FORT WORTH, Texas – It’s a familiar scene: Women gathered around the table, talking about men, talking about children, talking about life. Some are barely out of high school, too young to know the joys, or hardships, of marriage. Others have been married a while, long enough to nod in sage unison as the woman at the head of the table talks about love, loss, commitment. There is no coffee here – the 20-somethings prefer bottled water – and no pastries. But there is a thirst for knowledge, a hunger rumbling beneath the scritch-scratch of pens and soft snores of the black Labrador collapsed in the corner.

If there’s controversy brewing here in Fort Worth – and some say there is – it’s not on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and not in this room. Nine women have gathered for the college’s latest offering, a female-only elective course designed to teach women how to better manage their households and, it is hoped, stanch the rising tide of divorce in the Bible Belt.

The class, “Biblical Model for Home and Family,” is one of nine courses, with others focusing on the value of a child, clothing construction, nutrition, and meal preparation, that make up a homemaking concentration Southwestern began offering female humanities majors this fall.

The move has attracted criticism, but Bible-based homemaking courses aren’t that unusual. Masters College, a Christian liberal-arts school in California, offers courses teaching women how to cook, manage time, and “joyfully submit to their husbands.” Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., offers a marriage and family class teaching wives how to meet their husbands’ needs and keep marriage exciting.

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Behind many of these classes are ideals as deeply rooted in the Southern Baptist faith as the oak trees that dot Southwestern’s lawn. The husband is the head of the household. The wife is his helper. Both are equal in God’s eyes, but their roles are not interchangeable. The Baptist Faith and Message, a doctrinal statement adopted in 2000 by the Southern Baptist Convention, outlines those roles clearly: “A husband … has the God-given responsibility to provide for, protect, and lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband….”

Dr. Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern, led the committee that wrote the statement of faith. His wife, Dr. Dorothy Patterson, the sole female professor at the college, teaches “The Biblical Model for Home and Family” from their home on campus. But make no mistake – though she lists “homemaker” as her occupation on tax returns, she’s a trained theologian as well, holding multiple degrees.

Seated in a plush chair in the couple’s expansive library, a glass of sweet tea in her hand, she commands respect. Ultimately, this is the message she teaches her students, respect for their husbands and for scripture, which she says trumps everything. Drawing inspiration from Titus 2:5, which exhorts women to love their husbands, love their children, and be “discreet, chaste homemakers,” Mrs. Patterson broaches no apology for the course. “These women are going to be pastors’ wives,” she explains. “They need to know this.”

Though women can choose from 10 program tracks at Southwestern, they aren’t allowed to pursue a divinity degree – Southern Baptists assign pastoral leadership only to men. Likewise, men aren’t allowed in any of the classes within the homemaking concentration. They have their own class – “The Christian Home.”

Patterson says while she believes women are called to stay at home, and that men prefer them to, it’s a choice that each woman must make for herself by examining scripture, praying, and discussing it with her husband. She says many women feel conflicted by the demands of work and family life as well as societal pressures to pursue a career. “The home has been so denigrated that women who choose to stay there are treated like they’ve lost their minds,” Patterson says. “But if you’re working for the people you love, that has to be at least as important as working in a restaurant.”

She and others believe more traditional marriages could also help reduce the nation’s divorce rate, which US Census Bureau statistics show is highest in the Baptist-heavy Bible Belt.

Yet others caution that both partners need to share common spiritual and ideological beliefs. “Feminists are right to be concerned about how this agenda plays out among nominal Southern Baptists,” says Dr. Brad Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia. “But this model works quite well for traditional religious couples. Conservative, Protestant, churchgoing women are happier than other wives, generally, and their work around the home is more appreciated than that of women who are not married to churchgoing, Protestant men.”

Others are far more critical. They believe raising women to eschew careers for tradition sets them back decades, if not centuries, and closes women to anything but “pink collar” opportunities, such as part-time secretarial work. “I find it appalling,” says Dr. Gail Streete, a religion professor at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn. “I don’t think it’s at all defensible given the fact we’re no longer in the first or second century. They’re basically picking and choosing to support what is essentially a subordinationist theology.”

