Church Attendance - It's All Feminism's Fault

This appeared just before Christmas in the Globe and Mail's Opinion Section.

Apparently Michael Valpy has bought into the neo-fundamentalist line that the reason that attendance at churches has largely dropped in Canada since young women turned away from the churches some forty odd years ago.

But with research showing mothers to be the prime influencers of their offspring's religious behaviour, it remains the rejection of the church by young women 40 years ago that was so catastrophic. Their children never came through the doors.

There is little doubt that feminism and conservative christianity have clashed over the decades. However, it is indeed simplistic and outright silly to apply a single cause explanation to something as complex as a societal shift such as what Valpy is addressing.

The various alternate explanations Valpy explores all suffer from a fundamental omission - that of a growing availability of advanced education and concrete knowledge of the world around us becoming commonly available for the public.

Think on it for a few minutes, and you start to realize that as people become more educated and critical in their thinking, often the less they need the kind of guidance that the Christian Church has traditionally provided. {This isn't to say that there aren't educated people who are religious}

Additionally, as an increasing body of evidence calls into question statements that are made in scripture (e.g. much of the creation story in Genesis), it further erodes the relevance of scripture to many people who would rely on it for guidance if they didn't perceive it as filled with questionable assumptions.

There may well be a myriad of other factors in play as well - the rise in prevalence of other faiths, a growing sense of individualism come to mind, as well as a growing "highly mobile urbanization". Churches have historically been social focal points for fairly small geographic areas - towns, villages etc. Late 20th Century urbanization brought with it the "suburb" - essentially an attempt to nestle a small town in the greater body of a city - but with it came the proliferation of cars and transit. Instead of social lives centering around relatively small geographic areas, people now drive considerable distances to visit friends and family.

If I look at my own life, none of my intimate social network lives "walking distance" from me. Everybody is at least 10 minutes away by car. I interact with my neighbors infrequently at best - a handful of times a year perhaps. What possible connection am I likely to have with my neighborhood church? (especially after having moved a few times over the years)

Valpy has tackled a complex topic, and missed badly. His article falls into the trap of grasping at a simplistic explanation that utterly fails to explain the phenomenon he is exploring. To distill the last 40 years into "mothers don't take their children to church" is little more than a bad attempt at sophistry.