God’s Big Message at Christmas: You Are Not Alone, by Chris Field (Churches Need To Reach Out More to the Singles In Their Communities)

God’s Big Message at Christmas: You Are Not Alone, by Chris Field (Churches Need To Reach Out More to the Singles In Their Communities)

I have mixed feelings about posting a link to this (way below).

I know if you are literally alone – if you are a never married, divorced, or widowed adult, and you either don’t have children, or you are not on good terms with your biological family (or many of them are deceased or out of state), that it may be hard to feel positive about the message below.

Snowman

I  know it can be difficult to hear Christians writing “you’re not alone, God is with you” if you are, as I said, literally, physically alone in your apartment or home.

It would be nice to have an actual, breathing human sitting across from you, rather than have to rest in the idea that there’s this God in Heaven who cares about you, and have to take that on faith.

I do think Christians (churches especially) need to step up to the plate more and make more of an effort to include those adults who live alone, who aren’t married, who don’t have a nuclear family of their own…

Rather than doing things like over-focusing on nuclear families, and closing churches down on Christmas Day (yes, some churches have been known to (Link):  withhold services on Christmas Day, because they assume every one is at home watching their biological child and spouse opening presents under the tree).

Never mind that some sites say that (Link): half or over half of the American population is now single – singles out-number married couples, and that stat won’t be changing any time soon, all the focus on Nuclear Families is excluding about half the American population.

So, what are you members of churches out there doing to reach out to the lonely and single in your areas?

Churches, you can stop it any time now with slobbering all over the married- with- children couples already. The “Nuclear Family” has received the “lion’s share” of affection and attention from churches and Christian culture for far too long now.

Time to start acknowledging the single and childless among you.

Churches have been losing in attendance in the last so many years – if they want to increase attendance, it might help if they start focusing on single adults.

(Link):  God’s Big Message at Christmas: You Are Not Alone, by Chris Field

Dec 25, 2021

Loneliness a terrible thing.

And as is often pointed out, at no time is loneliness more poignantly felt by scores of people than at Christmas.

If there’s an upside to the whole COVID fiasco, it’s that many of us had the opportunity last Christmas to experience a little bit of what that’s like. Millions of people had to stay separated from family — and we quickly realized that it’s not so great.

And it should have served as a wake-up call for those who call themselves followers of Jesus.

Middle-Aged Women Face a Crisis of Discipleship by M. VanLoon

Middle-Aged Women Face a Crisis of Discipleship by M. VanLoon

IMHO, this situation is ten times worse if you’re a never married, childless (or child-free) woman over the age of 30. I started noticing by around my mid-30s that most evangelical or Baptist churches cater to “married with couples kids.” They ignore anyone who is not a young married couple with kids still living at home.

The lady who wrote the following, M. VanLoon, is married with 2 or 3 kids and is either in her 40s or 50s.

I’ve read her material before. She said that she didn’t notice how horrible churches ignore all non-Nuclear Family demographics until her last kid grew up and moved out, leaving her and her spouse as “empty nesters.”

But it’s true. Most American churches don’t pay attention to anyone who is single (never married), or widowed, divorced, or childless.

I did a post similar to this one over a year ago.

(Link): Middle-Aged Women Face a Crisis of Discipleship

Excerpts:

(Link): George Barna presents sobering data reflecting the quiet exodus from the church among boomers and gen x-ers. The data indicates it isn’t just millennials leaving the church but sizeable numbers of those at midlife and beyond.

In their recent book Church Refugees, sociologists Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope also bring hard science to explore the reasons driving this exodus among those who say they’re (Link): done with the institution but not done with Jesus.

Though the study includes people across all age groups, their work affirms and expands upon what I’d been hearing anecdotally: In local churches, there’s often a discipleship gap for older members.

Pew Report: Religion Plummeted During Obama Era

Pew Report: Religion Plummeted During Obama Era

(Link): Pew Report: Religion Plummeted During Obama Era by T D Williams

Excerpts

January 2017

In a new study of President Obama’s legacy, the Pew Research Center found that religious affiliation and practice dropped off dramatically during his two terms in the White House.

