The Four to Six Mix

 From Gender mix in Australian church attenders - NCLS Research

The 4 to 6 mix seems to be pretty steady although my sample taken

on this Easter Sunday returned a 3 to 7 mix. 

It is several years since I wrote on the subject of the "4 to 6 mix"; that is the ratio of males to females in the church I attend.  In my last post on the subject I recorded it as being steady at 4:6 and in an earlier post I was amazed that my very rough & informal sampling had returned the same ratio that had cropped up in a far more formal and rigorous church wide study. (See also the Australian stats above)

I've been sampling the male to female ratio on and off for around 18 years now and yesterday's count has finally come up with a different ratio: I was sitting in the gallery and counted the people in the two main pew blocks on the ground floor: Of the 112 people in these two blocks 34 were male and 78 female; that's a roughly 3 to 7 mix! Perhaps the variation has something to do with an increase in attendance on Easter Sunday. 

The Four to Six Mix Stays Steady (Nearly)

Photograph: Countryside collection - Homer Sy/Alamy

During a recent church service I revisited my 15 year old project of counting male and female church attendees with the aim of getting the mix. I sampled a large block of attendees that were visible from where I was sitting - that is, I didn't take a count of the whole congregation. I did two counts and came up with the numbers 28 males to 54 females and then later in the service I counted 35 males to 55 females.  (There were some comings and goings during the service).  Those two sets of figures give returns of 35% :65% and 38%:62% respectively.  That might point to a slight drop in the male proportion since my last counts but on the whole that's fairly close to the four to six mix which has otherwise been stable over 15 years; after all, we've been through a lock down which has definitely perturbed churches in many as yet unforeseen ways, not to mention the ongoing decay of church populations. There may be a differential in the way these two factors are effecting men and woman.  But given these factors it's surprising how steady the 4 to 6 mix is. 

For more see here:

Norwich Churches and Belief Communities: FourToSixMix (norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com)

The Four to Six Mix and the Feminisation of Church Culture

Some years ago on this blog I did a series of posts that resulted of some head counting I did at my church; my aim was to get an idea of the ratio of males to females. This little exercise was carried out on and off for about three years. I was surprised at the approximate constancy of the ratio over the period. The ratio turned out to be about 40% males to 60% females, hence I termed it the "four to six mix". The project was linked to an another theme and that I referred to as the feminisation (in the stereotypical sense of the word) of the Western church in its spiritual attitudes and culture; in particular the move to a more emotional, intuitive and  passion based church along with a drift toward an almost gnostic interpretation of the faith. (This is not true, however, of the kind of evangelicalism which strongly identifies with the reformation and majors in doctrine and "Truth" - such churches tend to eschew the emotional and experience based excesses of churches influenced by "Charismatic" culture. They also tend to be more "masculinised" in their ethos)

Anyway, the sequence of posts between June 2007 and January 2011 on this subject can be accessed using this link:

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/search/label/FourToSixMix

Now here's what I want to come to. Recently the 4:6 mix has surfaced again in two independent connections: The first connection is the "iknow" church management software my own church uses. The iknow software generates this  monthly report:

The 4:6 statistic here is, I assume, taken from membership numbers rather than the rota population expressed by the bar chart. This 4:6 ratio has been static for at least a year if I recall correctly. 

I now turn to the June edition of Premier Christianity magazine where we find an article entitled  Your Church Needs More Men. This article includes the statistical schematic below:

Yes, that's right, up pops the 4:6 mix again, this time presumably based on extensive church surveys. The fact that my small sample reflects this survey is,  as I have put it before, statistical "magic" which would have made Arthur Koestler proud (See "The Roots of Coincidence" Pages  26-27 and see also my book Disorder and Randomness)

One of the concerns (and this has long been a concern of mine too) of the Christianity article is the obvious implication of the statistical imbalance: Namely, that unless young church women are prepared to stay single many will not find a male partner within the confines of the Church and will have to find husbands outside the church. In fact given that a large percentage of the more senior church population have successfully paired off it follows that the gender imbalance among young people will be even more skewed than 4:6. 

Looking through my "4:6 Mix" posts I notice that Christianity magazine has published articles on the gender imbalance and the related feminisation of the church on at least six occasions: There was a spate of articles and book reviews in 2007 & 2008: Viz: July & September 2007,  February, and March 2008 and two articles in May 2008.

