{"id":15904,"date":"2026-01-09T07:39:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T07:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=15904"},"modified":"2026-01-09T07:39:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T07:39:23","slug":"women-are-leaving-the-church-but-lets-stop-justifying-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=15904","title":{"rendered":"Women are leaving the Church, but let’s stop justifying it"},"content":{"rendered":"


By Ericka Andersen<\/span><\/span>, Thursday, January 08, 2026<\/span>kadirdemir\/iStock<\/span><\/p>\n

Women have been leaving the Church\u00a0at rising rates\u00a0for more than a decade. For years, men were the primary defectors, but for the first time in history, women are walking away even faster.<\/p>\n

Six years ago, I began noticing this shift. The pandemic accelerated the trend, and the numbers have not recovered.<\/p>\n

I stumbled upon this data while researching the opioid crisis \u2014 tens of thousands dying\u00a0each year, many from \u201cdeaths of despair.\u201d These are people caught in generational patterns of addiction, mental illness, broken family systems, and hopelessness. Having lost my mother-in-law to addiction, I often wondered what might have saved her \u2014 or my husband and his sister from the neglect and trauma of their childhoods (which I wrote about in\u00a0Leaving Cloud 9<\/em>).<\/p>\n

As I pored over research, one correlation stopped me cold: those who attended church weekly had dramatically\u00a0lower rates of addiction,\u00a0depression, anxiety, divorce, and loneliness. They enjoyed stronger marriages, deeper friendships,\u00a0better health, and richer community lives. They were\u00a0more generous\u00a0and more connected.<\/p>\n

Within this beautiful framework God created is a wellspring of life and flourishing. So, it broke my heart to see women walking away from it. I know many didn\u2019t leave casually; many left because they felt unseen, unsafe, or exhausted. But did it have to end there?<\/p>\n

My passion to speak into this grew quickly.<\/p>\n

The Church as an anchor<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve attended church my whole life \u2014 first at my Grandma\u2019s Assemblies of God congregation with pews and hymnals, then at a modern non-denominational church where we wore jeans. My mother never failed to get us to that blue building on a hill, rain or shine. Despite the downfalls of 90s Evangelical culture (purity teaching among them), the good far outweighed the bad. I also know that\u2019s not true for everyone, and some wounds run deep. I don\u2019t minimize that.<\/p>\n

Still, church was never optional for me. Every time I moved \u2014 to college, to a new city at 22, to Washington, D.C. \u2014 the first thing I did was find a church. It became my anchor in every storm. Small groups and Bible studies buoyed me through eating disorders, depression, and alcoholism. In every moment of straying, I was drawn back to the House of God.<\/p>\n

Specifically, in dealing with a drinking problem, my church was there for me every step of the way, something I wrote about in depth in my new book,\u00a0Freely Sober: Rethinking Alcohol Through the Lens of Faith<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Yes, the Spirit dwells with believers at all times. But there is something uniquely powerful and wonder-working about being among the Body of Christ.<\/p>\n

As \u201ccitizens of Heaven,\u201d the Church is an embassy of our true home \u2014 a place where we get to step inside eternity while still on earth.<\/p>\n

Returning to the numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I realized the real, measurable benefits of consistent church involvement, I wanted every woman to know. That passion led me to write\u00a0Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church & the Church Needs Women<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But not everyone welcomed the message. Some wanted a complaint manual, a manifesto about why women\u00a0should<\/em>\u00a0be leaving the Church. Others asked why I didn\u2019t focus on sexism, patriarchy, or mistreatment of single moms.<\/p>\n

There is a place for those conversations, but that wasn\u2019t the book I was called to write. My message was \u2014 and is \u2014 this: God loves His Church, and He calls us to be in it, of it, and working to improve it. That doesn\u2019t mean tolerating the unacceptable, but it also doesn\u2019t mean abandoning the Church entirely.<\/p>\n

As headline-grabbing scandals from leaders like Bill Hybels and Ravi Zacharias emerged, my heart broke. But I also knew that thousands of faithful pastors and volunteers were serving quietly and sacrificially in churches no one will ever write about.<\/p>\n

In my own church, I saw that faithfulness up close:<\/p>\n