New Statistics: Young Women Leaving the Faith More Than Young Men


When I was a farm boy I remember my mother coming home from a Bible study and she was not happy. "I don't like that Paul in the Bible," she said. It was years later I realized she was referring to writing attributed to Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:34 which says women should be silent in the church. This passage, like all in the Bible, is subject to the favorite Christian sentence which starts, "What this means is...." The end of the sentence always is about what the speaker himself/herself wants it to mean.

In many denominations women are not allowed to stand behind the pulpit and preach. In the denomination of my youth, Evangelical Mission Covenant, a vote was taken a decade of two ago which gave women the right to be preachers. I understand the majority of seminary students are now women. However, churches most often hire men so most still have male preachers and women who spent lots of money to become credentialed preachers are left to do something else with their lives. One committee in the denomination encourages the denomination's churches to include women on their hiring committees. (I'm not using the Protestant term "call.")

I've always wondered why the majority of church goers has remained women. Of course, some of the attendance numbers are skewed because an older demographic is more likely to attend church and there are more older women than older men. In the future, it appears women will not be the majority in church. Younger women now say goodbye to the faith more often than younger men. I've been going to atheist gatherings for over a decade and the number of women attending has grown substantially. 

The reasons denominations give for treating women as lesser than men is almost stand-up comedy. Catholic commenters of this site have justified this bias by telling readers, "Jesus had no women among his 12 disciples." We don't really know if that is true or not. No one who claims to be an author in the Bible has ever said he personally knew Jesus and, certainly, has not claimed to have seen the 12 men claimed in the Bible. Another explanation I heard on You Tube from a preacher in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is that Adam, a man, came before Eve, a woman. Therefore, men come before women in the ranking of importance in the faith. This LCMS You Tube site interviews women who hold non preaching posts in the denomination. All the women I have watched interviewed do not like their secondary ranking in the denomination. 

Women are thought to be important in influencing children to stay in the faith. Now they are leaving.  


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maybe the "Original Sin" Should be Reassigned

Image
We can all agree most Catholic priests are fine people and not guilty of sexual abuse. What Catholics must face, however, it that their church harbors executives who are dishonest . There is an incredible story about the Argentine Bishop Zanchetta. The Pope worked with him in Argentina and they are considered friends. Around 2015 Zanchetta sent nude pictures of himself and they began circulating world wide. He also was too friendly with young seminarians and some left because of him.  Three different officials say they made formal complaints to the Vatican about Zanchetta between 2015 and 2017. Yet, in 2018, the Vatican claimed it was unaware of any complaints about Zanchetta. This might be a good time to repeat the Catholic hierarchy claims to have the sole authority handed down from Jesus to what the faith stands for. It condemns as sinners those who practice birth control, have abortions and gay sexual relationships. Handing the hierarchy this responsibility would make som
Read more

The Religious Capitol Invaders May Yet Win

Image
So much about U.S. society and religion can be learned from the Civil War and what happened afterwards. After its defeat, the South started a myth about the unethical soldiers from the North. The South fought for principles of God and states rights. The North did not. It was the South, this propaganda told the country, that had the high moral ground.  The Capitol invaders, encouraged by Trump, swallowed the myth that Biden's election was stolen. Thus, they think they held and still hold the high moral ground. This was reinforced by the cross and prayers during the invasion. Even with Trump is gone, we will see political opportunists like Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley stroking crowds and feeding the same lies as Trump. Like "the South will rise again" these gullible followers will talk of victory over the unclean. After the Civil War the South rallied around the phrase, Lost Cause. For decades, and maybe to this day, there are ceremonies remembering fallen martyrs, Re
Read more

Father Frank Pavone, the Ultimate Crook

Image
Recently, the Vatican defrocked Frank Pavone. His diehard fans are outraged. This is because he cleverly manipulated his fans and the press all the while living well from donations and, apparently, abusing some women. By making abortion the "sin" of the century, and himself the main opposition to this one sin, he himself could get away with any sin he pleased.  As the link points out, Pavone was the perfect priest for the Trump era. Trump is so self-important laws have no role in his life. He felt accountable to no one. Women were there to be had. Pavone and Trump are interchangeable.  Pavone was very successful raising money. In his mind, abortion was so important in Catholic beliefs and he was so important in anti-abortion the money he raised opposing it was his to do with what he liked. The Catholic Church, the brand name he used to raise this money, thought the money belonged to it. When he gave the Vatican the bird, it gave him walking papers. With polls showing the majo
Read more