Jessica Grose wrote a thought-provoking article titled “Young women are fleeing organized religion,” published in the New York Times, June 12, 2024.
She writes, “While over the past half-century, Americans of all ages, genders and backgrounds have moved away from organized religion…young women are now disaffiliating from organized religion in greater percentages than young men.”
In her piece, she reports reasons why women leave, such as being told they are to assume the roles of raising the children, caring for the home, and being submissive to their husband. Also, that women are often denied opportunity to serve as equal leaders in their church, having to assume subordinate roles to men because of their sex.
I filled with gratitude for Christian Science as I read the article. The founder of Christian Science was a woman, Mary Baker Eddy. Eddy lived in the 19th century, a time when women had few rights compared to men. For the most part, they could not own property, open their own bank account, claim their children, or vote. If married, they essentially became property of their husband.
Mrs. Eddy saw men and women as equals. In writing about the establishment of her church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, she said, “The church is the mouthpiece of Christian Science, — its law and gospel are according to Christ Jesus; its rules are health, holiness, and immortality, — equal rights and privileges, equality of the sexes, rotation in office” (Miscellany, p. 247).
In any branch Church of Christ, Scientist, I’ve ever been a member of, women have played a leading role. They hold the highest offices, perform in all roles and activities, and are bright shining lights to others. The role they play is not based on sex, but on love—their love for God and their fellowman.
Society at large has much progress to make in recognizing equal rights for women, and this influence can spill over into institutional activity, even into an organization that is founded on the principle of equal rights. But nonetheless, Mrs. Eddy’s church was founded on the principle of equal rights and equality of the sexes. It’s an organized religion where women have equal rights with men and can expect to excel in their ministry work, without fear of being held back because of their sex.
“Young women are fleeing organized religion.” By Jessica Grose
June 12, 2024
Mary Baker Eddy was a true pioneer. She was so far-seeing and in an age, and at an age, where women were not accepted as equals, as Evan says, she founded a religious movement. In Science and Health she states man as being “the male and female of God’s creating”. What an awesome woman she was and how grateful I am for Christian Science! My Mum found CS by picking up a Sentinel which had been left at her place of work by the Literature Distribution Committee of a local church. She later joined that church and enrolled me in the Sunday School at the age of 4. Many years later that church is still going, now as a Society, and I have been a member for over 50 years. Thank you Mrs Eddy for all you did for us. L. X
Beautiful Linda. ❣️
Thank you Evan.
If anyone can copy and paste the NYT article I would love to read it. Can’t open it myself as not a subscriber.
Recently I read MBE Christian Healer. Is really neat how she referred to herself as “mother” to many a student. She certainly has mothered me into divine Love, God, the only real Life there is.
By Jessica Grose
Opinion Writer
Alexis Draut, 28, was raised Christian in Kentucky. Her parents took her and her sister to nondenominational megachurches that adhered to a lot of Baptist and Pentecostal ideals, she said. As a kid, she loved the way every service felt “like a concert,” filled with music and light, and she made loads of friends through church. She went to Berry College in rural Georgia, a place that she described as “steeped in Southern culture, where religion is incredibly important.”
But even surrounded by believers as a college student, Draut began to question some of the values she was brought up with. Specifically, she took issue “with the sexism, with the purity culture, with being boxed in as a woman.” She couldn’t stomach the notion that “you only have these specific roles of childbearing, taking care of the children, cooking and being submissive to your husband,” she told me. “That was also around the time that Donald Trump was elected president,” she added. “So I didn’t want to associate with that kind of evangelicalism.”
Draut is representative of an emerging trend: young women leaving church “in unprecedented numbers,” as Daniel Cox and Kelsey Eyre Hammond wrote in April for Cox’s newsletter, American Storylines. Cox and Hammond, who work at the Survey Center on American Life at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, explained: “For as long as we’ve conducted polls on religion, men have consistently demonstrated lower levels of religious engagement. But something has changed. A new survey reveals that the pattern has now reversed.”
While over the past half-century, Americans of all ages, genders and backgrounds have moved away from organized religion, as I wrote in a series on religious nones — atheists, agnostics and nothing-in-particulars — young women are now disaffiliating from organized religion in greater percentages than young men. And women pushing back on the beliefs and practices of several faiths, particularly different Christian traditions, is something I have been reading about more and more.
Cox and Hammond wrote:
What’s remarkable is how much larger the generational differences are among women than men. Gen Z men are only 11 points more religiously unaffiliated than baby boomer men, but the gap among women is almost two and a half times as large. Thirty-nine percent of Gen Z women are unaffiliated compared to only 14 percent of baby boomer women.
