how many of the Asbury students were vehemently anti-feminist - that totally didn't make sense for an egalitarian focused seminary. It was just sad for me to see that the women's experience as Asbury wasn't better. Swartz actually says in her introduction that while writing this book she "...often recalled Mark Noll's words in the opening paragraph of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind: 'This book is an epistle from a wounded lover' (1995). This book is, likewise, a work of both critical scholarship and Christian lament." (p. 15-16). While it was an interesting book, it was not an easy read and was very scholarly. Would I have still bought it if I knew this on the front end? Probably, but it was not a book you could easily pick up and read a few pages then put down. But, for women in the Church it's still an important read.

Some quotes I liked:

"Two decades after the Conservative Resurgence, gender egalitarianism remains a symbolic foe. It is also a conveniently tangible one. The conservative warriors of the resurgence battled over far more than gender, but an enemy as nebulous as 'liberalism' can be difficult to combat. It is much easier to attack the visible practice of allowing women in the pulpits." (p. 41)

[On the topic of Southern Seminary President Al Mohler speaking at Brigham Young University, a Mormon college] "Later, when I interviewed Mohler in his office, he explained the visit to me, reiterating, '[Mormons] are way beyond our confession. We do not recognize them as Christian, but on issues of family structure and many deep moral convictions there's commonality there.'...[then asked about commonality with egalitarian Christians] 'I think those relationships are going to be quite strained, more so than even in the past as we go into the future.' 'Why is that?' I pressed. 'Because,' he answered, 'I think the hermeneutic involved in egalitarianism is going to have a great deal of difficulty withstanding some of the other cultural pressures.' For Mohler, fears that an egalitarian reading of the Bible would lead to an interpretive slippery slope seem to have stymied alliance with egalitarian Christians, even other evangelicals." (p. 42) [Mind-blowing to me that a complementarian would choose to side with Mormons than other egalitarian Christians]

"Renee, one of the few single women enrolled in Southern's MDiv program, confessed to me that she had struggled with the complementarian framework for much of her life: 'I always thought that something was wrong with my personality, because I'm very talkative, very outgoing. I'm very opinionated and I have all these [ideas]...I want to lead things. So how do I do that in a biblical sense? I always felt like something was wrong with me, like God had created me right and I just messed it up.'" (p. 82)

"Dan did, however, acknowledge the context: 'I know traditionally it's been males who have dominated.' He nevertheless failed to engage the enduring legacy this tradition left in its wake. Instead, he worried about the possibility of what he called 'reverse domination' of women over men. Others agreed. Struggles to gain power have no place in a unified Church." (p. 103)

"Even the most enthusiastic boosters of genderblind equality, however, often recognized a problem. Some of the same administrators who insisted that Asbury was free from sexism also expressed bewilderment at how difficult it was to attract good women faculty members...They could not explain why men and women, equally called by God, might navigate uneven paths toward answering those calls." (p. 121)

"Clear policies and biblical teachings might support a woman's right to pursue church leadership, but she must also overcome cultural forces that normalize men's perspectives, leadership styles, and bodily mannerisms." (p. 136)

[Nikayla Reize · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a lot of theology of gender books but I LOVED this angle - a case study of a very complimentarian school and an egal school. So interesting!
Quote:
The book’s central contention is that American evangelical stories buttress constructions of meaning, identity, and power that center men. At Southern, patriarchy takes explicit shape in an all-encompassing narrative of nostalgia and male-centered social order. While many of Southern’s women describe an empowering, even freeing, complementarian ecosystem, I find that much of their flourishing is predicated on familial connections to powerful men and on women’s willingness to actively prioritize men’s interests. Asbury, by contrast, leans on a heavily individualistic discourse of genderblindness, suggesting a strong resistance to patriarchal hierarchies. The community nevertheless struggles to consistently practice egalitarianism in real life.