In my previous posts I toyed with idea that a factor strongly related to the 4:6 mix was the "feminisation" of church; that is, a cultural skew entailing a move away from stereotypically male traits and this is evidenced in the feminisation of worship. For example, quoting from my post of Feb 22nd 2008 where I quote a church leader called Carl Beech....

As for the state of worship in church with its male alienating ‘Swoon for Jesus love ins’ Beech seems to understand this as well: “Our terminology is that Jesus is our lover – press yourselves into his arms and let him embrace you”. Beech goes onto to say: “I’m very grateful for the charismatic movement, but I think we need to recast the terminology. Some of the songs which emerged in the 90s were very cathartic.” It was a lot worse than that Carl: the mid nineties was the heyday of the Toronto Blessing when, if you didn't want to be accused of resisting the Spirit, you emulated those 'in the Spirit' and got down on all fours and barked!

This is not to say that a "feminine" style of worship is wrong in itself: Also there is no necessary inference to be drawn which stereotypes genetic "males" and genetic "females" into particular roles. Some males may prefer the feminised worship and some females may prefer more masculine styles. The statistical clustering of genetic males and females around what are conventionally thought of as feminine and masculine traits is going to be a cloudy affair subject to many exceptions. The problem, however, arises when there is an imbalance of culture  that alienates a section of the congregation.

To be frank the premium placed on a soppy "swoon for Jesus" gnosticism in some Christian quarters alienates me as it does other males. There have been some gallant moves in an attempt to create events that cater for a more male orientated "laddish" culture (such as the 4M movement). This is good and gets full marks as a nice try but what little I've seen of these events suggest to me that the epiphanies of "Jesus gnosis" are still regarded as the acme of Christian experience. While this situation persists the statistics will remain the same. 

It is probably not as simple as a trend toward a uniform feminisation; rather it may actually be a  polarisation between hyper-feminisation and hyper-masculinisation with the latter evidenced by a dominating male leadership which on occasion can be a mix of patriarchary, authoritarianism, and bullying, all of which chimes well with fundamentalism and is a complementary fit with a feminised, obedient and compliant church membership.  My current guess is that such is the reaction of church communities to cultural stress and marginalisation in a changing world. 

STOP PRESS:

Talking about bullying leaders: The abrasive and domineering Mark Driscoll is back according to a Premier Christianity web article entitled Mark Driscoll is back but he hasn't learned his lessons.   See here. But I wonder if it's not just Driscoll who has to do some learning but also a fundagelical culture which is inclined to give such characters a free ride on its back. 

https://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-mark-driscoll-affair.html

https://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mark-driscoll-affair-part-ii.html

THE FOUR-TO-SIX-MIX REMAINS STEADY

At NCBC's first prayer meeting of 2011 I counted 12 males and 19 females. (excluding employed male leadership which is overwhelmingly biased toward males) That ratio rounds nicely to 4:6. It's remarkable how averages like this hold up over all causes. Koeslter would be proud (See his "The Roots of Coincidence", page 26-27 )

See this post for more details.

THE FOUR TO SIX MIX

A survey at NCBC last Sunday returned a male to female mix  of 37% to 63% . So, after first posting on this subject three years ago what I refer to as the “four to six mix” of males to females is being approximately maintained. My previous posts on this subject can be found in these monthly postings:

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

YOU CAN COUNT ON IT

Tonight in the evening service, still with are eye on the male:female ratio and the feminisation of church, I did a quick count. This returned 30 males against 36 females, which reduces to a five to six mix. This, I suppose, is not far from the four to six mix I was averaging a few months back.

CHURCH IS A DRAG

The May edition of 'Christianity' Magazine has two articles on the issue that I have repeatedly raised in this blog: That of a church culture skewed toward the feminine. A point that neither article seems to grasp is that the masculine-feminine ‘spectrum’ is an abstraction defined by the clusters of traits that have varying probabilities of being associated with the more clear cut phenomenon of genetic typing. For example, physical strength is more likely (but NOT necessarily) to be found amongst males than females. Once this abstract male-female space is set up, actual genetic males and females may find themselves at different points in that space.

Given this concept of the male-female space, the fact is that churches are a niche subculture that is biased toward the feminine cluster of traits in that space. Males who demonstrate a more feminine mindset are in turn more likely to find themselves in line with church values than those with obviously extreme masculine traits. But there is one exception; the Male ‘Leadership’ patriarch is often welcomed with open arms, and finds a place in an subculture that frequently favours submissive behaviour and a dumbing down of an analytic mindset, whether that mindset belongs to a genetic male or a genetic female. See the restorationists for fine examples of patriarchy.