The proportion of unaffiliated millennial women is pretty close to that of Gen Z women: 34 percent. The big shift seems to have taken place between Gen X and millennials, as only 23 percent of Gen X women described themselves as nones, according to Cox and Hammond’s analysis. They argued that increasingly, there’s a cultural mismatch between young women — who are more likely to call themselves feminists and to support L.G.B.T.Q. rights and reproductive rights — and the teachings of some of the largest Christian denominations in America, which are veering right and turning toward more retrogressive ideas about women’s place in their organizations.
The Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, may be the most glaring example of this tension. As my newsroom colleagues Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham reported last year, an “ultraconservative” wing of the church’s leadership flexed its muscles and voted to bar women from its leadership ranks, ousting several churches that retained female pastors. The final vote on the issue is taking place this week at the denomination’s annual convention.
“The crackdown on women,” Dias and Graham reported, “is, on its face, about biblical interpretation. But it also stems from growing anxieties many evangelicals have about what they see as swiftly changing norms around gender and sexuality in America.”
Melody Maxwell, an associate professor of Christian history at Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia, told me that it’s not really a surprise that Southern Baptists’ conservative wing rallied in opposition to women as pastors. Since the 1970s, she said, “the S.B.C. has been enforcing more conservative gender roles for women.”
This direction included the idea of complementarianism, the notion that men and women have different roles in life that are defined and affirmed by God. (This view is understood in a variety of ways, and there’s a good deal of disagreement about how it is interpreted.)
In a 2021 article for Georgetown University’s Berkley Forum, Maxwell explained that years earlier, Southern Baptists doubled down on a specific vision of complementarianism “with the publication of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, which proclaimed that wives should submit to their husbands and that pastors should be men.” Even so, there have been women in the S.B.C. who gained great prominence as Bible teachers and speakers outside of the formal role of pastor; several people mentioned to me Beth Moore, who left the S.B.C. in 2021 over its handling of sexual abuse scandals and many members’ embrace of Trump.
Over the years, reinforcement of conservative beliefs about gender (and about sexuality and in vitro fertilization, which, the president of the S.B.C.’s ethics committee recently declared in a letter to the U.S. Senate, “specifically results in harm to preborn children and harm to parents”) has set various denominations on a collision course with religious Americans’ attitudes about gender equality. The coming clash is evident when you look at polling over the past 50 years.
In their 2010 book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us,” Robert Putnam and David Campbell described the change in attitudes among religious Americans that began taking place in the 1970s. Religious women entered the work force at similar rates to secular women, Putnam and Campbell wrote. Perhaps surprisingly, “as Americans became more liberal on gender issues in the ensuing decades, religious Americans became feminist at least as fast as and sometimes even faster than more secular Americans.”
“By 2006, majorities of every religious tradition except Mormons had come to favor women clergy.” Further, the authors wrote, “nearly three-quarters of Americans said that women have too little influence in religion, a view that is widely shared across virtually all religious traditions and by both men and women.” Putnam and Campbell wrote, “While evangelicals as a group are somewhat more skeptical” of what the authors called religious feminism, “that difference is almost entirely concentrated among an extremely fundamentalist minority of evangelicals.”
Since Trump emerged on the political scene in 2015, however, the voices in this minority have become louder and more aggressive. Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University and the author of “The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are and Where They Are Going,” told me that the combination of declining numbers of white evangelical Protestants and Trump’s influence has encouraged some conservative Christians to become more extreme in their messaging.
These conservatives argue, for example, that the S.B.C. is losing adherents because it has become too liberal on female leadership, Burge said, and Trump’s rhetorical style has “given people, conservatives, permission to be as conservative as they want to be to say inflammatory things. And social media has allowed that to proliferate and metastasize in ways that it would not have 20 years ago, 15 years ago, even 10 years ago.”
While several denominations allow women to be ordained, the more that conservative attitudes about gender roles are culturally associated with Christianity, the more that young women are going to feel alienated. American religion is a story of constant change, and I think it would be better for society, and healthier for church attendance, for denominations to evolve. In “American Grace,” Putnam and Campbell quoted the historian Laurence Moore, who wrote, “Religion stayed lively and relevant to national life by reflecting popular taste.”
For her part, Alexis Draut has dabbled in other denominations over the past few years. “I think there’s beauty in all sides of the spectrum and there are good things in all avenues of religion,” she said. But ultimately she found she couldn’t get past the sexism and the limits to her individuality that she associated with being an observant Christian. “I’ve just kind of been focusing on my individual spirituality, whatever that might mean,” she said, “or even just not doing anything spiritual at all.
Thank you so much Grateful.
Thanks you for sharing this with us all. B x
Thank you for the article!
I have always appreciated MBE as a shining example of a strong woman who stood up for what is right and for other women and those with less power.
