Researching Women’s Roles in Churches of Christ – Part 2 of 3

By

Dr. Garry Bailey, Academic Director & Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution

Lori Anne Shaw, Assistant Director for Program Development

In the June Peace Partner, we posted Researching Women’s Roles in Churches of Christ – Part 1 of 3 where we introduced our research and reviewed the relevant literature. As a reminder, the focus of the study is to better understand the complexity of women’s attitudes towards the role of women in church.  Given this objective, we are examining the relationship among women’s attitudes towards women’s roles in church, age, self-esteem and attachment to God.  Building on the previous article, this post explains how the research was conducted and what we found. 

A word of hope to those of you who don’t enjoy statistics: hang in there and try not to get distracted about the formulas and numbers.  We also comment on what the numbers mean.  And, in the August Peace Partner, we will discuss the implications of the findings presented and speculate on where to go from here. 

Thanks for your interest and, as always, please feel free to call us if you have any questions (325-674-2015).

Method

Participants and Procedure

1243 women who regularly attended a Church of Christ (either currently, or for a significant amount of time within the last 25 years) participated in the study.   28% were between the ages of 18 and 40, 45% were in the 41 and 60 age range, and 27% were 61 or older.  Participants were asked to complete measures about their views on women’s church roles, self-esteem and attachment to God.  Demographic information about gender, marital status, age, education level, degree of church involvement, amount of experience in regularly attending a Church of Christ, and congregational worship style experience was also collected.

The initial participants list of 200 Church of Christ women was generated from the authors’ personal email and social media contacts lists.  Using a snowball sampling method, participants were identified and asked through email to complete an online survey and pass it on to other Church of Christ women in their families, bible studies, and churches.  The survey was available online for a five week period and limitations were set that would not allow the survey to be taken more than once from the same computer.

Measures

Assessment of Views on Women’s Roles.  The Attitudes toward Women’s Roles in Religious Contexts Scale (AWRRC; Sharp Penya, 2009) was used to assess how women feel about women’s roles in churches. The 34-item instrument measures the degree to which respondents held traditional (low scores) or progressive (high scores) views about women’s roles using a 5-point Likert scale (1=Strongly Agree to 5=Strongly Disagree).  Traditional views of women’s roles were defined as non inclusive of women in church roles (e.g., hierarchical complementarianism) and progressive views were defined as inclusive of women in church roles (e.g., egalitarianism). The scale measures three factors.  The first is general attitudes toward women’s roles which included seven questions (e.g., “Women should be submissive to male authority in a church context.”).  The second subscale focused on attitudes about women in church leadership roles and included nine questions (e.g., “It is appropriate for a woman to serve a congregation as a youth minister.”).  Comprised of 18 questions, the third subscale asked about women’s roles in worship-related activities (e.g., “Women should NOT serve communion in corporate worship. (R)”) 

Assessment of Attachment to God.  The Attachment to God Inventory (AGI; Beck and McDonald, 2004) was used to evaluate the level of anxiety and avoidance participants felt in their relationship with God.  The 28-item self-report scale includes two subscales: avoidance (e.g., “I just don’t feel a deep need to be close to God.”) and anxiety (e.g., “I crave reassurance from God that God loves me.”) Each subscale was made up of 14 questions. Using a 7-point Likert scale (1=Strongly Agree to 7=Strongly Disagree), low scores represent a secure attachment to God and high scores represent anxious and avoidant attachments to God.

Assessment of Self-Esteem. Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem scale (RSE; Rosenberg, M, 1979) is a widely used self-report instrument for evaluating individual self-esteem.  Low scores indicated low self-esteem and high scores indicated high self-esteem.  Using a 4-point Likert scale (1=Strongly Agree to 4=Strongly Disagree), the 10-item scale includes statements like, “I feel I do not have much to be proud of.”