Both articles in 'Christianity' were written by females. One of the articles ends ironically with what to me is actually a call for the church to become even more feminine in its slant! That is, according to the article writer we should get out of the comfort zone of our safe and highly focused stereo typical roles, connect to the holy mystery of God and the mysteries of the gender gap, generally be more outgoing, relate to one another and learn from one another! Next time I go to church I think I’ll dress up in drag and act in a less focused and more scatter brained way; I might fit in better.

THE FOUR TO SIX MIX: AGAIN

‘Christianity’ magazine has run two articles (see February and March) on the disparity in the ratio of males to females in churches. Here are my comments, as promised. As I have been aware of this issue for some years (and have written about it) I’m rather disturbed that only now have I found an article airing the matter. Anyway that’s an important start – my own church remains utterly unaware of it.

The two articles cover an interview with Carl Beech Chief executive of Christian Vision for men. I’ve got to hand it to him, Beech does seem to know how to connect to men, although his take on masculinising the church is to give occasion to the issue driven laddish sporting bravado that many men enjoy and engage in. If Beech’s succeeds here then he would have done the church a service.

In my case the way of being a male is slightly different. I have never been one for the laddish culture, as I approximate closer to that male preserve of the quasi-autistic loner who focuses relentlessly on single goals - stereotypically represented in the media by the likes of ‘The hit man’, ‘the terminator’, the lone hobbyist or geek etc.

But in common with the lads it isn’t just a case of me feeling that church just isn’t getting through; in actual fact it’s more a case of that church being proactively against the masculine model and its various manifestations. In modern evangelicalism conversion is all about a personality change that seeks denial of one’s masculine traits in favor of an intuitive reverie so aptly summed up by the phrase ‘The Heart Knowledge Christian’. What church wants, as Beech puts it so well, is chatty friendly ‘small talkers’, effeminacy, wimpishness, a passive submissive imbibing of homiletic monologues on Sunday, indifference to technical gadgetary, and drivers of cutsie feminine cars instead of real manly cars. As far as masculine pursuits are concerned, Beech says that the signal from the church is ‘Stop it because it’s all really sinful’.

As for the state of worship in church with its male alienating ‘Swoon for Jesus love ins’ Beech seems to understand this as well: “Our terminology is that Jesus is our lover – press yourselves into his arms and let him embrace you”. Beech goes onto to say: “I’m very grateful for the charismatic movement, but I think we need to recast the terminology. Some of the songs which emerged in the 90s were very cathartic.” It was a lot worse than that Carl: the mid nineties was the heyday of the Toronto Blessing when, if you didn't want to be accused of resisting the Spirit, you emulated those 'in the Spirit' and got down on all fours and barked!

Not news really, but having identified the problem what do we do next? In some ways the loner like myself is much better placed than the lads; I can simply ignore all these soppy goings on and pursue my own projects. But what does jack the lad do when he can find no social outlet for his laddishness? He says: "Fuhgeddaaboutit!"

THE FEMINISED CHURCH

The February edition of 'Christianity' magazine carries the first part of a feature article billed on the front as "No man's land: How gender imbalance has feminised the church". Have they only just noticed this? Moreover, hasn't it occurred to them that it may be a coupled effect: that is, gender imbalance has caused feminisation AND feminisation has caused gender imbalance. I'll do a longer blog on the subject after the second part of the article is published in March.

MORE MALE-FEMALE HEAD COUNTING: A CONCLUSION

Taking the average of figures I have posted on the above subject gives a 42%-58% split between males and females at NCBC services. Last Wednesday night I had the opportunity to take a peek at the list of names of people who have signed up for NCBC’s “Christianity Explored” course. I tallied up the males and females (excluding one or two foreign looking names I was unable to identify as either male or female) and arrived at 14 males against 23 females; that is a 38%-62% split. Once again we have the approximate 4:6 ratio popping out of the woodwork. What makes this result interesting is that the same value now emerges in a rather different situation to the services – namely, the take up of a course which is probably populated by a younger cross section, but nevertheless returns a similar ratio. Interestingly, and I don’t know if this means anything, I got exactly the same 38%-62% ratio in the morning service, a service that includes widows. Is this evidence of “first in last out” effect amongst women?