“When it comes to the nation’s religious identity, the biggest trend during Obama’s presidency is the rise of those who claim no religion at all,” Pew notes in a report released this week titled “How America Changed During Barack Obama’s Presidency.”

When Barack Obama took office, those who identified as atheists or agnostics along with those who said their religion was “nothing in particular” totaled only 16 percent of the U.S. adult population. On leaving office 8 years later, the non-religious in America now make up nearly a quarter of the population.

On the contrary, the percentage of Americans who say they believe in God, consider religion to be very important in their lives, pray daily and attend religious services at least monthly have all dropped during the Obama years, Pew found.

Single Adults Among Largest Groups Leaving Mormon Church – Parallels to Evangelical Christianity

I regard Mormonism as being a cult, not a form of legitimate Christianity (Mormons don’t believe in the Jesus of the Gospels, for one thing), but I think there are some parallels between Mormons and Christians, such as the over-emphasis upon marriage.

When your church makes an idol out of marriage, as Mormons and Christians do, it drives people away. Because sometimes people stay single by choice, or due to factors beyond their control.

And if you’re single in a religion that over-values marriage, there is a tendency to be ignored, set aside. Churches care more about marriage than singlehood. Churches care more about meeting the needs of married couples than they do adult singles.

There is no incentive for a single adult to remain in a church or denomination that marginalizes them constantly, or that behaves as though singleness is a disease or a second-rate life station.

(Link):  Who is leaving the LDS Church? by Jana Riess

Excerpts

We know, or can infer, some things about them from prior research. There is a correlation between certain life situations and leaving. This does not mean that being any one of these things will cause a person to leave, only that there is a relationship.

• Being single. There’s been some tantalizing research over the last two years about singles in the LDS Church.

The Eclipse of White Christian America

The Eclipse of White Christian America

(Link): The Eclipse of White Christian America

Excerpts:

• A once powerful demographic group is losing ground in American politics.
• For most of the country’s history, white Christian America—the cultural and political edifice built primarily by white Protestant Christians—set the tone for our national conversations and shaped American ideals. But today, many white Christian Americans feel profoundly anxious as their numbers and influence are waning.
• ..The key question is not why one white Protestant subgroup is faring worse than another, but why white Protestantism as a whole—arguably the most powerful cultural force in the history of the United States—has faded. The answer is, in part, a matter of powerful demographic changes.
  

White Christians No Longer Majority in U.S.A. (2015 Pew Study)

White Christians No Longer Majority in U.S.A. (2015 Pew Study)

Possibly one good thing about white Christians being in the minority is that perhaps they will re-evaluate how they treat marginalized groups, such as adult singles.

(Link): Pew: White Christians No Longer in Majority

• by Nick Glasss, November 2015
• White Christians now make up less than half of the U.S. population, largely receding from the majorities of most demographic groups, with one notable exception: the Republican Party.
• According to the latest results from Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape survey published Monday by (Link): National Journal’s Next America project, just 46 percent of American adults are white Christians, down from 55 percent in 2007.

American Churches Idolizing Fatherhood: Churches Want Your Dad, and Will Give Him Bacon, Guns, and a Grill

American Churches Idolizing Fatherhood: Churches Want Your Dad, and Will Give Him Bacon, Guns, and a Grill

Some Christians – even some Christian males – have been making the complaint for a decade or more now that “churches are too feminine.” No, they are not.

Most churches of the evangelical, Reformed, Baptist and fundamentalist banners, strictly forbid, under the teachings of “gender complementarianism,” women holding positions of leadership, teaching, or preaching in churches, or in other areas of life, including marriage.

Men hold all power and control all shots in churches and in marriage.

Therefore, if you believe the church is “too feminine,” you can blame your male elders, male lay persons, and male preachers for that.

Some churches have swung too far in the other direction, in trying to correct this perceived notion that churches are not manly enough, so they come up with these bizarre stunts meant to attract men.

Another problem with GC, gender complementarianism, you see, is that Christians who teach it, do not believe men vary or that they should not vary. All men should meet the same standards and have identical interests and personalities.

