A thought-provoking look at celebrity evangelical women. Elizabeth and I are going to interview Kate Bowler for the Happier podcast, and while her other book (see below) is more directly related to happiness, I found this book fascinating.

Fantastic. Relevant. At times heartbreaking. Impeccably researched. When women have a glass ceiling created by religious structures, they get creative: there’s no absence of power and influence, it’s just achieved by different means. I appreciated the exploration of how this culture of evangelical women celebrities doesn’t exclusively extend to white women, but also to other races and genders (including a story of how life changed for a male church leader who transitioned to a woman). This tells...

My review appears at Fathom MagIn 2002 Rosaline Wiseman published a book decoding the secret hierarchy of teenage girls. It became a popular read among parents because Wiseman’s research consisted of inviting young girls across the country to describe their social ecosystem. From that research, she developed a taxonomy of the mysterious habitat of teenage girls. Although Queen Bees and Wannabes aimed at helping parents, it gained a much wider readership and even inspired the fictional movie Mean...

In The Preacher's Wife Kate Bowler explores how women in evangelical churches and circles have managed to carve out their own place in the world of the evangelical celebrity. While most evangelical churches don't allow women to be in positions of authority, many of the women in this book have managed to circumvent that rule, at least on the surface. But, because their power hinges on the men in their lives, that power is precarious and the double-standards and rules for women are overwhelming. B...

Kate Bowler is so cool.

I grew up in the Episcopal Church, which back then didn't ordain women (I had moved on right before they changed the rules), and then joined a church that was part of a denomination founded by a woman (Aimee Semple McPherson), but which had ambivalence about women in leadership (a lot of submission talk). Over time I ended up in a denomination -- the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) -- that has elected as its General Minister two women. I am a married preacher, so my wife could be called a...

Fascinating. Love Kate Bowler's work.

How much did I love this book? I highlighted the very first sentence of the pre-introduction. I highlighted and marked up (my kindle!) every single chapter. I even highlighted parts of the acknowledgements.I grew up a southern baptist preacher's daughter and long-lived in the evangelical world that has strict rules and (small) departments women are allowed to "lead" in. It is a song and a dance and a mental gymnastics I am all too familiar with- that I have even mastered on some levels. Once, my...

This was fascinating. I had a hard time putting it down. The first chunk was very academic. In fact, the whole thing was more academic than I expected...but in a very accessible way...not like reading a traditional textbook. I grew up in the evangelical church, so basically all of the women Kate Bowler wrote about were very familiar to me. I appreciated the way that she simply told the stories without offering her own opinion or analysis. I keep telling friends to read it and I may read it again...

Well written, brilliantly researched, and more than a little uncomfortable to read - Bowler has named much of the confusing terrain surrounding christian women leaders and cast light on its shadowy parts. It was probably beyond the scope of an academic work, but what I found missing from the book was acknowledgement of the inner world and motivation of some of the women described. I don't believe Beth Moore, for example, set out to build an empire or become a celebrity (as the marketplace model

This is an important book, and I want everyone to read it. It shows how patriarchy has impacted both the church and women (who make up half the church). The focus isn't actually on Preacher's wives, but on the ways women in conservative Evangelical churches are kept from having institutional influence so instead find ways to influence in the marketplace... and all the trouble that comes before and after.These dynamics are very real and deeply problematic, and this book is well-researched and pre...

I greatly disliked this book - not the author's writing, or anything she could have changed - but the research findings and facts as they were presented. I think I was hoping more for a "rebel girls of the church"-style book, acknowledging the scarcity of female leaders in evangelicalism but pointing out all the places they'd had an impact regardless. Instead, it was a disappointing trajectory of one step forward, a dozen steps back as the church reacted against the culture and sought to put wom...

Not as good as I anticipated. The writing style was fine but I struggled to find the point… the book concluded without any specific call to action, it simply pointed out the issues we already acknowledge and then essentially summarized with “well this stinks”. I also didn’t like the lack of research on why these women acted how they did. Any basic foray into evangelicalism will show you they were often (though not always) complicit in taking the back seat.

This felt like an expose of much of Christian culture for the last 40 years (in the USA) and what we’ve expected our women speakers and writers to do—sometimes without pay and increasingly in an insecure economy. Ironic that places where women are allowed to have authority (mainline churches) they don’t have celebrity but the places like conservative circles which don’t allow female authority the women with influence frequently have to pander.

Incredibly eye-opening and insightful book. It threw me into a world of complicated ministries I would never have had any insights into. Kate Bowler gives incredible insight into the particular realities and challenged faced by women who have chiseled out positions of authority in evangelical and other circles where they wouldn’t normally have existed, explores why conservative women seem even more able to gain a massive ministry following with more restrictions, and details the various way in w...

This book really brought home for me two things. First, how bizarre and weird and antithetical to traditional faith is the phrase and striving for "celebrity Christian". Secondly, I thought this book was an interesting reflection, though not explicitly stated, on the weird relationship between American Evangelicals, consumerism and capitalism.

The sheer level of research that Kate Bowler does astonishes me. She's venturing into fields that are not yet well-documented by other historians; she and Joshua Young have staggering amounts of data backing up their findings; and many of her studies are so contemporary they're hardly historical. (Was 2016 only 4 years ago? Still processing the march of time.)Bowler's work is worth a skim for anyone who wants to think critically about evangelical celebrity culture (think "Who’s In Charge of the

So much of this book is what I have lived and experienced growing up in American evangelical and Pentecostal culture in the 1990’s. It was uncomfortable for me to remember in many parts, and yet there glimpses of hope and equality laced throughout.

Brilliantly written, entertaining book. Should cause some of us to have a good hard think. A few minor niggles but as a piece of theological storytelling/church history, it is excellent. Bowler manages to write well without belittling her subjects and holds the reality and hypocrisy of American evangelicalism up for the reader to examine.