So what does it all mean? Well, I’ve rattled on about the feminization of Christianity, and that may be a factor, but is this bias toward the feminine part of something more general? After all, the readers of astrology columns and the members of a stage spiritualist’s audience have a female majority. Likewise, although I did no sample counting on the evening, the Benny Hinn rally in Norwich (which I endured for research reasons), looked as though it had a female majority amongst the white members of the audience. Is the female mind more likely to tune into the ‘spiritual’ than the male mind? In attempting to explain all this, my best shot at the moment is what follows.

The mind has at least two modes of working. Mode 1: It uses a series of prefabricated heuristics and algorithms. Mode 2: it is capable of actually constructing new heuristics and algorithms. Mode 1 is often loosely associated with the’ limbic’ system; it is instinctual, intuitive, emotional, inscrutable, mysterious and largely unconscious in operation apart from its end results perhaps. Its pros and cons are that it is fast in producing results, embeds much age-old wisdom, but its inflexibility makes it error prone and its inscrutability makes it difficult to correct. Mode 2 is associated with cerebral and conscious thinking. It is clearly a much more complex and difficult activity. Its disadvantages are that it is painstaking, doesn’t quickly arrive at conclusions and can be indecisive, but it is flexible, adaptable, accountable and correctable.

Now here is the rub: these two different modes can be at odds: in fact industrial society, which is largely the product of mode 2, has created conditions in which the prefabricated mental structures of the intuitive mind often feel like a fish out of water. It’s the old head verses heart cliché in another guise. Religion, which so often uses the limbic as its main resource, may find itself alienated from the products of conscious cognition. Rather than a negotiated peace between two complimentary modes of mind there is, in some religious circles, a war on, a head versus heart war. And one can see this in Christianity. Take for example these two quotes that I have culled from Christian circles:

If you always process salvation through your mind you will never enter the fuller things in your walk. You must move from a place of cognitive reasoning ability to a place where faith and belief flows through your spirit and not your head … God is beyond your logic.A softer and perhaps less objectionable version of a similar thing:

I have met many people over the years who have tried to build their faith in their minds. However the mind is based on logic and sometimes the things of God are not logical! The key, I find, is to have your faith in your heart, here needing to understand every detail is not important as all you believe in is based and surrounded by the ultimate truth that God loves you!
(Interestingly in the audience listening to speaker of the first quote I estimated a 35%-65% male-female mix) These quotes attempt to elevate the 'limbic' by heightening its inscrutable mystique and defame the cerebral by suggesting it is mundane, prosaic, earthly, dead and cold. But the fact is that both modes are human and both modes are error prone and yet at the same time both are deeply mysterious in their operation and function under Divine sovereignty. They are complimentary and they should negotiate and not be set against one another.

Now here is the second rub: the female mentality is slightly more skewed toward the limbic mind than the male mentality and hence (I submit) the 4-6 mix of males to females found in churches and other ‘spiritual’ connections. Religion often exploits the age-old limbic system. I wouldn’t want deny that revelations come via this system, but its inscrutability leaves it wide open to exploitation by charlatans and religious quacks. I would be the first admit that we need different kinds of folk in church: intuitive oracles and conscious thinkers and they should compliment one another. However, it seems that looking back at the recent history of western Christianity the swing betrayed by my male-female statistic is not just a statistic – it is thermometer indicating a swing in values toward the limbic: limbic responses are considered to be a sign of a superior spirituality. As limbic Christians have become more and more alienated from the results of a science based society whose main resource is the cerebral mode of thinking, there has been a reaction against the cerebral in favour of the intuitive, emotional, and instinctive and this reaches its extreme in Gnostic flavours of Christianity.

There is an irony here: Christians place a heavy emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit in bringing people to faith. That’s true enough, but it seems that the Holy Spirit is not transgressing the properties of His own creation: The same subtle pressures found in the current social milieu which favour a retreat of a cross section of religious people into the inscrutable world of limbic reactions are also found amongst Christians. The limbic appeal of Christian churches, like astrology columns and spiritualist churches, is betrayed by the side effect of a skew toward female majorities. This doesn’t invalidate Christianity but it suggests that the Holy Spirit is working very much within the parameters of His own creation.

How does someone like myself fit into all this? The ‘skeptic’ Larry Moran on Sandwalk, is likely to accuse someone like myself of being a deist. In his own terms he may be right as I am inclined to stress the full range of options that the Divine has available without resort to the overtly miraculous. In defence I would have to say to Larry that with the passing of the Newtonian universe deism is a less clear cut category than it was – the day by day providence of God is seen in the vicissitudes of chaos and randomness. But of course redneck limbic Christains will have none of this: they react instinctively against any thing that goes against their instincts and they have no truck with such fine distinctions. This attitude is at once both conceit and self-deceit.

