Why people hate going to church

I have recently finished reading "Why men hate going to church", by David Murrow. It is an interesting book, with some generalisation, and quite a bit that does not apply directly to the UK church, but it was worth reading, and asks some very useful questions.

At the same time, the CofE is continuing to have its discussions about women bishops, which - on current sight - looks likely to be rejected because of the amendments made to satisfy opponents of the measure. I should say that, while in principle I am all for it, if it does not make women bishops entirely equal to male bishops, it should fail, because it is continuing the misogyny that still exists in the church.

But the problem in both of these issues is, at core, the same - some things require complete and fundamental changes, and trying to do a patch-on solution will not work. If we tried it with the government, we would end up in chaos: I don't like the Tories, so I want to have Alternative Governmental Oversight by the Green Party, and will only accept the laws that they agree with. It can't work, because most green policies require widespread application. I can support them, and work towards increasing political power for them, but I cannot just reject the majority and insist on being represented by someone I agree with.

One of the core problems that Morrow raises is very similar, that a significant portion of the church in the UK is female-orientated. The Pastorate/clergy is still strongly make dominated, but in terms of the local churches, they are often run - on a practical level - by women, and a lot of the way things are done are female-orientated. To attract men back into the church - or youngsters, working families, people with a heartbeat, whoever you are after - will often require some fundamental changes in the way things are done. Tinkering, providing mens events or mens services will not work long term, because the men will not stay. Replace "men" with whoever you want to attract.

It seems that so often, we have ideals of wanting to attract a certain group of people into what we currently do that we miss the real challenge, which is to do something different, and attract people in that way. Changing the entire focus or structure of the church will be painful, will lose people (before newcomers arrive), and will be upsetting, but if we insist on hanging onto what we currently do, but hope for different people to join us, we are following Einsteins famous maxim about insanity "doing the same things, and expecting a different outcome".