Crossroads Podcast: Where Are The Young Women Leaving Churches Going?
Before we get to the issue of modern women fleeing church pews, let’s pause and do something that — as a rule — I try to avoid when discussing matters of faith, morality and culture.
Let’s (#triggerwarning) wade into some political numbers. In a recent Pew Research Center package of survey data, there was this headline: “Partisanship by gender, sexual orientation, marital and parental status.”
Click that link to dive into the specifics, which are quite relevant to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, in which we discussed a USA Today feature with this headline: “Americans are becoming less religion. None more than this group.”
The big idea: In recent years, many young women have rejected institutional forms of religion. That feature noted, “Their pace of departure has overtaken men, recent studies show, reversing patterns of previous generations.”
That’s an important trend and a valid news story. For me, the question is whether that story is part of an even larger story, one that the USA Today team managed to avoid.
With that in mind, let’s return to that Pew Research package, in which we learn that:
— Men tend to lean Republican (52%), while women lean to the Democrats (51%). That’s a relatively even divide.
— Married men are quite a bit more Republican (59%), while never-married men are Democrats (61%).
— Married women favor the GOP by a narrow margin (50% to 45%), while never-married women are Democrats, by a wide margin (72%).
— Americans who live with a partner outside of marriage are much more likely to be Democrats, as are those who are divorced. LGBTQ+ Americans are overwhelmingly Democrats.
I wanted to find a poll that probed a potential divide between married Americans with children and married Americans without children, but could not find one.
The search terms are tricky on that question (but if anyone knows a good recent source, please put it in a comment and I will update this post).
As I said earlier, it’s valid to ask why young women are leaving organized religion. To probe that question, the USA Today team asked an all-star team of ex-evangelicals why they thought this was happening.
No one from the other side of the equation was quoted, even though you know there are researchers in traditional Christian flocks who are digging into that. In terms of journalism, this imbalance is rather like doing a feature on LGBTQ+ life and only interviewing Americans who are “detrans” or say they have walked away from living as gays or lesbians.
Moving on. Also, note that USA Today stressed that some of the young women hitting church exits “fume over gender hierarchies, the inability of women to serve in influential positions, or expectations of chastity placed upon girls. Others, they say, struggle with their church’s positions on reproductive and/or LGBTQ+ rights.”
That raises another old, but newsy, question: Are denominations that have liberalized doctrines on gender, the ordination of women, sex outside of marriage, abortion and LGBTQ+ issues experiencing a surge of growth? How about the Episcopal Church, for example (click for Ryan Burge post, “The State of the Episcopal Church in 2022”)?
Finally, the USA Today feature noted that:
Americans have been disaffiliating from organized religion over the past few decades. About 63% of Americans are Christian, according to the Pew Research Center, down from 90% in the early 1990s.
That 90% figure is famous and, I would argue, almost meaningless. This was a topic that, for two decades, I was able to discuss with the late George Gallup Jr. See this “On Religion” feature from 2014: “Three questions, three fault lines in American pews and pulpits.” Or back up three years and there was this: “God in the Gallup details.”
The overture on that one noted:
Decade after decade, the Gallup Organization reported some of the most familiar numbers in American religion. More than 90 percent of Americans said, "yes" when asked if they believe in God — a number has changed little since the 1940s. Nearly 80 percent insisted they are "Christians," in some sense of that word. …
Nevertheless, these poll numbers consistently failed to impress one significant authority — George Gallup Jr.
“We revere the Bible, but don't read it,” warned the famous pollster, in an address [in 1990] to the Evangelical Press Association. “We believe the Ten Commandments to be valid rules for living, although we can't name them. We believe in God, but this God is a totally affirming one, not a demanding one. He does not command our total allegiance. We have other gods before him.”
This is relevant to the current USA Today story. Gallup always noted — drawing on information from specific poll questions — that the percentage of Americans who appeared to be PRACTICING a traditional form of religion hovered around 20%. You can see similar trends in work by the Barna Group, for example.
The key: That 20% figure, give or take a little, has been consistent for many years.
What’s the point? Journalists may want to explore trends among Americans who are actively practicing a religious faith. What is happening there?
I will end with some of the questions explored in the podcast:
— If many young women are leaving traditional forms of organized religion, where are they going?
— Have many young women joined religious faiths that fit their liberal beliefs? Why or why not?
— More American women are single today (click here for background). Does this have anything to do with religion?
— Is the flight from organized religion linked to rising statistics, among young women in particular, about anxiety, depression, gender confusion and even suicide?
— Do researchers find that Americans who are married, with children, are more likely to be active in traditional forms of organized religion?
Just asking. Frankly, I wished that the USA Today team had asked some of these questions — to experts on both sides of this doctrinal divide.
Enjoy the podcast and, please, share it with others.