THE HYPERFEMINISED CHURCH.

After my blog on the hyperfeminised church and the subsequent head counting blogs that resulted, I was interested to read a review in the September 2007 edition of ‘Christianity’ about a book called “No More Christain Nice Guy” by Paul Coughlin. The reviewer (Tony Horsfall) says that the book contains a chapter called ‘Jesus the Bearded Woman’ and that it is a “...hardhitting call for men to rediscover their true identity, which he (the author) claims has been emasculated by radical feminism and the teaching of the church. Rather than being passive, naive and avoiding conflict, men should be proactive assertive and courageous, taking hold of the rugged side of Jesus.”

At the very least, it does seem this is not just another of my own idiosyncratic hobby-horses and that there is an issue here percieved by others. Although I wouldn’t say that I find what goes on in my own church particularly obectionable, I have to admit that I often feel its ethos fails to connect, relate, or illuminate the interests, problems, and aspirations I face in my own day-to-day living. In fact this very issue of hyperfeminisation is one of them. As far as my church is concerned the issue simply doesn’t exist. Moreover it is likely to remain outside the cognizance of the church, and the ‘prophecies’ it receives will in turn reflect its ethos. Surprise surprise!

MALE_FEMALE HEAD COUNTING RESULTS

Here are the latest male-female head counting results at NCBC.
Morning Service 23/7/2007: 48 males and 79 females: 38%-62%
Evening Service 23/7/2007: 36 males and 47 females: 43%- 57%
The evening service ratio remains stubbornly static. The morning service shows an even greater preponderance of females, perhaps because it includes the older members, many of whom are widows.

MALE-FEMALE HEAD COUNTING RESULTS

On the Sunday night service of 15/7/2007 I counted 34 males and 45 females and 34 males – that’s a 43%-57% ratio. At the church meeting of 19/7/2007 I counted 20 males and 27 females and 20 males – that’s a 43% - 57% ratio. So, the roughly 4:6 ratio seems to be holding up. What’s it mean? I’m working on it....

MALE-FEMALE HEAD COUNTING RESULTS

Last night I did another male-female head count at church and got 41 males against 57 females – that’s a 42%-58% cut and very close to the previous cut of 41%-59%. It is interesting to note that although we had 17 more people at the service last night the male-female ratio was more or less constant – that’s suggestive of a general background ratio, although it has to be admitted that it is rather early to be sure about this.

THE HYPER FEMINISED CHURCH

An article in the July ‘Christianity’ reports on the difficulty Christian women are having finding marriage partners because of the paucity of males in church. As a result of this article I did some head counting at last Sunday night’s service at NCBC. I came up with 32 males against 46 females – that’s a 41%-59% cut. I suppose this isn’t really news. Moreover, the article brought to my mind another article in the September 2006 issue of ‘Christianity’ which raised the question of whether there is room in today’s church for the expression of the masculine. Also, I have written before on an apparent imbalance toward the feminine in contemporary church culture.

I think there is something very deep here, something that’s actually bound up with the very fabric of our world. One senses it when one reads a book like H. G. Wells “The Time Machine”, a book that investigates feminine and masculine traits by separating them out into two different branches of human evolution, the Morlocks and the Eloi. Looking back on history since enlightenment times one sees a twoing and froing between the analytical and the romantic, as these two perspectives, like Wells' Morlocks and Eloi, constantly react against one another. The analytical favours the masculine caricature: objectivity, focus, the impersonal, the mechanical, the unfeeling, the categorical, the rational, knowledge, evolutionary competition, conquest, even war. The romantic favours the feminine caricature: subjectivity, holism, the personal, mystery, feeling, the intuitive, the heart, the irrational, the inner life, gnosis, tenderness and pacifism.

Like some deep underlying geological fault line imposing itself on the geomorphology of the Earth above, there is, I feel, a deep dualism in the way the world is being perceived and this dualism is making itself felt here. That psychological fault line is constituted by a perceived dualism between the inner life of the heart versus the ‘external’ world of apparently impersonal things. This conceptual fault line is not only affecting our weltenshauung but even affects our church culture; as that culture attempts to disconnect itself from the impersonal, it skews itself toward the feminine.