Millions of women no longer attend church. This author offers a reason to return
Madeline Fry Schultz
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Some 16 million women have left the church in the last decade. “The church” meaning the physical church, not the Christian faith. For whatever reason — religious trauma, busy schedules, toxic politics — millions of women have stopped sitting in pews on Sundays. But with her latest book, author Ericka Andersen is betting that many of them are looking for a reason to return.
In Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church and the Church Needs Women, released on Tuesday, Andersen draws on her experience as a lifelong Christian and a mostly lifelong church attendee to address women who aren’t spending their Sundays in church — but perhaps wish they were. “Many women today are in the market for revitalization,” she writes.
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As church membership in the United States declines, there is still an important place in society for churchgoing women. Church attendance is important, not just for Christians, but for society at large: Practicing Christians are more likely to donate to charities, beyond their own churches, than their secular peers. They’re also more likely to volunteer.
Women who attend church once a week are also significantly less likely to commit suicide, and church was a crucial source of support during the isolation of the pandemic: “After one year of the pandemic, those who attended church weekly (in person or online) during that time reported higher levels of mental health than those who attended less frequently or not at all.”
But if church attendance is so important, why do so few women bother to show up? Andersen doesn’t dive deep into data but instead works systematically to address concerns women might have about getting themselves to church on Sunday: What if I don’t have time? What if I have been hurt by the church in the past? What if my last church got too political?
As someone who spent her life in church, savoring childhood memories of Sundays in a nursing home “perfumed by bleach and rosewood and patchouli,” Andersen has a clear passion for her subject.
But church wasn’t always so sweet; like many in her generation, Andersen can recall moments of spiritual manipulation that still haunt her to this day. For her, it’s a “mock Judgment Day” put on by her youth group in which she was exhorted to say she could hate even her parents in order to love God and, when she refused, sent down a dark hallway representing hell.
Andersen also recalls her “emotionally scarring experience” with purity culture, the religious fad from the 90s that taught young women that having sex before marriage would lower their value and make them like “used goods” to their future husbands.
Despite all this, Andersen has managed to rediscover joy and purpose in church, a journey that I wish she had discussed more. Reading as a fellow former church kid, I could relate to many aspects of Andersen’s journey, the good and the bad: From the years of spiritual and emotional wreckage from purity culture to the yearning to return to a community of believers after the birth of a child.
Any reader who might have circumstantial objections holding her back from attending church — What if I work on Sundays? What if I’m introverted and my husband won’t come with me? — will find ample advice on her concerns. And while Andersen does dedicate many pages to victims of spiritual abuse and trauma, even sharing anecdotes from women who have learned to love church again, readers who have deep wounds from their past might find that their concerns take more time to address.
But for those women who are already looking for a reason to return, Andersen gives them abundant (and data-driven) material. Actual church attendance, not just religious faith, is good for people, their communities, and their children.
Andersen even mentions a “spiritual but not religious” psychotherapist who recommends that some patients consider church attendance as an antidote to anxiety and depression. (“All the people I work with, all their mental health struggles … so much of the problem is rooted in a sense of needing a purpose, community, and support,” the therapist says.)
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Ultimately, Andersen makes a case for church attendance by laying out why it’s hard, why it’s important, and how you can stick to a commitment to make it to church on Sunday, whether that be in a pew or on the couch at a house church. Andersen’s ecumenical approach, arguing that maybe the wrong denomination for you has been what’s holding you back, makes Reason to Return accessible to all types of Christians.
And it is timely, considering that last year, church attendance among Americans fell below 50% for the first time in 80 years. This should be concerning to people of all persuasions, religious or otherwise. Not just a cry for spiritual revival, Reason to Return is a call for community. As Andersen writes, “When it comes to this life, we can’t do it without our people.”