What Can We Learn from Trad Wives, Feminism, and “Ex-vangelicals”?

This article first appeared in the 2024 Harvest USA Magazine, “Discipling Men and Women in Our Modern Age.”

There is nothing new under the sun. Still, a lot of what we are seeing with women in the church today certainly feels new. According to Pew Research Center, women now make up 55% of evangelical congregations.[1] They outnumber men in church attendance, practice of daily prayer, and spending time reading or learning about God.

However, when we look at overall trends from generation to generation, younger women (Gen Z and millennials) are trending away from church while younger men are gravitating toward church affiliation. So, while more women attend church than men, that number is expected to shift if current trends continue with women more rapidly leaving church each year.

“If women are departing the church in unprecedented numbers, how can church leaders faithfully shepherd and equip the next generation of women?”

Statistically, women are also leading in abandonment of biblical teaching on sexuality more rapidly than men. For example, women are the fastest growing demographic in mobile device pornography use since 2016. Overall, the trend appears to support lower adherence to Christian teaching on sexuality the younger the demographic of women surveyed.[2] Culture operates in two predictable ways: a pendulum and a continuum. The pendulum is a repeating of history, swinging between extremes, while a continuum is how culture moves further and further away from God’s original intent and so declares independence from its Maker. The modern woman is facing both the pendulum and the continuum. How can we chart a path of faithfulness amid many competing voices?

Seeking the “Good Old Days”

“If you put me in a time machine back to the fifties, I’d have it made . . . everyone wouldn’t be asking me when I’m going back to work.’ Her point ran a little deeper: that era, she believed, was the last time the housewife was celebrated.”[3]

This is a quote from a New Yorker piece on the trad wives movement. Short for “traditional wives,” the trad wives movement seeks to find utopia in the relic of a lost age when women were exclusively homemakers and wives. Social media has several prominent trad wife influencers who bake sourdough bread, give tutorials on folding towels, and march their children through sunlit creek beds for their homeschool curriculum. Ultimately, trad wives are aiming to restore the “good old days.” But is this the best aim for Christians? Is urging women back to 1950s-style tradition and propriety the answer to the modern cultural trend of women exiting churches? Is it enough to long for a past time when things felt simple?

Seeking Progress

What about feminism? If tradition for tradition’s sake is not the aim, perhaps progress is. Feminism is a loaded word that draws both derision and affirmation from across the Christian landscape. I will not attempt to define or defend it here, except to say that where trad wives are on one end of the pendulum swing, feminists may be the opposite equal of that movement. While feminism once accomplished distinctly Christian aims in the early 19th century with things like women’s suffrage and fighting for access to education and vocation, its fourth wave (modern feminism) has ushered in a harrowing set of ideas that are incompatible with a Christian worldview. One of the most notable qualities of modern, fourth wave feminism is an obliteration of gender distinctions across dimensions of disposition, physicality, vocation, and sexuality.

The “Ex-vangelical” Phenomenon

Bethany Dufilho, a Texas woman who calls herself “ex-vangelical” (someone who no longer identifies as evangelical), says that deconstruction is freedom from certainty, “. . . freedom from others telling you, ‘This is how you have to interpret the Bible; this is how you have to express your faith.’” Bethany represents a growing number of women who describe themselves as deconstructing their faith in Jesus.[4] Deconstruction implicitly shirks definition, but, generally, it is a process by which a Christian breaks down the things she has been taught about her faith and, through examination and exploration, decides what—if anything—she will continue to believe and live by.

As women increasingly distance themselves from the Christian faith, it’s right to ask why this is happening. It’s right to seek to understand and remedy it. But ultimately, this is not a sociological phenomenon; we’re talking about the church of Jesus Christ. It’s important to have clarity on where this exodus is to be understood and addressed: in the care and community of local churches. Paul gives instructions on how local churches are to operate and disciple members into Christlikeness in Ephesians 4:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood [and womanhood!], to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Eph. 4:11–16, my addition)

For pastors and ministry leaders, how can faithfulness, love, and obedience to Jesus forge a path forward within a set of options that are so fraught? If women are departing the church in unprecedented numbers, how can church leaders faithfully shepherd and equip the next generation of women?

Have Women Lost Their Vision for Godly Womanhood?

Here are four factors to consider when shepherding young women in your church:

1. Recognize the extent to which worldly thinking has infiltrated the church.

Many younger congregants are spending upwards of eight hours per day online. They’re ingesting content that they may or may not be discussing with others in their church community or evaluating according to God’s Word to weigh its veracity. The world is preaching to them far more continuously than any pastor could. It’s key for church leaders to honestly assess the reality of what young women are facing.