Results

Relationships between Variables

Overall, the correlations for attachment to God, self-esteem, and views on women’s roles were consistent with the predictions.  Self-esteem was negatively correlated with the anxiety and avoidance subscales of the AGI (r = -.56, p < .000 and r = -.21, p < .000, respectively).  However, consistent with other literature, self-esteem showed no significant relationship to views of women’s roles.

Differences in Older and Younger Women

In order to compare younger women and older women, the sample was divided into two groups: the lowest age quartile of women was compared to the highest age quartile.  The “younger” group (28% of the sample) included women ages 18 – 40 while the “older” group (27% of the sample) included women 61 and over. 

As shown in  Table 1, the t-test revealed that while both groups were in the low range of avoidance and anxiety in their attachment to God, older women were significantly less avoidant and anxious than younger women, t(651) = 7.66, p < .000, t(635) = 9.41, p < .000, respectively.  Moreover, when the two groups were compared on their attitudes towards women’s roles, there were significant findings on all three subscales.  Overall, younger women were more inclusive in their attitudes towards women’s roles than older women.  Specifically, younger women were more inclusive in their general attitudes towards women’s roles, t(652) = 6.71, p < .000, in their attitudes toward women in leadership roles, t(651) = 6.39, p < .000, and in their attitudes towards women’s participation in worship-related activities, t(627) = 4.96, p < .000.  It should be noted, however, that for the worship-related activities subscale both older and younger women landed in the inclusive range while both groups were in the non inclusive range for their general attitudes toward women’s roles.  Yet, for the leadership subscale older women were in the non inclusive range and younger women were in the inclusive range.  Lastly, although the test rendered a significant result between groups on self-esteem, the means were so close together that this finding is not especially noteworthy.

A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) statistic was used to examine the difference between the younger and older groups on attitudes towards women’s roles, congregational worship style (traditional or contemporary), and attachment to God.  Results revealed a significant 3-way relationship between women’s views of women’s roles, the anxiety subscale of attachment to God, and congregational worship style, Wilks’ Lambda = .965, F(6, 1024) = 3.095, p = .005.  As shown in Table 2, this test divided the participants into eight different groups. Of these eight groups, the most anxious was younger women with inclusive views of women’s roles who attended a church with a contemporary worship style (M = 48.42, SD = 1.31).  Interestingly, the least anxious group was older women with inclusive views of women’s roles who attended a church with a contemporary worship style (M = 33.00, SD = 2.16).  The only differing variable between these two groups is age.

Another notable finding from the MANOVA test is that, in general, women seem to choose a worship style that is similar to their views on women’s roles.  For example, according to the n-sizes on Table 2, of the 131 young women with non inclusive views of women’s roles, 105 (80%) of them chose to attend a church with a traditional worship style.  Similarly, of the 122 older women with non inclusive views of women’s roles, 111 (90%) of them reported attending a church a traditional worship style.

However, the numbers were not so drastic for women with inclusive views of women’s roles.  In particular, of the 170 younger women with inclusive views, only 100 (59%) of them attend a congregation with a progressive worship style.  Furthermore, of the 82 older women with inclusive views of women’s roles, just 37 (45%) of them attend a church with a progressive worship style.

Overall, these results of the research quantify the complexity of women’s views on women’s roles and their attachment to God.  They show significant differences between older and younger women while highlighting the importance of conversations and relationships between the two groups.  Look for Part 3 of 3 in the August Peace Partner where we will unpack what these results tell us about women in our churches and discuss the next step in this research project.

Bibliography

Beck, R. & McDonald, A. (2004). Attachment to God: The attachment to God inventory, tests of working model, and an exploration of faith group differences.  Journal of Psychology and Theology, 32 (2), 92-103.

Rosenberg, M. (1979). Conceiving the Self. New York: Basic Books.

Sharp Penya, L. (2009, June). Examining the relationship among female students’ attitudes toward women’s roles, religiosity and attitudes toward churches of Christ.  Paper presented at Christians Scholar’s Conference, Nashville, TN.