Gender complementarianists teach or assume that ALL Christian men must be tough, macho, married, have children, enjoy drinking beer, belching loudly around women, and viewing NASCAR and other stereotypical manly-man pursuits, which are defined by American culture and not by the Bible.

If you are a single man, a childfree man, a man who hates football but who prefers artistic pursuits,  if you enjoy listening to opera, you like visiting art museums or watching cooking programs on Food Network, you are not considered “man enough” by these churches.

This is another reason you men who complain about “churches being run or controlled by women” need to stop defending the very foundation (GC, which excludes women) that is maintaining your second tier status.

Guys like male, 50 something, celibacy blogger John Morgan (see this link and maybe this link for more about this guy) has written several times over on his blog that he wants or expects single, Christian woman to act as cheerleaders for celibate, single men. He seems to blame women for the plight of celibate men. It’s not the job of single women to be cheerleaders for Christian men.

A message to men who keep blaming women, or expecting women to clean up the mess in the church:

Female Christians are not your problem – it’s the men who run the churches who insist on GC who are your problem. 

Here is another article about how churches are too masculine – that’s right, churches are not “feminine,” they alienate women or else they alienate men who don’t fit a specific “biblical manhood” description that churches propagate.

(Link): Churches Want Your Dad, and Will Give Him Bacon, Guns, and a Grill by Matthew Paul Turner

Excerpts:

• Combating an image that going to church is too “feminine,” many houses of worship are coming up with creative ways to lure dads in on Father’s Day.
• …Believe it or not, Church Unlimited isn’t the only evangelical congregation commemorating fatherhood today with an all-you-can-eat bacon feast. Despite God’s firm rebuke of eating pork in the Old Testament, churches all over the country—from Nashville to Chicago, from Maryland to California—are using bacon to lure fathers into their pews. The church in California even made a commercial featuring (Link): a woman dressed up as bacon.
• But fried pig isn’t the only device churches are using to get dads through their doors. Churches are giving away grills. They’re hosting car shows. They’re filling their services with “manly stuff”. Last year, a church in Missouri gave away two AR-15 rifles on Father’s Day.  The lengths to which churches go to attract dads to their services seemingly have few boundaries.
• Though these promotional tactics are relatively new, churches acknowledging Father’s Day is not. In fact, the holiday pretty much started in the church. Though its organizers did not arrange their function as an annual celebration, the first known commemoration of fathers happened in a West Virginia church. In 1908, eight months after nearly 400 men died in a coal-mining explosion, a nearby United Methodist church decided to (Link): honor the fathers who died in that tragedy. The pastor preached a dad-themed sermon, one “etched in sadness as well as thanksgiving.”
• … And though it would be another 30 years before Richard Nixon would make Father’s Day a nationally recognized celebration, by the end of the war it was, by all accounts, an American institution.
• …But today, in addition to many evangelical churches using the third Sunday in June to celebrate fatherhood, among some flocks the holiday has become an easy opportunity for churches to try and coax men to give God’s house another try.
• Unlike in days gone by when church pews still filled up on Sunday mornings with dads of all ages, polling suggests that men in America have grown disinterested in church. In fact, among researchers who study America’s religious habits, one of the most talked about trends over the last decade has been the ever-present reality that (Link): a growing number of men hate going to church.

• Kevin D. Hendricks, the editorial director at (Link): Church Marketing Sucks, says, “People are always going on and on about church being too feminine and about how churches need to do more work to attract men.” He adds, “It’s pretty ironic, given the patriarchy of the church.”

• …Nate Pyle, author of Man Enough and a pastor of Christ’s Community Church located outside of Indianapolis, agrees with Hendricks. “By making [Father’s Day] all about bacon, giving away guns, or bringing in the local sports hero, churches hope to attract men by proving that churches can be masculine. But these macho activities are simply acquiescing to cultural ideals gathering than letting the gospel shape what we say and do.”