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The sun slants low, casting long shadows across the lawn at Pecan Manor, the Pattersons’ home at Southwestern. Seated at the dining room table, Patterson speaks candidly with the students, using the book of Ruth and examples from her life to illustrate her point: leaving your comfort zone, submitting to God’s will, and committing to faith and marriage leads to redemption.

Scripture is paramount in class, and most students bring Bibles, marking passages that explain God’s plan for women and their role in the home, the church, and creation. Three other books are required, one detailing the principles of family, one focusing on the calling of wives and mothers, and the third stressing ways women and men are different, yet equal.

The students, who also take Greek, Latin, and theology, say they enjoy the class and are frustrated by the negative publicity it has spawned. “Feminists think we’re taking women back to the 1950s, putting that yoke back on us, but we don’t see it as a yoke,” says Emily Felts. “Being a helper is a beautiful thing, and we want to learn how to do it the very best we can.”

Still, she admits, well-meaning friends and family have told her she’s limiting herself by studying homemaking. Other students say they learn a lot, not only from Patterson, but from their married peers, such as Heather Dalton. Her husband, Billy, in his third year at Southwestern, is considering mission work. She attends school and cares for their two children. She says he encouraged her to take the course, and it’s strengthened their six-year marriage.

“I was brought up as an independent person, but when I finally stepped back from leading and became a helper, he stepped up and became a Godly leader,” she says. “I studied the Bible and realized I’m distinct and fulfilled in that role, and a lot of tension was just gone.”

The students say they understand how hard women fought to enter the workforce, but they should have the same right to stay at home if that’s what’s best for their families. “When both halves are doing what they’re supposed to do, there’s a balance,” says Ashley Mills.

The Basement isn’t a club. It’s a youth-oriented church service – part concert, part pep rally – led by 23-year-old Matt Pitt, a self-taught evangelist who’s been preaching his message of clean living, racial conciliation, and sold-out-for-God Christianity since 2004. What began as informal street preaching has become a full-blown enterprise requiring police, security guards, lawyers, and accountants. Mr. Pitt’s life has changed seemingly overnight, and many of the teenagers who flock to Birmingham’s Cathedral of the Cross to hear him speak say he’s changing them, too.

Jeff Malone, 18, has given up drugs and alcohol since he began attending in June. He’s also stopped hanging out with his old friends. “I just couldn’t do it anymore,” says Mr. Malone as he stands in the line of teens snaking toward the door. “Matt’s our age. He’s been through what we’ve been through, and he knows where we’re coming from.”

Zach Everett, 17, agrees. “I get a feeling like butterflies,” says Mr. Everett, text-messaging as he talks. “I feel cleansed every time I go, like everything I’ve done wrong is just dropped.”

Pitt is one of a new generation of young evangelical pastors around the country trying to reach out to kids who feel alienated by traditional churches. Mixing prayer and pulse-pounding music, the services speak to teens in a vernacular and environment they’re used to, often emphasizing personal testimonies rather than authoritative teaching.

“Kids today are savvy,” says Teresa Reed, a religion expert at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. “They have an insatiable appetite for what’s real. Consider the culture we live in – reality TV. They don’t necessarily want it canned and choreographed.”

Pitt also symbolizes a long tradition in the South of celebrating evangelists who people believe are anointed by the Spirit, instead of theologically trained, as a sign of God’s favor. Indeed, Pitt’s dramatic conversion – after a drug overdose in college – typifies the strong Baptist and Pentecostal influence prevalent in the South since the 1950s, according to Bill Leonard, dean of Wake Forest Divinity School in Winston-Salem, N.C. He says much of the appeal of ministries like The Basement lies in the dynamism. Pitt’s use of MySpace, YouTube, film clips, and other media adds to the attraction.

But in the end, Dr. Leonard says, it’s the personality of the evangelist that draws people. “The role of the youth pastor has always been significant, but it’s more so now because churches are desperate to get the attention of young people,” he says.

Services at The Basement open with roughly 45 minutes of hip-hop performed by local Christian rappers who whip the crowd into a frenzy, encouraging them to dance mosh-pit-style to lyrics like, “Jesus is my rock/ Jesus is my rock star/ Jesus is my rock/ And he’s totally cool.”

Pitt arrives onstage afterward, looking somewhat like a rock star himself as his lanky frame, clad in a black T-shirt, jeans, and sandals, is projected across two large screens. “Look at those Jesus freaks right there who are not ashamed,” he says, pointing to a row of gyrating worshipers. “Jesus is the only way. The Basement can’t do it for you. This is not about a man or a ministry. I’m just the messenger.”

Keeping it real is a big part of Pitt’s message. He addresses issues like school violence, sex, absentee fathers, racism, and suicide. He speaks openly about his personal struggles, as well as those of his family.

“I’m in the business of twisting ears,” says Pitt, perched on a bench in the lobby following a service. “I’m going to be as real as I possibly can. There are things I’ll probably regret later, but you live and learn.”

Pitt’s education began at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He was 20 years old, studying marketing and partying hard. Life came crashing down in October 2003, the weekend of the Alabama-Tennessee game. After a night snorting cocaine, Pitt was shocked to learn his parents were in town to see the game. He reacted by taking more drugs.

As he and his parents entered the stadium, Pitt collapsed. The next time he opened his eyes, he was in a hospital. It was the end of college, but the beginning of his life as a Christian. His parents brought him to their Birmingham home and spent two months nursing him back to health. In December, they laid down the rules: Straighten up or get out.

Pitt says his father took him to the basement – hence the inspiration for his ministry’s name – and told him he loved him and so did God. With tears in his eyes, he told his son how God had helped him conquer a 25-year addiction to alcohol. “I saw it; I’d lived with him,” Pitt says. “I knew his life was totally different, and I knew then there was a God.”

It’s a message Pitt repeats over and over to his followers. “You’ve got to understand how crazy Jesus is about you,” he tells them. “He can’t get you off his mind. He’s not mad at you. He’s mad about you.”

He encourages them to make better choices, to turn away from things dragging them down and be victors, changing the nation one Christian at a time. Services end with a dramatic skit and an altar call. As the lights dim, worshipers close their eyes and lift their hands in prayer, singing along with the music. Some kneel. Many cry.

Andrew Rape, 18, rocks in his seat, cradling his head in his hands. The crowd is thinning, but he’s unaware, fingers clenching and unclenching tightly across the top of his cap as he prays. While some teenagers admit they come to The Basement because it’s fun, Mr. Rape finds a deeper experience. He says he resisted coming at first because it sounded “like a party.” But after the first visit, he was hooked.

“My family has a lot of problems, and I’m caught in the middle,” Rape says. “Coming here gives me my own time and gives me the strength to go home. I just talk to God and get all my issues out, and it really helps.”

Sherry Brazee, 50, enjoys Pitt’s quirky analogies. “You can tell he spends time with God,” she says. “For 23 years old, he’s totally anointed.”

The ministry has grown from a handful of people in his parents’ basement to church after church. It’s gotten so big, he’s formed a nonprofit corporation, Whosoever Ministries, which pays his salary and handles legal and financial issues. “I live every day like it’s my last,” says Pitt, stopping to hug three elderly ladies. “I’m dedicated to this ministry, and it’s taken a lot of the kid out of me, but I’m completely sold out to what I believe. You only get one chance to live. I was given a second chance to spread the Gospel.”

While a few area ministers have questioned Pitt’s interpretations of the Bible, others embrace his services and style. Some, like Pat Perkins, youth pastor at the World Outreach Center, an evangelical church in Oneonta, Ala., even take their young members to The Basement on Tuesday nights. “Matt’s definitely reaching this generation,” says Mr. Perkins.

Wake Forest’s Leonard believes that, at some point, the lack of formal religious training could become an issue when people start asking larger theological questions. He says it’s critical for evangelists like Pitt to find people who can both mentor them and teach the converts.

As for Pitt, he says he’d like to go to seminary, but things are moving too fast right now. His eyes flit over the church lobby, distracted momentarily by the crowd. For the hyperactive kid who could never hold still, life continues to be a rush. But for now, he’s staying put, riding the wave.

COLUMBUS, Miss. — Ruby Jane Smith is perched on a shaggy floor pillow in the middle of her sky-blue bedroom, suede-booted feet crossed, head tilted, and brows furrowed as she tries to remember the night she forgot what city she was in during a performance. It’s understandable if the past three years seem a blur. Between winning her first fiddle competition after only six lessons, taking the Mississippi State Fiddler title, and performing at the Grand Ole Opry, life’s kind of busy these days.

Particularly when you’re only 11 and there’s a disco birthday party to plan and Lemony Snicket to read.

Yet if Ruby Jane’s schedule seems unusually crowded for someone who still has stuffed animals, it’s because she is something of a child prodigy – perhaps the South’s next great bluegrass musician.

“She’s born with it – all it’s got to do is come out,” says Opry legend Jim Brock, who has been training her. “At the rate she’s going, she’s going to be a top-notch musician.”

Last night, Ruby Jane enthralled a hometown audience with a performance at the Rosenzweig Arts Center here. Clogs beating out a steady rhythm, flowered skirt whirling, she blazed through a few of the nine instruments she plays – fiddle, mandolin, guitar, harmonica, banjo, Dobro, piano, drums, and spoons – singing bluegrass favorites written long before she was born.

Almost every performance results in invitations for others, adding to her crowded schedule. Monday and Tuesday nights are dance lessons, Wednesdays are the handbell choir at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Thursdays are violin lessons with Mr. Brock, and Sundays are the church youth group.

Tonight, she’s home – for a change. It’s a rarity she and her mother plan to celebrate by snuggling in bed with cartons of greasy Chinese food and a movie. For all her accomplishments, Ruby Jane is still very much a preteen, from the turquoise feather boa and butterfly party lights draping her mirror to the Johnny Depp and Napoleon Dynamite posters covering her wall.

Poised and polite, with a megawatt gap-toothed grin, she neglects to mention the slew of regional awards she’s won or the CBS Evening News interview earlier this year, when Bob Schieffer called her “the next big news in country music.”

In typical Ruby Jane fashion, words tumbling faster than her tongue can shape the syllables, she recites a litany of musicians she admires. Not surprisingly, Brock – who’s spent the past 50 years playing with some of the biggest names in bluegrass – figures prominently on that list. Since taking her on three years ago, he’s become not only her mentor, but a surrogate grandfather.

Their meeting was a combination of hard work and serendipity. Her mother, JoBelle Smith, took her to see bluegrass musician Rhonda Vincent in concert. Before the performance, Ruby Jane went backstage to meet Ms. Vincent. The girl was carrying her fiddle, as she always does. Vincent dashed through a rendition of “Boil Them Cabbage Down” and asked Ruby Jane to play it. She did – so well that Vincent asked her to perform it onstage.

“I was sweating because she’d never played that song before,” Ms. Smith recalls. “I was looking at her like, ‘You can run if you want to,’ but Ruby Jane got up there with a big old grin and played the fire out of that song.”

Brock was in the audience. “I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard about her,” he says.

Four days later, Ruby Jane’s mother called and asked him to teach her. “I’d taught in the past, but not in years,” says Brock. “My house is small; I’ve got no studio. It’s just a lot of trouble.”

He agreed to meet her at the Columbus Senior Center where he was performing. By the time she finished playing for the silver-haired crowd, Brock was scheduling her first lesson. “I went home and told my wife, ‘I’ve got this little girl coming over,’ and she said, ‘I thought we said we weren’t going to do this,’ ” he remembers, chuckling softly. “I said, ‘Well, I’m going to teach this one.’ ” Within a month, he stopped charging her for the lessons.

Since then, the young chanteuse has become beloved at the senior center. Ruby Jane says she has friends of all ages, from 2 to 82. “They just love her and want to talk to her for hours,” teases her mother, as Ruby Jane blushes. “At Wal-Mart especially, they’re like, ‘There’s my Ruby Jane!’ ”

Her mother credits her social ease with home schooling, which she says removed the limitations of generational constructs. An artist and photographer herself, Smith proudly admits that neither of them are conformists. From the moment she was pregnant, she tried to fill Ruby Jane’s head with as many good things as she could, reading and playing classical music for her while she was still in the womb. She wasn’t daunted either when Ruby Jane’s father disappeared in her third trimester. She simply moved in with her parents and made her only child’s life as rich as possible.

“I thought literature and art and music and poetry were so important,” she says. “I didn’t know what she was going to do. I just knew it was better than sitting her in front of Barney.”

When she began showing an interest in violins at age 2, her mother convinced a local teacher of the Suzuki method to teach her, even though the training usually doesn’t begin until age 3. Smith studied right alongside her – until Ruby Jane turned 5 and her skills surpassed her mother’s. When she become fascinated with bluegrass at 8, her mother put aside her qualms and spent six months searching the state for anyone who could lead her down this new path.

While Ruby Jane loved classical music, it didn’t speak to her soul the way this wild, joyful slice of Americana did. It was raw and expressive, deeply emotional, and inherently fluid.

“I can’t predict and say I’m doing any of this right,” Smith says of her parenting. “I just step out and do what seems right at the moment.”

***

Mother and daughter are at a crossroads again. Record companies are beginning to pursue her, offering contracts and advice. But at the heart of it all, Ruby Jane – reader of the Chronicles of Narnia, unabashed lover of chicken fingers and riding four-wheelers with her friends – is still young, too young for what’s being offered.

“I’m not selling her,” Smith says, taking a batch of cookies from the oven. “I’m not putting that kind of pressure on her. It will come, just not yet.”

With cheerful aplomb, Ruby Jane says she doesn’t mind waiting. She’s writing songs, exploring jazz, studying Latin and Greek, and – oh, yeah, trying to read all of Shakespeare’s plays “for the challenge.” Every spare moment is given to practice, from 10 minutes to six hours a day. “I don’t really have downtime,” she says, without a trace of ego or regret. “I’m always trying to accomplish something or get something going.”

Taking a moment to recite her favorite poem from memory, Rudyard Kipling’s “If,” Ruby Jane pauses to reflect on the poet’s admonition to treat triumph and disaster equally and dream without making dreams your master.

“Every show there’s something to improve on, but it’s not all about hitting the notes right,” she says. “I’d sit and play for hours.”

Indeed, her favorite word is “encore,” and it’s a good thing, too – a lot of people predict that the little girl from Mississippi is about to learn a new word: fame.

NORTHPORT, Ala. — The smell of fried catfish wafts across the wide front porch, up to the beadboard ceiling and then down, past the white clapboard walls and out beyond the cracked sidewalk to 30th Street.

At the edge of the porch sits a gaggle of girls, swinging their feet in rhythm with the steady buzz — 15-year-old Ken Davis is getting a haircut, and on a Sunday afternoon with nothing better to do, this is the height of entertainment.

He doesn’t mind. He’s hoping to turn a few female heads at Echols Middle School with his debonair new ‘do anyway.

Still, it’s a bit nerve-wracking letting a relatively green barber cut your hair, even if he is your best friend. Hunched forward in an old straight-backed chair borrowed from the kitchen, Davis tries to look nonchalant as Trendarius Lee, 16, drags the Conair electric clippers across his head in slow, even strokes.

“I’m actually pretty cautious about doing this,” Davis admits, rolling his eyes up toward his brows in an attempt to check out the progress. “I usually only let professionals cut my hair, but since he did a good job with my brother …”

His voice trails, interrupted by a flurry of giggles from the spectators. In a torrent of chatter, they explain how Lee is developing quite the reputation as a barber. Their words tumble fast and free as they finish one another’s sentences. “Last week, he cut four people’s hair. Four! All in the same day!” Their voices take on a solemn, reverent tone.

“One was even a baby.”

“Made $11 that day, too,” Lee says. “I didn’t charge for one of ‘em.” He bites his lower lip as he pauses to concentrate on a tough spot, then he steps back to rake a critical eye over his handiwork.

“You might oughta cut those scraggly edges,” Davis offers, running a hand across his head. “But people say I do look better with a little ‘shag.’”

As Lee alternates between two sets of clippers, Davis explains that one is for lining and one is for adjusting. “You don’t cut hair with liners,” he says. “Cause they only cut one way — bald.”

Davis will be in school tomorrow, and after that he’ll be at the Highway 43 McDonald’s, where he mans the front register. With any luck his new look will be a big hit.

“I’m just 15,” he says, standing up and brushing the hair from his pants. “I’m not going to be at McDonald’s my whole life.”

A mirror is called for and one of the girls leaps off the porch rail and runs in the house, banging the screen door behind her. The heavy perfume of greasy-good catfish fills the air and reminds everyone that it’s almost time for supper.

The sun is starting to set and all across Northport, people are shifting into evening.

Another weekend draws to a close.