I'm a pastor and definitely the church has become too feminized for the majority of men to handle. We need a better balance within the church of masculine and feminine; a balance of nurturing and action; loving and acting. Too much either way and the church "turns off" a sizable portion of the culture. Look at how many young men/boys we are losing out of the church. Studies show 90% of boys raised in the church will leave it by age 21...and the vast majority will not return...because the church they grew up in was too feminized with touchy-feely, warm and mushy, hand-holding and teary eyed emphasis. Until we bring back the "action" and challenge to church, we'll not get the boys-who-are-now-men into church. God Bless.

I too don't quite get the point of all this, plus I also doubt the numbers. I guess I'd have to see if the study was really carried out as a true, empirical study. Anyway, for those posters considering leaving the church, please look into another denomination before you write off the church all together.

I am in a situation in which I cannot stop attending church but if I could I am sure I would feel much better. The church of today overall is anti-intellectual and any kind of critical thinking is frowned upon. Very sad.

I know that if given the chance I would most likely stop attending church and I am sure I would feel better for it. I have very good fellowship with many Christians outside the church. The local church, for the most part, is simply out of touch for educated or thoughtful folk.

I'm not sure what is to be taken from these numbers without some sort of context. How are the depression/attendance statements different from saying that 18% of regular church attenders are left handed, versus only 14% left-handedness amongst those who have stopped attending? (I made those numbers up. About 10% of people are left handed, by the way.) Or have brown eyes, or have comb-overs, or prefer butter to cream cheese on their bagels, or whatever. Perhaps there is a correlation, but I certainly don’t see any necessary causation here, which the presentation here is trying to imply. This smells of a false cause logical fallacy to me. Perhaps the actual study these numbers supposedly stem from would shed more light on whether church attendance really causes more depression than it alleviates or vice versa. But these statements don't really tell enough.