In a First, Young Men Are More Religious Than Young Women [View all]

[Demovictory9]

https://dnyuz.com/2024/09/23/in-a-first-young-men-are-more-religious-than-young-women/

Grace Church, a Southern Baptist congregation, has not made a conscious effort to attract young men. It is an unremarkable size, and is in many ways an ordinary evangelical church. Yet its leaders have noticed for several years now that young men outnumber young women in their pews. When the church opened a small outpost in the nearby town of Robinson last year, 12 of the 16 young people regularly attending were men.

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The dynamics at Grace are a dramatic example of an emerging truth: For the first time in modern American history, young men are now more religious than their female peers. They attend services more often and are more likely to identify as religious.

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Arguments in other Christian institutions about women’s roles have been raging for decades. Some churches have cracked down in recent years on practices like women speaking from the pulpit. The theology of complementarianism, which asserts that men and women have some separate roles in marriage and church leadership, is resurgent. And many of these same churches are beginning to speak more openly about their conservative political convictions.

Young women, it seems, are moving past the debates — and out the church doors.

About two-thirds of women ages 18 to 29 say that “most churches and religious congregations” do not treat men and women equally, the Survey Center on American Life found.

Young women are asking more questions than their forebears, said Beth Allison Barr, an historian at Baylor. Her book “The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth” was a surprise best seller in 2021, sparking widespread conversations in conservative evangelical circles.