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Related Posts:

(Link):   The “Feminization” of the Church by K R Wordgazer

(Link):  The Masculinity Myth: The Real Reason Men Don’t Go to Church by the Evangelical Pulpit

(Link):  Americans Idolize Fatherhood – Enough with the Pro Fatherhood Editorials or Claiming Anti Father Persecution, says writer

(Link): The Irrelevancy To Single or Childless or Childfree Christian Women of Biblical Gender Complementarian Roles / Biblical Womanhood Teachings

(Link):  Church must avoid becoming Fight Club to attract men by H. Coffey

(Link): There Are No “Biblical Men” by B. Robertson

(Link): Why Men Don’t Go To Church

(Link): New father killed his five-week-old son by slamming his face into cot because he felt fatherhood meant ‘his life was over’

(Link): Un-Happy Father’s Day!

(Link): Why men are boycotting marriage, fatherhood and the American Dream (article by Matt K. Lewis)

(Link): Do You Rate Your Family Too High? (Christians Who Idolize the Family) (article)

(Link): The Isolating Power of Family-Centered Language (How churches exclude singles and the childless) by E A Dause

(Link): If the Family is Central Christ is Not

Baptists Still Advocating Unbiblical Bedroom Evangelism as Growth Strategy (2015)

Baptists Still Advocating Unbiblical Bedroom Evangelism as Growth Strategy (2015)

While the Bible does not speak against a married Christian couple having children and raising them to hopefully be Christians, the Bible nowhere advocates “bedroom evangelism,” yet I continue to see Christians promoting this notion, which marginalizes people who are unmarried, child free, or infertile.

The Bible’s main approach to evangelization is to tell believers to go to other towns and cities and spread the Gospel. The Bible does not tell Christians to marry and make babies and raise babies as Christians.

To put this much attention on to procreation and marriage is to exclude infertile Christians, the divorced, widows, the child free (couples who choose not to have children) and the never married.

It is to tell the divorced, never married, widows, the child free, and the infertile and anyone else who does not fit the “Married with Kids” trope that spreading the Gospel is not for them, it is a task only for married couples who are fertile and who want to have children.

(Link): Here are three reasons why Southern Baptists are on the decline

Excerpt:

• By Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins
• June 16 2015
• But evangelism is multifaceted. It includes everything from planting new churches to bringing up children in the faith.
• Retention is especially important for generational continuity in churches.
• Although Pew’s numbers suggest that evangelicals do tend to replace those they lose with new members, virtually all churches depend upon “children of the church” – people raised in Christian families – for the bulk of their members.
• SBC churches need to make sure its parents are equipped to explain and model the Christian life to their children.

This authors, who are presumably Baptist, I take it – are in error to encourage Baptist growth by Baptist biological procreation.

They should instead be telling all Baptists, whether single, divorced, infertile, or childfree, to tell their Non Christian neighbors about Jesus.

They do, earlier, discuss the following:

• Few [Christians] tell others about their faith, or invite co-workers and neighbors to church

But then the authors follow that paragraph with the one I excerpted above, advocating for bedroom evangelization. The solution is not for Christians to marry and have children, but for Christians of all martial statuses to share their faith with Non-Christians.

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Related Posts:

(Link):  If the Family Is Central, Christ Isn’t, by John B. Carpenter, CP Guest Contributor

(Link):  Conservatives and Christians Fretting About U.S. Population Decline – We Must “Out-breed” Opponents Christian Host Says

(Link):  Really, It’s Okay To Be Single – In order to protect marriage, we should be careful not to denigrate singleness – by Peter Chin

(Link):  Southern Baptist Leaders Highlight Benefits Of Youthful Matrimony – Southern Baptists downplay adult singleness, uphold trope that virginity past 25 is impossible etc

(Link):  “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” – one of the most excellent Christian rebuttals I have seen against the Christian idolatry of marriage and natalism, and in support of adult singleness and celibacy – from CBE’s site

(Link):  Southern Baptists open to reaching out to LGBT – but still don’t give a flying leap about HETERO CELIBATE UNMARRIED ADULTS

(Link):  Southern Baptists Pushing Early Marriage, Baby Making – Iranians Pushing Mandatory Motherhood – When Christians Sound Like Muslims

