Study: Buffy To Blame For Lagging Church Attendance
Conjured from the mystical depths of the Daily Telegraph:
The report claims more than 50,000 women a year have deserted their congregations over the past two decades because they feel the church is not relevant to their lives.
“Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by Wicca, popularised by the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
“Young women tend to express egalitarian values and dislike the traditionalism and hierarchies they imagine are integral to the church.”
Hold on just a second here. Women in the clergy remains an issue of endless debate with no real progress, single mothers and unmarried couples are still treated with contempt, attitudes towards sex remain stuck in the middle ages, and abortion is a whole other can of worms entirely. These to you represent “imagined” aspects of traditionalism and hierarchies? It would be wise not to speak down to such a large segment of your audience.
As for attempting to connect the relatively minor Wiccan subplots of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the apparent exodus of young women from the church, this seems like quite the stretch of logic especially in light of the far more serious issues outlined above (and in the study itself.) At best, it borders on media manipulation as “Buffy Slays the Church!” makes for a nice little headline. At worst, it damages the actual content of the study by reaching so far into the absurd for possible explanations that either don’t exist or are tertiary factors at best.
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Hahaha, I love the implications. Damn that feminism making women realize that they’re not inheritely unequal and they don’t have to put up with the way some denominations of Christianity view them!
Am I the only one confused as to where the whole idea of “women can’t be bishops” comes from? I’ve heard it’s because Jesus had no female apostles, but that seems to be a really stupid idea. I guess it could be lines like “[your husband] will dominate you” and “[women are] the weaker vessels”, except they’re around lines stating that the concept of genders came about before Adam was created, and if you don’t respect your wife as an equal in the eyes of God then your prayers won’t be listened to. Maybe I’m just a liberal nutjob?
As far as I can tell, the idea came about because they saw it say that women are supposed to be submissive to men, and thought “Well, how can we have someone in the church that’s submissive to the other men in the church? We just won’t allow it.” Too many people take that to mean that women are somehow servants, even though, as you said, the Bible also clearly talks about “Treat your wife like dirt, and God’ll make you his bitch”.
I think it was a combination of the “women are to be submissive” thing and the times when the church formed. Women were considered lessers, men superior, so between the two, they just hung a “No Girls Allowed” sign on the churches.
It’s very similar to “Priests shouldn’t marry”. They’re carrying on traditions held in a different time, when conditions were different. In the case of Priests, times were hard enough with a Priest having to take care of his flock. Adding a wife would’ve been overkill. Nowadays, though, it’s not like there’re masses of starving peasants; Priests have more time.