Whose Side Will History Be On?

On women in the Southern Baptist archives—and the men who tried to bury them

Episode 1 of All the Buried Women, the podcast Beth Allison Barr and I created, is out now!

For the past year and a half, Dr.

Beth Allison Barr

and I have been working on All the Buried Women, a podcast uncovering women’s stories hidden in the Southern Baptist Convention’s archives. We recently discussed it on this episode of The Bible for Normal People’s podcast, and as I listened back, one question stood out: “How did some of these archives make it in? Some of it is a little disparaging or damning… So how did [they get] saved?”

Beth’s response captured something essential: “I think a lot of these men really thought they were going to be recognized and applauded for all this work they did. So I don’t think they worried about it.”

When the system protects those who look, think, and act like you, you don’t fear history—you assume it will always be on your side.

We spent days looking through hundreds of documents from the most powerful leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention’s history. These men weren’t just influential within the SBC; they helped shape American culture and politics. They hosted presidents—Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. They amassed surprising wealth. They built the largest Protestant denomination in America. And in leadership—with rare exception—they all looked the same. Why wouldn’t they feel invincible?

So what if a few letters reveal abuse allegations being shrugged off?
So what if some documents celebrate the (unpaid) labor of women in ministry, while others show the steady rise of men’s salaries?
So what if there is proof that Southern Baptist women have been ordained, preaching, and pastoring all along?
So what if some records accuse abuse survivors of orchestrating a satanic scheme to distract the SBC from evangelism?

So what? History is on our side…. Right?

Maybe not.

Maybe the only history on their side is unexamined history.

This pattern isn’t limited to religious spaces, but the truth is always more complicated than powerful people want you to believe. For instance, it’s easier for SBC leaders to claim that women have never been allowed to be ordained, preach, or teach, and that rejecting this stance is a rejection of orthodoxy. But that narrative falls apart under scrutiny. The SBC’s own archives contain records of hundreds of women serving in those roles long before today’s Southern Baptist leaders were even born. Yet if leaders in the SBC accepted the complexity of their past, they might be forced to accept a more diverse future. If they took off the noise-cancelling headphones of fundamentalism, they might hear the sounds of Southern Baptist women preaching, pastoring, and teaching… and bearing good fruit.

The question isn’t whether these stories exist—it’s whether we’re willing to see them. Whether we’re willing to complicate our understanding of ourselves and our tradition with a fuller story.

In the case of women’s stories in the SBC, the evidence has been sitting in the their own archives all along, hidden in plain sight.

That’s exactly why we created All the Buried Women—to examine the stories of women who have been overlooked, dismissed, or deliberately erased. Episode 1, "George Orwell Warned Us About 1984," is out now.

I hope you give it a listen and let us know what you think. If you enjoy it, then subscribe and follow to help boost our ranking so others can hear! I’ll share links to Apple and Spotify below.

Sending love,
Savannah