Women are also hurting and responding to real wrongs. Amid the pornification of our culture and moral failure of many public leaders, some women feel disillusioned and undervalued at church more than at any other time in their week. Yet some of this is not because they are undervalued, but because they’re believing lies to which we are all vulnerable. It’s easy to believe that life can be found in power, independence, leadership roles, and status— many women hear this refrain all day long at their jobs, in their homes, or on social media. Yet the way of the cross opposes those lies. Jesus calls all his disciples to weakness, dependence, humility and poverty of spirit.

2. Pursue fearless countercultural living.

Pastors must have courage amid the fear of being canceled for teaching what the Bible says about sexuality, gender, and what it means to be a man or a woman. Seek to shepherd with clarity, boldness, gentleness, and truth. Local churches should stand apart as outposts of God’s kingdom among a crooked and depraved generation. This will bring persecution and embarrassment. But pastors and church leaders can model humble courage and disciple the women in their care about the matchless worth of Christ which motivates such countercultural living and sacrifice in this life.

3. Invest in women from the top down.

A 2023 survey from Lifeway research found that 83% of women’s ministry leaders were unpaid volunteers, and 86% lacked formal theological training of any kind. Only 5% of women’s ministry leaders are given the opportunity to participate in planning alongside paid church staff.[5] Something is wrong here. Churches invest their money in the things that are important to them. Consider how your church is seeking to invest in women leaders across several domains:

THEOLOGICAL: How are you seeking to promote biblical literacy and theological precision among the women at your church?

WORLDVIEW: Teach the whole church (including women) how to engage with every lofty opinion that is raised against the knowledge of God, as 2 Corinthians 10:3–5 says:

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

This exodus of young women from the church is, in part, because of a failure to robustly teach women how to engage with the world’s modern messages with a more compelling biblical vision for womanhood. Women need to be taught how to apply the gospel to the myriad modern messages and lies that can be compelling and enticing.

DISCIPLESHIP: Women need women leaders who can invest in them (Titus 2:3–4). It’s also important to have male elders and pastors who don’t approach equipping and shepherding women from a place of fear, avoidance, or suspicion. How are pastors and women leaders intentionally investing in the next generation of women? If this is not on your radar as a church, I’d exhort you to prayerfully seek to be faithful to women as not only a vital part of your congregation, but, for most churches, the majority of membership! My pastors did an excellent job of this by spending several months teaching the women of the church how to read the Bible with and disciple others. This has multiplied their efforts because the women of my church are implementing that investment the pastors made in them in their homes, jobs, and communities.

4. Don’t conflate culture with biblical commands.

Have we defined “godly womanhood” too narrowly? It can be easy to become prescriptive and go beyond what the Bible teaches about what it means to be a godly woman. I see this often in my ministry to women struggling with sexual sin. They feel different from other women, and, upon further questioning, I usually uncover that what they’re believing about what it means to be a godly woman is not from the Bible at all. To be sure, God gives commands and emphases that are unique to men and specific to women throughout his Word—don’t shy away from teaching these! However, churches must remain committed to preaching and teaching Jesus Christ as the example for the whole household of God.

“Our goal as women is not to get free, or get traditional, or even get our way—our goal is Christlikeness.”

The church is destined for a loftier goal than mere progress or restoring tradition; we are called to something that is not attainable apart from the Holy Spirit’s work among his covenant people. Our goal as women is not to get free, or get traditional, or even get our way—our goal is Christlikeness. There is freedom in this for many expressions of womanhood and many types of women under the Lordship of King Jesus.

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[1] Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Study: Gender Composition, https://www. pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/gender-composition/, accessed 7/16/24

[2] “Homosexual Acceptance Among Evangelicals,” American Reformer, David Ayers, April 19, 2022, https://americanreformer.org/2022/04/homosexual-acceptance-amongevangelicals/.

[3] “The Rise and Fall of the Trad Wife,” The New Yorker, Sophie Elmhirst, March 29, 2024, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-rise-and-fall-ofthe-trad-wife

[4] “Why Evangelical Women Are Questioning the Church—and their Faith,” Chron., Brianna Griff, January 8, 2023, https://www.chron.com/culture/article/evangelicalwomen-deconstruction-religion-17012629.php.

[5] Lifeway Research: State of Ministry to Women, https://research.lifeway.com/state-ofministry-to-women/, accessed 7/16/24.