CS is all about love. Divine love. Love everyone. Years ago I had a bumper sticker that said Love thy neighbor. No exceptions.
Certainly Mary Baker Eddy was a great leader and example for all persons to pattern oneself”s life work .after. She never gave up on God’s direction. An obedient disciple and groundbreaker in religious avenues for sure. I’m so grateful for Mary.
It has always seemed bizarre to me that women (or people who are any colour but white) have been seen as inferior by men… when the opposite is so evident. However it seems as if this ridiculous idea was invented due in great part, to the allegory of Adam and Eve and versions of this story…therefore the world has tagged along with a complete lie! Jesus never treated women as beneath or subjugated to men and he is the example all Christians should be following.
Thank you Evan, and commentators, for reminding me to be ever so grateful for Christian Science and for Mrs. Eddy’s clear and spiritual interpretation of Scripture. It is heartening to see many churches in my community in which women are active leaders as clergy, elders, etc. I suppose those denominations who have not yet made that step adhere to some of Saint Paul’s teachings regarding women’s roles ? Thoughts on this would be most welcome.
Yes!!❣️
Thank you for bringing this post to us Evan…and thank you Linda from Cheshire, whose comment I entirely agree with.
I would like to just add that with the Lectures, the articles submitted to all the CS publications , plus of course Spirit View, we see how the knowledge and teachings of MBE is just expanding , moving us forward to more understanding of our spiritual being and the present day demonstration of harmony for everyone , everyday. Grateful❣️
Thank you, Evan,
Thanks Evan for attaching a very interesting article. It makes me realize even more that organized religion should not be affiliated with politics and vice versa. Ultimately, anyone seeking out spiritual understanding really wants to feel God’s presence, and to feel that they, and others, are nothing less than beloved children of God. I’ve always found metaphysics to be a comforting and positive way of looking at life. In every Christian Science church “God is Love” is written on the wall – that’s the premise, the principle…unconditional and uncompromising pure love. I so appreciate Mrs. Eddy’s receptivity to truth that is uncomplicated by dogma, bias, clergy with political views/agendas, etc. So refreshing.
I agree also that we shouldn’t be mixing religious ideology with politics -Jesus loved men and women and didn’t follow the Jewish idealology of his day. He spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well to his disciples surprise. . He appeared to Mary Magdalen first when he arose from the grave- while the men doubted. There is nothing in true Christianity that supports limiting women in any way .and our politics need to be careful not to adopt these religious views. “A feasible as well as rational means of improvement at present is the elevation of society in general and the achievement of a nobler race for legislation,-a race having higher aims and motives.” States Mrs, Eddy S&H p. 64
That is how we should pick a political candidate- by his noble and higher aims. Honesty, goodness, fairness, love for mankind. Then we will resolve the hard problems .
I wouldn’t believe everything I’ve read in the New York Times. While there is some truth in the matter not everything is worthy of belief.
Agreed!
Thank you all. Sadly there seems to some to be a turning away from God in general in society
today, with a focus on materialism, misrepresenting the spiritual – with a power destructive
to what Mrs. Eddy so rightfully wrote about in her discovery of CS, divine Love…where
taking away the motherly figure that nurtures and helps heal the division of matter-based
thoughts. Other religions which seem to be becoming more dominant to replace and wish
to conquer and worship men as being in control, with women being for submissive, obedient,
or subservient purposes – a backward way of thinking, imho. We are All Equal, regardless
of our “gender”.
Substance of True being is without chaos, disturbances. Mrs. Eddy so beautifully portrays
in her writings – where Everyone is equal, not a hierarchy of a mortal concept of mortals
in charge over everyone for control … over what we believe, and every facet of our lives,
what we do … but as Mrs. Eddy writes who our real power is with individual autonomy to
believe and worship in the way that we wish, that brings harmony and equality, that focuses
on Life, not death or materiality. On page 34 of S&H: 29 … (continued), “Our baptism is a
purification from all error. Our church is built on the divine Principle, Love”.
We, as CS, know what Real men and women are – our Identity, with the Father/Mother of
who we are spiritually and that can never be taken from us through deception or anything
that would disagree with us, as being God’s children – Equal in Spirit and Love.
The fault is in looking at the material body in order to determine what each person should do and think. Our Father Mother God made us all in the image of Divine Spirit. Each one of us is the complete, perfect image of our Father Mother God. It then is obvious that both male and female all have the same qualities to express. Each in their own individual way and each one loved dearly. Our body, clothing, hairdo, voice,are material and do not define our true spiritual self. We understand who we are by knowing all about who our Father Mother God is. Look away from the material.
Thank you, Claire. I agree.
