Shared Beliefs, Different Lives: Women's Identities in Evangelical Context. - book review

Sociology of Religion, Summer, 2002 by Laurel Keams

Shared Beliefs, Different Lives: Women's Identities in Evangelical Context by LORE G. BEAMAN. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 1999, 161 pp., $21.99 (paper).

Drawing upon a wealth of interview material, Shared beliefs, different lives adds to the literature that corrects common misconceptions regarding conservative Christian women's views on such topics as submission, marriage, spouse abuse, feminism, working women and church leadership. Throughout this work, Lori Beaman focuses on issues of gender identity, agency and ideology, arguing that even in seemingly oppressive contexts, evangelical women are not passive and deluded, but rather interpret "evangelical ideology in sometimes surprising ways" (p. 138) so "as to preserve and enhance their own agency" (p. 64). Beaman draws on a plethora of quotes from the 94 women that she interviewed to help us see them "from the inside" and to reveal the range of differences between them. To represent these differences, she groups the interviews into three "composite profiles" representing evangelical traditionalist (the standard representation), moderate (the largest group) and liberal (who even call themselves feminist) wom en while recognizing the actual fluidity among the types.

The women of Shared beliefs understand themselves as being God's hand and feet, showing their commitment to service. The vast majority of these women are or have been married and have children. Both due to the church's cultural emphasis on women's roles as mothers and their own experience, these women interpret their primary role not as wives or servants but in terms of mothering -- not just the next generation, but also other people and their congregations. Many of them see their caretaking roles as leadership -- leadership that is equal to that of men but clearly not the same. As Beaman points out, to understand these women and their own powerful sense of self-worth, one needs to understand that service to God, others and their churches is central to their identity. It is this centrality of service that highlights their objections to, and misconceptions of, feminism, for as Beaman points out, "feminism is often perceived as promoting self-interest," thus bringing "it into conflict with the JOY (Jesus, other , then you) formula" of conservative Christians (p. 99).

One of the significant contributions of this work is Beaman's discussion of their nuanced understanding of submission and of domestic abuse and violence. The patriarchal understanding of submission is often used as justification of abuse yet, as Beaman points out, "the women did not see submission as an essential component of their commitment to God" (p. 58). Rather, they interpret it in a way that maintains their own agency. Neither do they accept sacred justifications for abuse as reason to undermine the agency of women involved. More than 90 percent of the women knew someone who had been abused, and in most of the cases discussed, their responses were far more practical than ideological. They are not likely to suggest prayer and greater church involvement as the answer, although they recognize sin, the fallenness of humanity and other sacred explanations for abuse. Their responses to abusive situations seem more feminist and activist than submissive and passive, yet what makes them different, as Beaman poi nts out, is that their solutions are always to individual situations, and they do not seek to change the larger political and social context. Furthermore, while they believe firmly in reconciliation as a goal, the women view violence and even verbal abuse, more so than adultery, as a sufficient cause for divorce. It is this response which illustrates what Beaman concludes about evangelical women: that "they combine a rhetoric of choice with a rhetoric of duty and obligation" (p. 137) which reveals that their identity as women and as evangelicals is much more complex than the common picture.

Shared beliefs is written for both an academic and general audience, and it is perhaps the latter that explains the lack of an index.

The sociological concepts used are clearly explained and the focus remains on the women. Beaman includes a narrative piece of her gradual introduction to the evangelical world, and her own identity as a feminist in relation to the women. Shared lives does a wonderful job of portraying the range of ideological and praxis differences among women, but lacks some of the specifics that I would have liked. For example, we learn about age; marital status, education and workforce participation of the women, but not about race/ethnicity, class/socioeconomic status, the number of interviewees from a given church, its size and denomination, and finally the geographical locale of these women. These minor matters aside, this book adds a rich and stimulating portrait of the diversity of evangelical women that will be a great contribution to classes on women and religion or on evangelicalism.