Why Women Are Leaving the Church

And why they should, if you ask me

It’s been over five years since we’ve gone to a church with a more conservative understanding of gender roles in the church (termed complementarianism by a bunch of men in the 1980s), and almost nine years since my own views on gender roles both within and without the church began shifting. I say that, but then again, I don’t know that there’s been a time when my views on anything haven’t been in some sort of shift, so let’s just rephrase that to say that it’s been almost nine years since I began shifting away from complementarianism and toward a different reading of, well, everything.¹

This morning I read a piece on a website I never frequent anymore.² Just from the title, it made me recall an article that I’d read on the NY Times earlier this summer titled, Young Women Are Fleeing Organized Religion. This Was Predictable. I’m a little over the insufferable eye-rolling that progressives do and implied in the “This was predictable,” but whatever. The piece posited that younger millennials and Gen Z are fleeing the church mainly because of conservative views on gender roles and “sexism,” and the various ways that shows up in the evangelical church (i.e. how sexual abuse is mishandled, gender roles in marriage and family, lack of female leaders, etc.). In response to the NYT piece, The Gospel Coalition piece begins by saying perhaps the problem isn’t sexism, but a decline in women’s happiness. Hmm. That’s interesting and unexpected. I read on.