As if the attendance at church hasn’t already been on a decline, there is an overwhelming gender gap too.
Males.
Although men dominate the pastoral and leadership roles, one quick glance at the congregation and one is likely to see more women.
According to Why Men Hate Church by Dave Murrow, today’s church does not mesmerize men; it repels them. Just 35 percent of the men in the United States say they attend church weekly.
More than 90 percent of American men believe in God, and five out of six call themselves Christians. But only two out of six attend church on a given Sunday. The average man accepts the reality of Jesus Christ, but fails to see any value in going to church. Almost every man in America has tried church, but two-thirds find it unworthy of a couple of hours once a week, Murrow notes.
The church of the first century seemed to be a magnet to males. Jesus’ strong leadership, blunt honesty and bold action mesmerized men. A five-minute sermon by Peter resulted in the conversions of 3,000 men. (Acts 2:14-36)
So what happened?
History
For most of the nation’s early history, almost all churches made no room for women to exercise any kind of formal leadership. The assumption was that the home was a woman’s “proper sphere” and that bearing and educating children were her primary duties. Leadership positions outside the home, including the church, were reserved for men.
The situation dramatically changed in the mid-19th century. The first phase of the feminist movement began in the 1840s, and women emerged in large numbers as Christian social reformers. They organized to abolish slavery, combat drinking alcohol and serve as foreign missionaries. A few even began to claim that they had a call to be ministers of churches. Jarena Lee, Zilpha Elaw and Julia Foote are well-known Black women in the mid-19th century who claimed such a call to preach. The first woman to be ordained in the United States as a preaching minister was Antoinette Brown in 1853; she was a Congregationalist.
Beginning in the late 19th century especially, churches in the U.S. underwent a dramatic change: a theology of the intellect gave way to a theology of feeling.
Christians argued less about correct doctrine, and began assuming that their faith was more a matter of empathy and acts of love.
Dr. Scott Seay associate professor of church history at the Christian Theological Seminary says the balance between women and men in U.S. churches began to shift in the 1960s.
“Men and women clearly had different roles in leading the churches up to that point – men as pastors and identified leaders of the church, who make the hard decisions, and women who nurture, educate, and serve in charitable ministries,” he said. “Partly because of this ‘division of labor’ in the early 20th-century church, membership and participation of women and men remained more or less equal.”
Pointing the finger
According to Research Indicating Recent Decline in the Western Evangelical Church in 2001 more than 29.4 million Americans said they have no religion. Now only about 40 percent of church attendees are men.
Experts noted for decades those few people who noticed the gender gap have assumed that men are to blame for it. However, some cite the church being the problem.
“I would say a big factor is that a majority of religious services and activities are geared in such a way that are naturally more appealing to women. A lot of activities are geared towards eliciting emotion, empathy, care and concern for others, which would explain why the feminine orientation is such a powerful predictor of attendance,” said Chad Briggs M.A. of the Department of Psychology at Southern Illinois University of Carbondale.
Briggs said males are likely to attend places that put more emphasis on male-related activities such as building, remodeling, hands-on outreach ministries. Also they may be attracted to those that provide more entertainment i.e. mega churches.
Historians and church leaders cite a variety of reasons, but Seay acknowledges that churches don’t offer much or demand much of their members.
“These churches usually don’t say or do anything particularly important any more. It’s easy for men and women to be bored, alienated and disengaged from the church. My own experience as a pastor suggests that women are more patient with the church when it fails to engage them, and many stay in the church because of the children. Men, on the other hand, simply write off the church when it offers them nothing particularly engaging and demands nothing from them,” Seay said.
Where hope lies
Arthur Farnsley associate director of the Center for Religion and American Culture at IUPUI said the trend doesn’t seem limited to religion.
“Some segments of Americans are simply disassociated from all kinds of organizational life. A lot of trends in America have made it easier for individuals to make their own choices, but these same trends have eroded a lot of institutions that hold people together. Church is just one of these. There are fewer social rewards for “belonging.”
Based on Briggs’ study, The Prevalence of Religious Service Attendance in America: A Review and Meta-Analysis, a theory that has received some support of less male attendance is the arousal theory or men’s need for more stimulation.
“Those who need more stimulation tend to be impulsive, risk taking thrill seekers. These individuals are more unlikely to find religion or religious services captivating enough to hold their attention or satisfy their need for arousal,” Briggs said.
Seay challenges churches to take an example from what men “do” care about: sports.
“It’s about sacrificing your very body, surrendering your selfish will along with your teammates for a cause greater than yourself. That is what Christian faith is actually about, but the church today rarely talks in those terms anymore,” Seay said. “Christianity as it is lived in most U.S. churches today doesn’t cost enough. It’s not challenging enough. It is too comfortable to be interesting to anyone, especially men.”
Reports show the majority of the student body in most theological schools today are women. In fact, at Christian Theological Seminary, the percentage of women students preparing for ministry is around 65 percent.
In the future, churches may have to face this reality or do without pastoral leadership.
“I don’t even hear many church leaders talking about this as a serious problem, but it is,” Seay added. “If we don’t even admit that it’s a problem, then how can we even begin to solve it?”
