Life Story: Beverly LaHaye (1929– )

Beverly Jean Davenport was born on April 30, 1929. She grew up in Southfield, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan.

Her father left the family when she was two years old. Two years after her husband left, her mother remarried. When her mother suffered serious health issues, Beverly became responsible for taking care of the household.

Beverly graduated from high school when she was 17. She had been raised in an evangelical household, and her religion was very important to her. Evangelicals practice a form of Christianity that focuses on the Bible and a personal relationship with God. Because of her beliefs, Beverly decided to attend an evangelical college, Bob Jones University, in Greenville, South Carolina.

She met fellow student Tim LaHaye in college. He was 21 years old and an Air Force veteran who served in World War II. They fell in love quickly and married just months after their first meeting.

Tim graduated from college in 1948 and decided to become a minister. Beverly dropped out of college after one year to support his career. Over the next eight years, Tim and Beverly moved around the country for his different assignments. They had four children, Linda, Larry, Lee, and Lori.

Beverly did not always align to traditional expectations of a minister’s wife. Like most evangelical ministers, Tim did not earn a lot of money. Beverly had to work full-time to support the household. This went against evangelical beliefs that women should stay at home to take care of their families. Also, the spouse of a religious leader is typically active in the community. But Beverly was very shy and declined most invitations she received from women’s groups to speak at public events. 

In 1956, Tim was offered a position as minister at Scott Memorial Baptist Church in San Diego, California. This assignment changed the lives of the LaHaye family. Tim led the congregation’s growth from 300 to 2,000 members, turning it into a megachurch with a million-dollar annual budget. The church eventually added childcare facilities, counseling centers, Christian education programs for children, and a research center.

Beverly met many influential members of the evangelical community through Tim’s work. One self-help speaker changed Beverly’s perspective on her reluctance to talk in public. Beverly started to believe that not speaking up for conservative women was selfish. This new view helped her establish her public role and become more active in the conservative movement.

Like many other evangelical women, Beverly did not feel represented by the feminist movement. As a backlash to the progressive social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, a new conversative movement rose to prominence in the 1970s. The Religious Right, also known as the Christian Right, promoted conservative evangelical beliefs about society and gender roles. Conservative women organized against issues like abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment. 

Together, Tim and Beverly launched Family Life Seminars in 1971. Through their company, they gave speeches about conservative and Christian values. Their talks resonated with many people across the country and even internationally. The LaHayes expanded the Family Life Seminars include cassette tapes, books, and a radio show. The organization’s goal was to “restore Christ-centered family living to American life.”

Beverly wanted to adhere to the evangelical values of motherhood. She rarely spoke publicly about working full time while Tim started his career. To uphold the image of a good Christian mother, Beverly did not join Tim in leading seminars until their youngest child turned 18 in 1976. 

Once her children reached adulthood, Beverly began her writing career. She published two books in 1976. She wrote The Spirit-Controlled Woman as the woman’s companion to Tim’s 1966 self-help book for men, The Spirit-Controlled Temperament. The LaHayes co-wrote The Act of Marriage that same year. It is an advice manual on marriage, which quickly became a best seller within the evangelical community. Beverly wrote or co-wrote another 32 books over the following decades.

Conservative evangelicals like Beverly rejected the feminist movement. However, the women’s movement indirectly led to a growing role for women within the evangelical community. It was more persuasive to have a woman speak out against feminism than a man. Beverly was one of the women who took on an increasingly public role among evangelicals to talk in favor of women staying in the domestic sphere. To justify this contradiction, Beverly claimed that it was God’s will she did so.

Living in San Diego, Beverly found herself in the middle of a growing conservative political movement in Southern California. This movement gained steam among suburban housewives in the area, who transformed their interest in single-issue campaigns, like sex education in schools and banning books they thought to tbe inappropriate, into sustained political involvement.

Recognizing this growing interest in politics among conservative women, Beverly founded the Concerned Women for America (CWA) in 1979. Her goal was to make it the largest women’s lobbying group in the United States. She believed that women needed an alternative to feminist organizations such as the National Organization for Women (NOW).

While there were other organizations for conservative women, like Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, Beverly did not think those groups focused enough on religious issues and traditional Christianity. 

Beverly expanded the organization’s reach quickly and encouraged members to set up local chapters in their communities. She developed how-to guides for women who wanted to mobilize other conservative women in their communities. By early 1980, only one year after launching the organization, Beverly reported there were 52 chapters in 14 states. CWA’s growth continued over the following years under Beverly’s direction. By 1986, there were over a thousand local chapters in 49 states. 

In 1985, Beverly moved CWA headquarters from San Diego to Washington, D.C. She and Tim also moved to the nation’s capital, where he would work on his own conservative political advocacy group. This gave them both more political power on the federal level.

Beverly focused her efforts on establishing CWA as an influential lobbyist organization. She created a volunteer program that trained 535 women to lobby on CWA’s behalf—one woman for every member of Congress. She also recruited women across the country to serve as CWA representatives within their home congressional districts. 

Her successful lobbying during the presidencies of Republicans Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush made Beverly a prominent figure within the conservative political community. She regularly testified in congressional hearings, including Supreme Court nomination hearings for Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork, and Clarence Thomas.

Beverly retired from her role as director of the CWA in 2006. She and Tim moved back to Southern California, where he passed away in 2016.

• evangelical: A form of Protestant Christianity that focuses on the importance of the Bible and a personal belief in Christ.
• lobbyist: A person or an organization that tries to persuade the government to pass certain laws or measures that follow their beliefs.
• megachurch: A church with an unusually large congregation, typically one preaching a conservative or evangelical form of Christianity.
• Phyllis Schlafly: A conservative activist and leader in the movement against the Equal Rights Amendment. As a Catholic, Schlafly was not a member of the evangelical conservative movement.