Throughout the entire Bible, God listens to, elevates, protects, and liberates women in cultures that demeaned and exploited them. He hears their voices when they cry out to him. We must do no less.

The religion that was once two-thirds women is beginning a reversal of that trend, according to polls by Barna and the Survey Center on American Life. SCAL reports that women are leaving the church at higher levels than they ever have before, with Gen Z women leading the departure.

Increasingly taking their place are Millennial and Gen Z men. Barna’s report shows the widening gap between women and men in church attendance: 45 percent of men and only 36 percent of women, a complete flip from statistics recorded in the early 2000s.

Why has this flip occurred?

The Problems: Political, Vocational, Spiritual

Women being more socially and politically liberal than men is not new. However, this gap has dramatically increased amongst Gen Z, according to a survey by NBC News. Take, for instance, U.S. President Donald Trump’s approval rating. In ages 45-54, 56 percent of men approve of Trump’s presidency, while only 43 percent of women do. But in Gen Z adults, the gap increases: 45 percent of men to 24 percent of women.

Surveys also show young women are more liberal on LGBTQ issues and abortion than men, putting many women in conflict with the teachings of orthodox Christianity. Young women disproportionately cite abortion as the single most important political issue to them. LGBTQ issues are also increasingly polarizing, becoming one of the chiefly cited reasons why some people leave the church.

Young women also have different priorities than young men, with an especially large contrast between liberal women and conservative men. An NBC News poll surveyed Gen Z men and women about their definition of success. As a whole, men and women picked the same top items: a fulfilling career and financial success. However, stark differences arose when split by vote. While men and women who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris were similar, the real difference came for those who voted for President Trump. Female Trump voters put children in the middle of their priorities, while male Trump voters placed having children first.

Gen Z women from both sides of the political spectrum, then, prioritize their career first and their families second. This clashes with a church culture that often encourages women to fill more traditional roles, such as housewife and mother. Further, many churches hold to complementarianism – the idea that men and women are equal, but created for different roles. Complementarians uphold leadership primarily for men, especially within the church. Young women thus find themselves going from holding successful positions of leadership in secular society to being unable to lead in church.

Church history itself has a complicated relationship with women. Some prominent church fathers have made dismissive and offensive remarks about women. Augustine of Hippo commented that women were of “small intelligence” and possibly more easily tempted by sin. In the same book, he posited that women were only created for the purposes of procreation. John Chrysostom, an Archbishop of Constantinople and revered in the Orthodox church, asserted that women were “weak and fickle.”

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