During VBS is summer I felt very alone. I was the only man helping. All the volunteers were women. So where are the men? Is church that feminine? Check out this statistics from a recent USA Today article:
Women outnumber men in attendance in every major Christian denomination, and they are 20% to 25% more likely to attend worship at least weekly.
52% of women and 48% of men say they identify with a particular religion, and women are the majority in 21 of 25 Christian denominations, according to the recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of 35,000 people by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The survey found 39% of U.S. adults — 45% of women and 34% of men — attend worship at least weekly.
31% of men and 27% of women say they never go to church, not even on holidays, according to a new survey of 1,007 adults by Ellison Research, a market research firm in Phoenix.
62% of those who attend regularly as adults say that as children they went to church with both parents. If only one parent went, usually the mom, the likelihood of the adult regularly attending dropped to 50%. If neither parent took them to church, 33% now attend.
77% of women but just 65% of men say their faith is very important in their lives, according to a 2008 survey of 1,006 adults by Barna Research in Ventura, Calif.
Wow! So why are men so few in the pews? David Murrow, author of Why Men Hate Going to Church says we should “blame the church, not the men.” Further he says, "We've wrapped the Gospel in this man-repellent package." And from his website, churchformen.com, Murrow states,
How did Christianity, founded by a man and his 12 male disciples, become the province of women? There is a pattern of feminization in Christianity going back at least 700 years, according to Dr. Leon Podles, author of The Church Impotent: the Feminization of Christianity. But the ball really got rolling in the 1800s. With the dawning of the industrial revolution, large numbers of men sought work in mines, mills and factories, far from home and familiar parish. Women stayed behind, and began remaking the church in their image. The Victorian era saw the rise of church nurseries, Sunday schools, lay choirs, quilting circles, ladies’ teas, soup kitchens, girls’ societies, potluck dinners, etc.
Soon, the very definition of a good Christian had changed: boldness and aggression were out; passivity and receptivity were in. Christians were to be gentle, sensitive and nurturing, focused on home and family rather than accomplishment and career. Believers were not supposed to like sex, tobacco, dancing or other worldly pleasures. The godly were always calm, polite and sociable.This feminine spirituality still dominates our churches. Those of us who grew up in church hardly notice it; we can’t imagine things any other way. But a male visitor detects the feminine spirit the moment he walks in the sanctuary door. He may feel like Tom Sawyer in Aunt Polly’s parlor; he must watch his language, mind his manners and be extra polite. It’s hard for a man to be real in church because he must squeeze himself into this feminine religious mold.
Do you agree with these observations? How does the church change to make it more appealing to men?
