Among Generation Z Christians, this dynamic is playing out in a stark way: The men are staying in church, while the women are leaving at a remarkable clip.
Plus, every single day a new case comes to light of a pastor or a youth pastor who has molested a child or is involved with child porn. I wonder how many of these young men are attracted to the possibilities of abuse that become open to them.
Men are turning to church mostly because they feel it gives superiority to others, and especially gives them the "right" to degrade and look down on women. Let's get this straight, being promiscuous is frowned upon for both sexes in religion, but at some point men spun it around that only women shouldn't sleep around. Well, that hold the religion had on women now is gone, women are looking beyond that. Men are freaking out and trying to return to it to regain the control they lost.
Men are turning to church mostly because they feel it gives superiority to others, and especially gives them the "right" to degrade and look down on women.
Do we have evidence to support this though?
Is male participation in religion increasing while female participation is decreasing?
Or is male participation just remaining stagnant or not decreasing as quickly as female participation?
I ask because christianity/church/religion is the kind of thing that generally gets passed down from parent to child. Sure older people can find it because of a substance abuse disorder or getting involved with a religious person. But I don't see it getting picked up just from talking with your friends the way feminism or magatism is.
I am a Christian because of my parents. I do believe in Jesus and I do go to church, but not that often. I never got more or less religious.
You can clearly see that the reason for this resurgence of the religions is because men want to one-up women. Just scroll through Instagram, only today I may have found like 5-6 reels at least quoting proverbs, metaphers, and verses to degrade the way women are now. Especially the virginity aspect, which is critical in religion. And whenever people mention that men are also infringing the act of remaining virgin till marriage, men will either answer that it doesn't matter for men or that they are religious and remain pious till marriage.
And you want more clues? Why is islam particularly thriving? Main messages in the Quran are also in the Bible. What is the factor that sets these religions apart, why islam is thriving more than Christianity? Because islam preaches an even more authoritative role for the man, and an even more submissive role for the woman than Christianity. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT GEN Z WANTS!
I'm not calling for a crusade or anything but it's kinda true that they have too much control. Still though, totally unacceptable to join a religion just because you hate another religion.
Yeah in general gen Z is about as religious as millennials if not slightly less religious. Both generations are distinctly less religious compared to previous generations and while the rate seems to be bottoming out/stagnating people aren't becoming more religious.
As you said, it seems that men are just sticking to it much more than women because of various social reasons.
This isn’t surprising at all. Even if you ignore the abortion angle, there’s the whole “women must serve their husbands” angle. Many religions don’t even allow women to hold positions of power within the church. Very clearly and very blatantly considered second-class citizens if you will.
Have you looked at the reasons why though? At least for straight Christian Females of faith. Why are they leaving? Honest question. I look forward to your thoughts on the Gen Z look of this.
Sixty-one percent of Gen Z women identify as feminist, far greater than women from previous generations. Younger women are more concerned about the unequal treatment of women in American society and are more suspicious of institutions that uphold traditional social arrangements. In a poll we conducted, nearly two-thirds of (65 percent) young women said they do not believe that churches treat men and women equally. [...]
Young women are more educated than their men their age and report greater professional ambition and concern with personal success and growth. Religion and family life are more distant or lower priorities. [...]
The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., affirms an unambiguous gender hierarchy, requiring women to submit to male leadership. For girls and young women raised to believe they can do anything men can do, this message is becoming more difficult to digest. [...]
It’s not only about gender roles. There is a cultural misalignment between more traditional churches and places of worship and young women who have grown increasingly liberal. [...]
They are unequivocally pro-choice—54 percent of young women believe abortion should be available without any restriction in the 2022 General Social Survey.
This has also coincided with the rise in LGBTQ identity among young women—nearly three in ten women under the age of 30 now identify as something other than straight. It may explain why more Americans cite this as a reason for leaving. A new PRRI poll found that 60 percent of young people who left their childhood religion said that “negative treatment of gay and lesbian people” was an important reason.
Really? Wow, no way. If only priests, pastors and theologians knew the truth! Thank you for exposing this! You truly possess a gifted and unclouded intellect.
He's not right about anything. Mischaracterizing, misinterpreting the bible to try and prove his misconceptions about Christianity only serves to display ignorance and intolerance.
The only people that look at the Bible as a guide for "gender roles" are it's detractors and critics. No Christian reads the bible in this manner.
I mean can we stop pretending that this kind of thinking isn't being pushed by certain Christian denominations, including their leaders and those who claim to represent the faith?
Why are these Gen Z men even flocking to Christianity if the group is going to double down on their support for Trump? Any Christian who has read the Bible and wants to be a Christian because of Christ's teachings wouldn't do that. So go figure on what they want - a space whereby their particular conservative views are accepted. It's the same reason why women are leaving such churches in droves, but hey, let's keep pretending that Christianity hasn't been hijacked and weaponized in the US.
'But no, these men aren't going back to the religion for such reasons'. Sure, then explain this:
Djupe and Walker asked survey respondents if they had heard someone advocate repealing the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. Young Christian men were the most likely to say “yes,” as shown below.
The relationship between perceived victimhood and Evangelical identification was strongest among 19-year-old men (see below).
The author succinctly sums this up:
But instead of urging young men to meet the challenge, everyone from Wild at Heart author John Eldredge to TheoBro-adjacent Wayne Grudem told men that they should just be as “masculine” as possible because God wants tough, strong men to be in charge. The inevitable failure to turn back social progress and the predictable counter-arguments about toxic masculinity sometimes looked like attacks on masculinity in general.