(Link):   Typical Erroneous Teaching About Adult Celibacy Rears Its Head Again: To Paraphrase Speaker at Ethics and Public Policy Center: Lifelong Celibacy is “heroic ethical standard that is not expected of heteros, so it should not be expected of homosexuals”

(Link): Southern Baptists (who don’t TRULY support sexual purity) Announce 2014 Sex Summit

(Link): Southern Baptist’s New Sexist “Biblical Woman” Site – Attitudes in Total Face Palm of a Site One Reason Among Many This Unmarried and Childless Woman Is Saying Toodle-Oo to Christianity

(Link): Southern Baptists – Still Majoring in the Minors and ignoring the never married (singles) – Why Church Membership is Down

(Link): Never Married Christians Over Age 35 who are childless Are More Ignored Than Divorced or Infertile People or Single Parents

(Link): Southern Baptists Perpetuate Myths About Genders, Sex, and Adult Singles at 2014 ERLC Summit – All Women Are harlots, men cannot control themselves

(Link): Divorce Rates in America Decreasing But Divorce Rates on Increase Among Southern Baptists

(Link): Are Marriage and Family A Woman’s Highest Calling? by Marcia Wolf – and other links that address the Christian fallacy that a woman’s most godly or only proper role is as wife and mother

(Link):  Are Single People the Lepers of Today’s Church? by Gina Dalfonzo

(Link):  Biblical Womanhood Does Not Hinge Upon Marital Status or Parenthood – also: Christians who portray all women as sexual temptresses – by S. Burden

A Response To J D Hall’s Vomit-tastic Post about Village Church’s Handling of Certain Members, Covenants, and Marriages

A Response To J D Hall’s Vomit-tastic Post about Village Church’s Handling of Certain Members, Covenants, and Marriages 

Before we get to the post by J D Hall:

Background:

• The Village Church (TVC) of Texas has placed Karen, who was once a member of theirs, under church discipline because she did not, according to them, abide by the church covenant she signed.
• Instead of conferring with the church on what to do, Karen, on her own, sought an annulment from the state of Texas, once she discovered her then-spouse, Jordan, was a pedophile.
• Karen said she spent about 50 days conferring with other Christians (not from the TVC), and in prayer, mulling over what to do, before seeking the annulment.
• This action of hers has ticked off TVC leadership, because Karen did not get their permission to get the annulment.
• Matt Chandler is the lead preacher of TVC.

You can read additional reporting of this situation here (additional material is at the bottom of this post):

• (Link, off site): She Wanted an Annulment from a Pedophile. What Happened Next Ignited a Controversy

Here is the page I am responding to:

(Link, off site): A Rational Response to the Criticism of Village Church  by  J D Hall, Pulpit and Pen blog

The covenant that Hall is so rigorously defending – TVC’s membership covenant – here does not even mention annulments.

As Karen explains (off site Link, Source):

• …it is worth noting here that although The Village Church claims [in their e-mail] that “We see an annulment as a subcategory of what Scripture defines as a divorce in Mark 10:9” …, this cannot be found anywhere in their Membership Covenant or Bylaws.
• In signing their Membership Covenant shortly after my 24^th birthday, I had agreed to nothing in regards to the possibility of annulment should I come to realize that my marriage had been a complete sham from the beginning.
• There is a vast difference between a divorce and a marriage that is voided on the grounds of fraud, and I had no way of knowing that the leadership of The Village Church would respond to it in this fashion.

Why more young women than ever before are skipping church (article from Wash Post)

Why more young women than ever before are skipping church (article from Wash Post)

I wish articles would stop focusing on “young” women. Women over the age of 30, 40, 50 and older are also dropping out of church in droves, and one reason among many are the restrictive gender roles a lot of conservative churches continue to uphold as being “God’s design” or as being “biblical” (but which are not biblical).

Here are excerpts:

(Link):  Why more young women than ever before are skipping church

• by Danielle Paquette May 27 at 10:2
• Growing up in southeastern Indiana, Hannah Hunt questioned religion: Why did church lessons contradict what she learned in public school?

• She attended services once each Wednesday and twice each Sunday. She saw no female leaders in the nondenominational Church of Christ, the centerpiece of her upbringing. The Bible, she said, called for her to be submissive to men.