[Flyck]

The author compares two southern American evangelical seminaries (SBTS & Asbury) to see how gender is given space. Weaver Swartz shows that both affirm and value binary distinction between male and female, in practice both promote marriage as an ideal state, and regardless of different acceptance of women in seminary and ministry, both remain androcentric in practice, and equally avoidant of feminism as a label and activism as a practice.

[Julie Masson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a book for my father/daughter book club. I don't remember who recommended it to me but it was a good read. My dad was a sociology professor, and he said the author was an excellent sociologist by simply showing the social constructs at play in each seminary: Southern Seminary and Asbury Seminary.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book stands on the shoulders of Du Mez, Barr, Emerson, and Smith (among others) and offers a compelling analysis of evangelical culture at the intersection of gender and power. I think this could have a shelf life similar to Emerson and Smith’s Divided by Faith, which has steadily been maintained or improved over the last nearly 25 years. Time (and evangelical culture) will tell.

[R M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book reads similarly to a doctoral thesis, a very academic story, but a valuable one nonetheless. I credit this book 5 stars not because I 'agree' or 'disagree' but because it's a thorough record of research compiled of detailed observations, experiences and some history. Gender and power can't be solved or discovered in one book, but this one has helped me understand more than before, and for that, I recommend it. The author's lens of course comes through, as no matter how objective research tries to be, is filtered by people, but I found that Weaver Swartz attempts to honestly lay out simply the information she has discovered. However one comes to understand her findings, they're important ones to know.

[Alicia Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woof.

So, in full disclosure, I know Lisa. She's my neighbor and my friend. We carpool to take our kids to youth group. My husband was photographed for this book (check out p 116!). I've had dinner at her house and we've had many conversations about many things, including pieces of her book, as I also have a background in Sociology and can talk theory and hegemony and such with her. I live in Wilmore, and my husband is a student at Asbury Seminary, though we moved here and I met Lisa after she was well into her field work. Despite the pseudonyms, I'm certain I know many of the people interviewed from Asbury, even if I couldn't identify them from their quotes. I even have one friend from my childhood church in California who was a student at Southern while she was doing her fieldwork there, so I imagined him and his wife during those chapters. I voted in her Facebook poll on the title, tagline, and cover for this book (happy to say my votes are what she went with, ha!). With all these personal connections, I know I'm biased. Still.

This book is f*cking amazing.

Lisa is brilliant, poignant, eloquent, insightful, and kind. She does justice to the individuals she interviews, treats them with dignity and respect, while also drawing out critiques and flaws and connections and conclusions from the interviewees' words. It was a fascinating journey to read.

Favorite quote, regarding Asbury: "These men might not object to women's leadership, but they have no particular need for it either." Just brutal.

I realize this book may not be for everyone, but it was for me and I loved it. Well done, Dr. Weaver Swartz.

[Kristen Mcknight · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm giving this book 3 1/2 stars mainly because it is an academic book, though for the most part it is more-or-less readable.
It was fascinating to me to read about Southern Seminary (SBC) and it's airtight, closed system of religious beliefs and how it is taught and lived out (embodied) at the seminary. Southern Seminary is contrasted with Asbury Seminary which is more open to women in ministry, but still struggles living out what that means and looks like.
For folks interested in this topic, I think you will find it quite interesting and gives much to think about.

[Trevor]

Been a long time since I thought deeply about the inner workings of evangelicism, so this was a welcome refresher on the nasty little world which made me, at least in part, and also a really fascinating look into the distinct but largely concurrent ways these two schools of evangelical thought perpetuate the power structures of broader society while denying the existence of those structures completely.

[Jon Anderson]

Interesting look at gender through the comparison of two seminaries, one complementarian (Southern) and the other egalitarian (Asbury). While Southern probably takes it on the chin more than Asbury, the author shows the inconsistencies that exist at both places. I don't agree with all the conclusions but it was different and, at times, helpful way to view this issue.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and fascinating case study of two seminaries — and it confirmed what I have long experienced but seldom seen articulated so clearly: when Christians refuse to name the larger social structures that give power to particular groups of people, real equality in Christ is impossible to achieve.

[Gina Dalfonzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incisive and thought-provoking.