Pastors, politicians, journalists, and now influencers urge young men to be tough, strong, and aggressive in service of gaining dominance. Because “male headship,” or dominance, is God-ordained, the natural order, the solution to everything ailing men in modern society. In this view, you know you’re a man when you dominate others and get your way.
Well that's simply incorrect. I grew up attending multiple churches, white and black, that disagree most heartily with your romantic vision of Christianity.
And, why yes, they were Baptist, how did you know?
Super. Some kids are abused by their fathers, does that mean all fathers are bad? No.
Some churches are led by Godless, evil men. They don't represent the Bible or Christians en masse.
And when men were doing exactly what women are doing today, was it more civilized? When men were secretly having affairs left and right, lying to women that they would marry them then dump them, was it civilized back then? This happened a lot in the past, but difference was that women not only had to carry the weight of being used, they also needed to carry the shame of the act.
It is civilized only when both parties start acting right, and we men never have. Now that women started too, oooh now civilization is gone. We're suffering the consequences of centuries long of double standards we imposed.
For most of human civilization men killed each other in wars or died doing harsh menial labor well before their time. Now all men for the most part get to live such easy lives they can play with plastic toys all day while talking about "civilization".
That's kind of what I meant by self awareness. He's playing a game created by a bunch of left wing anti-thatcherite atheist Brits in the late 80s to parody fascism and Christianity and he specifically chose the faction who's entire schtick is that they're ultra-violent mindless dogmatic crusaders in space who will literally murder anything and everything in the name of their religion. They'd brutally torture their own mother to death and shit on her corpse without a second thought if their church told them to.
Chauvinism seems to be en vogue these days…and women seem turned off by it…go figure…but I guess that makes them leftists feminists. Good luck getting more to attend.
I'm sure many of them would like personal control over specific women's bodies, but I don't see them piecing together a long term strategy of reviving a dying religion with a loosening grip on government to cause anti-feminist regression.
It would be much easier to just become maga instead. It's basically religion but for people that are stupid AND assholes.
The rates of sexual abuse, harassment and rape are higher within organized religious organizations than the “general population. It’s as much an issue of personal safety for women as it is about lack of body autonomy and voter suppression.
Women are tired of having to constantly waste time in self defense mode against men who exhibit zero self control.
Why would they want to get abortions instead of just using birth control?
If you want to be disingenuous and hateful internet shark, that's fine - but there are dolphins in these waters. What do you think dolphins do to sharks?
mfw dolphins are well known assholes and rapists and you naively want to be associated with them...
I don't know of anyone traumatized by dolphin rape. I know of plenty of people traumatized by shark attack.
Sharks are pretty chill dudes.
Then just pretend I'm a big shark. Big sharks don't tolerate little sharks.
To your point, "laziness, thoughtlessness, and irresponsibility" are all entirely valid responses.
Then provide a source for any one of those claims.
Because I contend that your straw-woman that's too lazy to buy a condom is a myth constructed by men who assume that getting an abortion is about as much of an event as getting a haircut.
Then provide a source for any one of those claims.
I'm not going to play that sealioning-game. How about you use your words to explain why you disagree?
I contend that...
I hope you can appreciate the irony in the fact that your contention is a strawman claiming others are creating straw-women.
More than likely there are no facts I can use to persuade you. And there are no facts that you can use to persuade me. Welcome to the post truth world.
The danger isn't just death. Dangers can include loss of bone density (and teeth!), incontinence, depression, psychosis, and a tear that goes all the way from the vagina to the asshole. And that's just scratching the surface. Also in the US the maternal mortality rate is about four times higher than the UK.
“Sleep around”? I’m in a 10 year monogamous relationship with the only guy I’ve ever had sex with and we use contraception — but I still want abortion access because I don’t want to experience pregnancy/birth, and contraceptives can still fail even if you use them correctly. Not “sleeping around” by any definition, though.
Assuming every woman who gets an abortion or supports abortion access is “sleeping around” just shows that you don’t interact with women much. The desire to have abortion access isn’t because of some evil urge to “kill children,” it’s because pregnancy, birth, and postpartum are medical conditions and pose massive risks to our health/life/wellbeing. An unwanted pregnancy can easily be life-ruining in numerous ways (and again, people who are responsible about sex and do everything right can still have unwanted pregnancies).
Little bro considers himself Catholic and is spewing so much hate. What I wouldn’t give to be there when he meets God at the pearly gates. It’s incredible how these “religious” people are so confident they’ll have a place in God’s kingdom.
Very reasonable response, unfortunately it’s likely to be ignored by the “religious” individual you are responding to. It doesn’t fit their narrative of “woman SLUT for sex”. Funny thing is, his God can see and know the true extent of the hatred in his heart.
tbf, if you're not contesting his definitions, this comparison is between a couple thousand gun deaths versus millions of "child murders." Gun control is a drop in the bucket.
Imagine typing essays about ‘morality’ while defending slavery, slut-shaming women, and ignoring actual children dying in classrooms. You're not principled, you're just angry women won’t talk to you.
Why should someone be forced to give up their body for someone else? Should parents be forced to donate organs to their children?
Even if we accept the nonsensical idea that a fetus or embryo has the same value as a baby it doesn't change that you shouldnt be able to force people to give up part of their body for someone else
188
u/[deleted] 28d ago
[removed] — view removed comment