• Her textbooks introduced her to Gloria Steinem.

• “At church, the woman would be the person in the background,” said Hunt, 24. “As long as I can remember, I would think: This is ridiculous. I’m not that person.”

• Of course, many young women still embrace religion. But Hunt is far from a generational anomaly.

• … Teenage girls appear to be disproportionately driving the attitude shift.
• …Today’s young adults, they found, aren’t as pious as their generational precursors. They’re less likely, on average, to pray or attend religious services. They’re more likely to value individualism and ditch societal expectations.
• Twice as many high school seniors in 2010, for example, reported “never” attending religious services than those in 1976 — 21 percent, up from about 10 percent…
• A recent Pew survey found that millennials, born between roughly 1980 and 1996, are more likely than any previous generation to say they’re unaffiliated with religion:…
• …The majority, however, still practice some form of religion. They’re just “significantly less religiously oriented” than their parents and grandparents, the study said.

  The trend is especially pronounced among girls and young women. They are still more likely to say they go to church or pray than boys and young men. But the gender gap in religious participation has in recent years significantly shrunk.

• …“Given shifts away from traditional female roles, females may have been affected more than males,” the study team wrote.
• …“Many religions have a very patriarchal tradition,” Twenge said. “Even for those with female clergy it’s often a recent development. That’s still very much in the minority.”

  Beyond anecdotal evidence, it’s tough to explain the trends. Religion can provide social support and a sense of community. Followers may find purpose and peace in the world’s exalted texts. However, the authors theorize, “if religion is perceived as a dominating force that restricts freedom and enforces social rules, this will be linked with a decline in religious involvement.”

• Before she could articulate why, Hunt sensed she did not fit into the gender roles prescribed by her religion. She thought women should be able to use birth control without judgment. She wasn’t in any rush to get married. She wanted to decide the terms of her life.

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Related Posts:

(Link):  Southern Baptist’s New Sexist “Biblical Woman” Site – Attitudes in Total Face Palm of a Site One Reason Among Many This Unmarried and Childless Woman Is Saying Toodle-Oo to Christianity

(Link):  Why are Working Women Starting to Unplug from Their Churches? by Sandra Crawford Williamson (Also discusses never married adult women)

(Link):  Are Marriage and Family A Woman’s Highest Calling? by Marcia Wolf – and other links that address the Christian fallacy that a woman’s most godly or only proper role is as wife and mother

(Link): The Irrelevancy To Single or Childless or Childfree Christian Women of Biblical Gender Complementarian Roles / Biblical Womanhood Teachings

(Link): If the Family Is Central, Christ Isn’t

(Link):  The Rise of the Lone She-Wolf by Charlotte Alter

(Link): Is The Church Failing Childless Women? by Diane Paddison

(Link): Lies The Church Tells Single Women (by Sue Bohlin)

Pastor Jim Staley Confesses to Cheating Elderly Investors Out of $3.3M and Pocketing $570K for Himself

Pastor Jim Staley Confesses to Cheating Elderly Investors Out of $3.3M and Pocketing $570K for Himself

And notice that this guy’s church or ministry is called “Passion For Truth.” He is anything but truthful.

(Link): Pastor Jim Staley Confesses to Cheating Elderly Investors Out of $3.3M and Pocketing $570K for Himself

BY LEONARDO BLAIR , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER

May 1, 2015|6:26 pm

Passion for Truth Ministries Pastor Jim Stanley, 40, who told his St. Charles, Missouri, congregation last summer that he didn’t realize he had been arrested after a federal grand jury indicted him last June for defrauding investors, admitted in federal court Thursday that he cheated his elderly victims out of $3.3 million while making $570,000 for himself.

In a courtroom packed with supporters, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Staley, who owned a financial consulting form, pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud rather than taking his case to trial. He admitted that he cheated 16 investors, and his defense attorney, Scott Rosenblum, says his client was ashamed and “completely accepted responsibility.” The attorney stressed that the crime “had nothing to do with his role as a pastor.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Dianna Collins said some of the investors trusted Staley because he was a “nice religious man” who referred to several of them as “Grandma.”

