For the first time in modern history, young women are less religious than men. According to new data from Barna Group, 38 percent of Gen Z women now identify as religiously unaffiliated — compared to far fewer men. It’s a sharp reversal of a decades-long pattern and, as Barna researcher and sociologist Ashley LaLonde explains, a sign of something deeper than disinterest.
“Research shows that there are a lot of ideological shifts happening, both within the Church and outside of the Church,” LaLonde explained on The RELEVANT Podcast. “And many women have begun to feel like the Church is not a place where they can spiritually grow.”
The report found that Gen Z women are the least likely among their peers to read the Bible, pray or attend church. While 73 percent of Gen Z adults say they believe in a higher power, only a minority of women translate that belief into active faith practice. Meanwhile, Gen Z men are showing higher rates of religious engagement — marking the first time in recent U.S. history that men are more likely than women to attend church.
Gen Z, LaLonde said, is actually more spiritually open than any generation Barna has studied in 40 years. But while curiosity about faith is high, trust in the Church — especially among young women — is not. Many no longer feel that church is a place where they belong or are valued.
Part of that disconnect traces back to purity culture. The women who came of age in the early 2000s — when youth groups handed out purity rings and emphasized sexual abstinence as a marker of holiness — are now the adults choosing whether to stay in the faith that once defined their worth by their sexual choices. Many still carry that shame.
“They feel devalued,” LaLonde said. “Some think, because I haven’t lived out this very rigid ideal, I’m not welcome.”
But the issues go far beyond personal experience. The widening political divide has made the church feel even more alien to many young women.
LaLonde noted that statistically, Gen Z women tend to lean more liberal while men trend more conservative — a split that mirrors what’s happening in church culture itself. As many congregations grow more overtly political and align with conservative movements, women increasingly feel pushed out.
“They don’t see their values reflected,” she said. “So they ask, why would I belong to a community that doesn’t align with who I am?”
There’s also the question of how women fit into church life at all. LaLonde believes the Church has placed too much emphasis on marriage and motherhood as spiritual goals — and not enough on empowering single women. Churches often build programs and language around the nuclear family, she said, leaving women who are single, child-free or career-focused to feel invisible.
“If the Church can’t engage that reality,” she warned, “it risks losing an entire generation of women who want to follow Jesus but can’t find themselves in the story being told.”
That sense of exclusion isn’t just cultural — it’s relational. LaLonde said many young women have chosen solidarity with their LGBTQ friends, refusing to participate in institutions that reject them. If their friends aren’t welcome, they don’t want to be either. The message is clear: belonging matters more than conformity.
Add to that the constant drumbeat of church scandals — sexual abuse, moral failures, cover-ups — and the disillusionment deepens. Social media has made every failure public, LaLonde said, and the cumulative damage is hard to ignore.
“When these stories break, they don’t just affect one church,” she said. “They affect the entire Christian name.”
For many women, especially those with children, it becomes a matter of safety and trust.
What’s striking, LaLonde emphasized, is that most of these women haven’t rejected faith itself. They’re still spiritually hungry — just no longer convinced that institutional religion can feed them. Instead, they’re exploring new ways to encounter God: online communities, creative collectives, small gatherings that feel more like friendship than formality.
That shift, LaLonde believes, is both a warning and an invitation for the Church.
“This is a moment for radical welcome,” she said. “For churches to reimagine what discipleship and empowerment look like.”
The questions the research raises are not just sociological but spiritual: How has the church failed to honor women’s callings? How can it rebuild trust after years of exclusion and harm? And what might it look like if women’s gifts — not just their roles — were truly celebrated?
“The Church has to take a hard look,” LaLonde said. “We need to ask how we’ve harmed women, how we’ve failed families and single parents, how we’ve limited women’s gifts to motherhood and marriage. Because we need every part of the body — every gift, every voice — to be fully utilized, supported and celebrated.”
Listen to the full conversation with Ashley LaLonde on The RELEVANT Podcast:
