God and a woman

In Sisters and Saints: Women in American Religion, Harvard religion professor Ann Braude writes:

An old saying among members of African American churches can be applied to most religious groups in the United States: “Women are the backbone of the church.” … Perhaps most important, they took their children to places of worship and educated them in their belief. Without such women there would be no new generation to sustain the faith.

And without their material and financial support, there would be no churches, synagogues or mosques for men to administer. There would be no clergy, no seminaries to train them, no theology to teach them, no denominations to ordain them and no ceremonies for them to lead unless women found it worth their while to support religious organizations. But no matter how great their contributions, women have usually been asked to take a back seat to male religious leaders.

Anyone who’s been in church since childhood (or perhaps attended even one Sunday service) knows that Braude’s description is correct. That’s nothing new. Women lingered longest at the Cross and were first at the empty tomb; so they’ve been the church’s backbone from the start.

Where are the women?

That was then, this is now. In 2024, assorted studies document a significant decline in church participation by women, especially those in Gen Z, a demographic cohort born between 1997 and 2012. If these trends continue, the declines represent yet another challenge for American congregations, especially Protestants.

“While substantial numbers of American males have been abandoning church for some time, a growing segment of younger females are now catching up with them.”

While substantial numbers of American males have been abandoning church for some time, a growing segment of younger females are now catching up with them. A recent Barna Group report indicated that between 2003 and 2019, female church attendance dropped from 48% to 31%, a 17-point decline, while male participation decreased from 37% to 31% over the same period.

Political science professor Ryan Burge comments: “One really surprising fact is that every birth cohort is less religious today than it was 15 years ago.”

A recent study by the Survey Center on American Life indicates that “young women today, at least on some measures, are less religious than young men. In our 2023 survey, we found nearly four in 10 (39%) Z women (18-27) identifying as religiously unaffiliated compared to 34% of Gen Z men.” By comparison, women in the Baby Boomer generation departed religious affiliations by 14%.

Writing for the Survey Center, Daniel A. Cox and Kelsey Eyre Hammond note that, in the 21st century, significant numbers of Americans, particularly males, have distanced themselves from organized religion. This new study “reveals that the pattern has now reversed.” Some 65% of women surveyed also noted that from their perspective, males and females were not treated equally in their congregations.

Cox and Eyre Hammond cited multiple studies indicating that those who disengage from religious communities generally do not return to them. They conclude that these losses, particularly if they continue among women, constitute a “four-alarm warning” for churches.

What’s causing this disengagement?

Students of this issue reference numerous reasons for such declines, external from and internal to the church.

Externally, the general secularization of American society is often seen as a long developing reality impacting females and males alike.

• Secularity is reflected in what I have called the changing sociology of Sunday, a day that now bears the weight of multiple demands related to family, travel, jobs, sports, among other opportunities and responsibilities.
• Ryan Burge observes: “There’s very logistical reasons why people leave religion behind. Things like getting married or got divorced or we had kids or I moved or I took a new job. Those reasons actually are probably more important for the average person than things like politics or religion.”
• For many, the COVID pandemic was a contributor to the declines. Some folks just didn’t come back.
• Even those who continue church participation may not attend as consistently as did individuals in earlier generations. With intermittent attendance, children and young people may have only occasional connection with church services, programs and Christian identity. Sporadic participation can make it difficult for younger generations to understand the church’s very mission, message and meaning.

Yet scapegoating secularism can distract churches from confronting the internal ecclesiastical, theological and communal reasons why certain female generational cohorts are disengaging from faith traditions.

• Some women indicate they moved away from religious affiliations because churches did not take seriously their questions and responses regarding the nature of Christian faith, beliefs and churchly practices.
• As noted in the Survey Center study, a significant percentage of women said their churches did not treat women and men equally.
• A recent PRRI study revealed a substantial number of females asserted their churches’ negative responses to people in the LGBTQ community hastened their departure.
• A Lifeway Research study from 2019 suggested some 5% of females polled left church because they did not feel safe and were disillusioned with the way churches and denominations responded to sexual abuse in their midst. Even that relatively small percentage should be taken seriously.

And then there is complementarianism

Among certain evangelical churches and movements, complementarian theology sets the agenda for distinguishing specific “roles” of men and women that dictate “authority” to men and “submission” to women in the family and the church. George Knight III’s 1977 book, New Testament Teaching on the Role Relationship of Men and Women, set forth the complementarian principle whereby women and men are spiritually “equal” but receive their distinctive roles from God as assigned at creation.

The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (1987) declares: “Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God as part of the created order and should find an echo in every human heart.” It adds: “In the church, redemption in Christ gives men and women an equal share in the blessings of salvation; nevertheless, some governing and teaching roles within the church are restricted to men.”

“Complementarianism is conceived as a non-negotiable, gender-consigned power structure mandated by God at creation.”

Thus complementarianism is conceived as a nonnegotiable, gender-consigned power structure mandated by God at creation. Sadly, the use of Scripture to support its dogmas often seems strikingly parallel to the same method of biblical interpretation (hermeneutics) used in supporting chattel slavery in America. New Testament texts mandating obedience to masters were combined with so-called curses on Ham and marks on Cain to support racial superiority and submission.

Interviews with women reared in this type of evangelicalism suggest that complementarian views were a major source of their departure from church affiliation. The current political landscape gives evidence that multiple forms of complementarian-like mandates have found their way into debates over childbearing, women’s roles in family and society, female health care and “childless cat ladies.”

On the day I sent this essay to Baptist News Global, journalist Ruth Graham posted an article in The New York Times titled, “Reversal in Gen Z: Christian Men Are More Pious than Women,” exploring the general shift cited here. Its focus is on Baylor University students and their response to the Baptist churches that surround them. In many of these evangelical congregations, Gen Z men outnumber Gen Z women considerably.

Graham cites Baylor history professor Beth Allison Barr, author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth who observed: “The complementarian turn has really reduced the visibility of women in the church. This generation is definitely more aware of that lack of women in leadership.” Yet the article also notes that while “many of the largest liberal denominations” ordain and welcome women, their “steep decline” suggests they “may not get (women) back.”

What does this mean for churches and their future? Surely it requires congregations across the denominational and theological spectrum to confront these generational realities, reexamining the nature of their ministries, their response to males and females of every generation and their “witness” in the face of secular and complementarian ideologies. If you think your church is immune, just wait a generation.

Studying these cultural and ecclesiastical trends took me back to the words of the abolitionist former slave Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), who addressed these issues long ago:

Some say woman can’t have as much rights as a man cause Christ wasn’t a woman. Where did Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, all women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again and now that they’re asking to do it, the men better let ‘em.

For the church’s sake, let’s hope women won’t give up on doing just that. Amen.

 

Bill Leonard is founding dean and the James and Marilyn Dunn professor of Baptist studies and church history emeritus at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, N.C. He is the author or editor of 25 books. A native Texan, he lives in Winston-Salem with his wife, Candyce, and their daughter, Stephanie.