“Seniors tend to be more trusting and give people the benefit of the doubt, particularly people who hold themselves out as religious leaders,” said Collins.

At his sentencing on July 29, Staley will face six to eight years in prison. His attorneys will reportedly ask for less.

Regarding:

“The attorney stressed that the crime “had nothing to do with his role as a pastor.””

Oh yes, buddy, yes it does have everything to do with him being a pastor and claiming the name of Christ.

From the Bible, in describing people in positions of leadership in the church, 1 Tim 3.2

It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do.

2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money..

More Women Are Leaving Behind Religious Identities For Something More Spiritual

More Women Are Leaving Behind Religious Identities For Something More Spiritual

(Link): More Women Are Leaving Behind Religious Identities For Something More Spiritual

Excerpt

• Religion News Service  |  By Cathy Lynn Grossman

• Posted: 02/20/2015 4:29 pm EST Updated: 02/20/2015 4:59 pm EST
• (RNS) Nadia Bulkin, 27, the daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, spends “zero time” thinking about God.

  And she finds that among her friends — both guys and gals — many are just as spiritually disconnected.

  Surveys have long shown women lead more active lives of faith than men, and that millennials are less interested than earlier generations. One in three now claim no religious identity.

  What may be new is that more women, generation by generation, are moving in the direction of men — away from faith, religious commitment, even away from vaguely spiritual views like “a deep sense of wonder about the universe,” according to some surveys.

  Michaela Bruzzese, 46, is a Mass-every-week Catholic, just like her mother, but she sees few of her Gen X peers in the pews.

  “I have women friends who grew up Catholic who think my choice to stay Catholic is like I choose to keep believing in Santa Claus. They just don’t get what is in the church for me,” said Bruzzese.

  “For me, Catholicism is a verb — it is the action of being in the world and trying to live the gospel,” said Bruzzese, who teaches theology at a Catholic high school in Albuquerque, N.M. Many of her students go home to parents who no longer observe the faith.

• In 1974, CARA research found 46 percent of men and 45 percent of women considered themselves to be “strong Catholics.” By 2012, both groups had dropped significantly on that question — men to 24 percent and women to 30 percent.

  On the rise: Those who call themselves “not very strong” Catholics. That self-description by men climbed to 67 percent in 2012, up from 44 percent 1974. Among women, 57 percent said their faith was “not very strong,” up from 43 percent 40 years ago.

• …Bulkin was born in Indonesia then moved to Nebraska when she was 11. Today, her mother, a self-proclaimed atheist, attends a Unitarian Universalist congregation. But Bulkin, a consultant in Washington, D.C., is more inclined to use her Sunday morning for a calming yoga class.
• “Sometimes I do say I’m spiritual but not religious, but it depends on your definition,” said Bulkin. “I’m more an agnostic when I think about it. But I spend zero time thinking about it.”

• Her male friends who do claim a religious identity are more culturally attached than religious, she said. “I know more girls who are religious Christians who struggle to find a guy who is the same.”

• …Woolever also points to the marriage rate as an influence in religiosity, if not necessarily spirituality. “It’s married women who go to church and they take their kids. Certainly single women go to church, too, but at a much lower rate,” said Woolever.
• Protestant scholar and author Phyllis Tickle, 80, who has observed American spirituality for decades, also cited the changing cultural context of women’s lives.
• “In evangelical and even in some progressive parts of Christianity, women are getting very mixed signals,” said Tickle. “There is a view that a woman should be subordinate on Sunday, equal to men the five workdays of the week and Saturday is up for grabs. She’s told at home and at church the man is to be the ‘servant leader,’ but then she goes to work where she has to be as tough as the guys to succeed.”
• Tickle called it “religiously imposed schizophrenia. My generation didn’t have the pressure to be the perfect wife and the perfect professional. It doesn’t leave you any time for spirituality — or any internal time at all. Whatever the female of the 22nd century is going to be spiritually, we just don’t know,” Tickle said.

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(Link):  Why are Working Women Starting to Unplug from Their Churches? by Sandra Crawford Williamson (Also discusses never married adult women)