For our fourth annual Visual Museum of Women in Christianity Symposium, we gathered at Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Texas. This year’s theme, “Re-read Her Story,” invited our attendees to re-read the familiar stories of women in Scripture and Christian women throughout church history, guided by the insight of biblical scholars.
Some of the featured biblical women are familiar to most Christians, such as Mary Magdalene, Mary, mother of Jesus, and the Samaritan woman in John 4. Others, however, are vilified, like Tamar from Genesis 38, and overlooked or wholly unknown, like the woman accused of adultery in Numbers 5 and Rhoda, the slave girl of Acts 12. Other presenters focused on Christian women throughout history, whether in the Byzantine church or in pilgrimage. All of these women have something in common: we sometimes overlook them, vilify them, or forget them completely.
The Visual Museum symposiums use art to help contextualize women within the narratives of both Scripture and church history, telling their stories with art. Women and men of diverse backgrounds—scholars, seminarians, faithful Christians, and those simply curious about these stories—gathered this year to be challenged to look anew at these women and to celebrate their legacies.
To learn more about the research presenters shared at our previous symposiums, we have curated a special playlist of episodes from the Center for Women in Leadership’s podcast, The Alabaster Jar, in honor of Women’s History Month. To learn more from these scholars, you can access the playlist here.
Several of the symposium plenary speakers are active on Substack. These scholars routinely publish articles and record videos on a variety of topics, including their current research interests. For more, subscribe to their websites.
Dr. Grace Hamman: Writer and Independent Scholar of Late Medieval Poetry and Contemplative Writing; Author of several books, including Jesus through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ with the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages and forthcoming Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues and Vices for a Whole and Holy Life
Dr. Beth Allison Barr: James Vardaman Professor of History at Baylor University; Medieval historian, Women’s Historian, Historian of Modern Evangelicalism, and Pastor’s Wife; Author of several books, including The Making of Biblical Womanhood and Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry
Dr. Sandra Glahn: Professor of Media Arts and Worship at Dallas Theological Seminary; Journalist; cofounder of the Visual Museum of Women in Christianity; author of more than 25 books including contributing editor of Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible; author of Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament; and forthcoming A Woman’s Place Is in the Story: Seeing Women in the Biblical Narrative
Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt: Franklin S. Dyrness Professor at Wheaton College; Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies; Professor of Theology and History of Christianity; Director of M.A. in History of Christianity and M.A. in Theology Programs; author of several books, including The Mary We Forgot: What the Apostle to the Apostles Teaches the Church Today
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