Stained Glass Ceilings: How Evangelicals Do Gender and Practice Power

by Lisa Weaver Swartz

Stained Glass Ceilings 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 privileges 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, Stained Glass Ceilings 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.

189 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 14, 2022

Reviews

[Kathy Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye Opening

Lisa Weaver Swartz did a phenomenal job of presenting the facts of her intensive research and interviews at Southern and Asbury. She reveals the struggles faced by women in the egalitarian church world and invites the reader to examine our understanding of what it really means to practice equality.