Our God is “ONE” God, one Spirit, One Mind, One Truth, One, One, One. And so, we, as His/Her image and likeness, are ONE with Him and each other.
I, too, am very grateful to Mrs. Eddy for her example to us all and to Christian Science and its many workers, such as Evan, for continuing the right portrayal of the church created by God through her years of consecrated work.
Love your comment, dear Claire! So true – all of it. These thoughts bring us all
together, like Divine Spirit/Love in a way that is not opinionated, but is reflective
of One Mind/intelligence, including thoughts that see each other as all – being
representatives of God’s goodness, not as individuals who are seemingly not.
Material viewpoints point to matter in what they say or do and that does not
define our or their true spiritual selves, who are caring towards others, those
who are mourning, those who are hurting emotionally or financially. Opinions
often only tell one side, about what they see or want others to believe. God/
Truth tells Everything in the way God interprets Life. That is what is wonderful
about Christian Science, in the way Mrs. Eddy has shared it with us. Her writings
accentuate her role (as a divinely inspired woman) in bringing the Truth to mankind
to awaken humanity to the spiritual viewpoint. In her Mis. Writings, I love her
poems, “Woman’s Rights” and “The Mother’s Evening Prayer”, along with so many
other beautiful thoughts she has shared, which continue to bless us all.
Thanks for this alert and kudos to MBE. I would just add that as part of gender equality, we should be alert to and eliminate male-baised language, and replace words like “their fellowman” with “all people,” etc.
that was supposed to be “male-biased”
Comment is way tioo long from Grateful. Keep it short and sweet. Mimi
Oh, brother! How picky can we get?! We love our brothers (all mankind) and our fellowman. “Nothing can offend a whole-souled woman.” MBE
Wonderful, thank you Mimi!♡
Evan, I am grateful for this article and for all your spiritual views which let us ponder what you give us daily so lovingly!♡
Mimi, I think the posting by Gratitude is not a comment, but just the full article from the Times that Evan referred to. I could not open Evan’s link, so I was glad to read the article here.
Sorry, posting is from Grateful, not Gratitude!
Evan, thank you so much for elevating our thought each day and addressing all current issues.
Here is a long but great article from Barbara Cook Spencer:
https://journal.christianscience.com/shared/view/p24nn6hwa8?s=copylink
Also, the long comment from Gratitude was actually the NY Times article Mark referred to.
Excellent article Kathleen, thank you for sharing it! I enjoy reading anything written by Barbara Cook Spencer and have not read this article before. Perfect for this topic too.
The woman who sold me my first copy of Science and Health and became a dear friend told me that she became a Christian Scientist for two reasons. One, all the Presbyterians wanted her to do was to stand over a hot stove and cook chicken dinners, and Two, MBE set free slaves she inherited from her husband. She put her money where her mouth was.
MBE was advanced in her thinking, but did have advice for people of her time. The chapter in Science and Health entitled “Marriage” has comments both to have a more spiritual view of what was going on at the moment and the path forward of progress. A woman studying citations for CS class instruction late one night came to the quote on. p 59 about men not being required to participate in all the annoyances and cares of domestic economy, and women not being expected to understand political economy. When discussing this the next day, she told the class that when she read it she just said, “Oh hell!”and went to bed!” In my experience, it didn’t matter who was working in or out of the home (and this changed back and forth) I learned not to “unload” all the details of the day on the other, and to accept that each one was going to approach the work differently. There was no one right way to do the outside work or run the home.
When things get too personal, I just think “I’m not going to do it, He’s not going to do it. God is going to do it.” This works on a national level too.
Love this from MBE in No and Yes (page 45) from her book Prose Works:
“In natural law and in religion the right of woman to fill the highest measure of enlightened understanding and the highest places in government, is inalienable, and these rights are ably vindicated by the noblest of both sexes. This is woman’s hour, with all its sweet amenities and its moral and religious reforms.”
As stated in the 1st Tenet of Christian Science, “…we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide…”. [SH 497] How grateful we can be for this guidance by Mrs. Eddy and for Science and Health giving us the “Key to the Scriptures” whereby we can see beyond the limitations of human words to the higher, spiritual meaning. Up through the time of the Judges in the OT and in Jesus’ interactions with women in the NT, we see women playing a leading role in the church. Some of Jesus’ most faithful followers were women and some of the leaders in the early churches were women as we see from Paul’s epistles. The tools Christian Science has given us keep us from getting bogged down by irreconcilable Biblical contradictions and the minutiæ of their times to the timeless spiritual meaning of the Word.
Thank you, Kathleen, for referencing Barbara Cook Spencer’s marvelous article! (and everyone for your insightful, thoughtful comments). Evan, this post is truly wonderful!
Gratefully,
Karen