Why is the church attractive to women?

Last December I wrote a blog post on this same topic titled, Why is the church not attractive to men? The only reason I'm writing another post is I listened to another podcast yesterday wherein the male preacher was complaining about the feminization of the church. He rattled off a few statistics that seemed bad to him, but sounded good to me. One such statistic is Christianity is the only world religion that attracts more women than men. His other remark is feminism started in the church then spread to the culture, not the other way around. Men don't like all this female stuff, including feelings for God, non-Biblical language about having a personal relationship with Jesus, and popular worship music today sounding like Jesus-my-prom-date ballads.

If Christianity is indeed the only world religion that has more women adherents than men, and I have no idea if that's true or not, could it be from the New Testament's own subversive assertion that our gender and class and ethnicity fade away when our identity is in Christ, see Galatians 3:28? Could it be that the New Testament church was subverting the patriarchy from the beginning when one it's apostles was a woman named Junia, Romans 16:7? Could it be that Jesus's message to the oppressed, the weak and the downtrodden would have less support among the privileged? Could it be the result of the church's outreach to the weak and needy, women and children, widows and orphans?

Certainly the Bible has it's share of passages of patriarchy, but they exist alongside of, and in dialogue with passages that subvert the patriarchy. The church definitely has its problems with patriarchy as well. However, where there are strong branches of patriarchy they often coexist in the same neighborhoods with branches that reject patriarchy. For every Catholic church on the street, throughout the world, there are a couple Pentecostal storefronts, half of which are started by and led by women.

I can't speak to why other world religions attract more men, if they really do. Nevertheless, for all it's problems, there are so many, Christianity may be like democracy as described by Sir Winston Churchill, "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." Is all religion the source of all the world's evils? That depends on whether materialism is acknowledged as a religion. Christianity evolves which is it's strength. What is orthodox today was liberal or intolerable in the church's past. The early church did not baptize soldiers until they quit. The American church defended the ownership of slaves. Much of the church does not officially accept homosexuals into full communion unless they are celibate today.

This brings up the touchy feely complaint against the church. Jesus was totally fine with the adolescent apostle John cuddling with him.

23 Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved . 24 Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake . 25 He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it ? John 13 

Personally, I have never had dinner with one of my guy friends and snuggled up with him. Maybe this level of physical intimacy is normal or acceptable in Jesus and John's culture. Maybe this did not actually happen, but written by John for allegorical purposes. Some think John was gay. Whatever it is, it's not the celebrated American masculinity. Has the critic read David's Psalms? Quite a few of them sound like God-my-prom-date ballads. The things criticized by those who are alarmed by the femininity of the church, which is frequently referred to as Christ's bride, are things found in the Bible itself. If the consequence of that is privileged men are not interested, that is not a problem to be solved by hiding these passages from them, nor by promoting violent patriarchal passages against these.

Remember, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, Luke 19:10. Jesus is for losers.