Another short excerpt from Out of God’s Closet by Dr. Stephen Uhl (with permission)

WHY WOMEN BELIEVE IN GOD

Seeing the gross male chauvinism that has stood out in most historic religions, I have asked myself many times, why do more women believe in God and attend church than men? The answer is complex and has a great deal to do with pre-twenty-first century women’s self-confidence and self-esteem.

Traditional male chauvinism in the Bible, Koran and Book of Mormon, following earlier pagan traditions, all assumed God to be male. Some religions have even worshiped God’s phallus. Male priesthoods gave the cushy and powerful religious jobs to men, while women were left to serve in secondary roles if at all. Since the male priests represented a male God, chauvinism became institutionalized by history’s longitudinal crowd. Scripture repeatedly tells women to be silent in church and to be subject to their husbands. The result in the past has been for women, officially and traditionally treated as inferiors, to consider themselves as inferior. If any fallacy is repeated often enough, it is eventually believed by many! With low self-esteem resulting from abusive male chauvinism, it is harder for women to be self-confident and self-reliant. So, if chauvinistic society is abusive, dependent women can find strength by escaping into the supernatural. I can understand how a female victim of male chauvinism would readily resort to wishful thinking and tell herself: “There just has to be more fairness in the totality of life than this; I deserve better. I feel safer in the arms of Jesus; God will strengthen and reward me.” (The deep religious faith of the abused black slaves in American history was another graphic demonstration of this escapist dynamic of wishful thinking. Though these poor slaves may not have been allowed to read, they were allowed their religion for the consolation, hope and strength they drew from it.) Women’s lack of self-reliance based in male chauvinistic abuse has kept many of them seeking the strength and consolation of a Higher Power with promises of better things to come.

Thankfully, modern American women are shaking off much of the tyranny born of traditional chauvinism. Women are not currently typed “the weaker sex” in America nearly as readily as historically or as in more theocratic parts of the world. Evidence of growing female ego-strength continues to grow rapidly in this early part of the twenty-first century. However, if you go to church or study the pictures of Christian religious crowds, count the heads, yes, even in America, and you will see there is still quite a way to go. Certainly in religious circles, the equality of the sexes is not yet!

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