The Questioning Christian

It starts early

Written by

D. C. Toedt III

in

Our parish did a Youth Sunday today. The Epistle and the Prayers of the People were read by teenagers. The preacher was a teenager. The ushers were teenagers. (All were said to be regular participants in the parish youth program.)

Of those teenagers, by my rough count, eight out of ten were girls.

It’s sometimes said

  • that women are more socially-oriented than men;
  • that people tend to come to church for socially-oriented reasons — e.g., out of a desire for fellowship and a sense of belonging — far more than they do for theology.

I suspect both of these things are true — and we saw an example of both in that eight-out-of-ten-were girls number.

Comments

2 responses to “It starts early”

  1. pepecristiano Avatar
    pepecristiano

    You are not the only one who has stated such claims. Back to the time of St Paul, or whoever could be that guy, was clear to the first pagans that christianism was a blatant superstition, because most of its followers were women. Women, according to the beliefs of the ancient world, were likely prone to be deceived by any kind of nonsense.
    greeting from Spain.

    Reply
  2. bls Avatar
    bls

    “….that people tend to come to church for socially-oriented reasons — e.g., out of a desire for fellowship and a sense of belonging — far more than they do for theology.”
    But what is “fellowship”? Isn’t this inextricably bound up with faith – if not “theology,” which I think is saying too much; I think you’re right that most people don’t come for that. I don’t, and I’m interested in the topic.
    I go because the “fellowship” of the church is different than social interaction elsewhere. The question to ask is: what makes it different. We can have “social interaction” at the local bowling alley or with our friends in the bridge club.

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