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At the time of Jesus, and for centuries afterward, Christianity was as much a male religion as a female one, writes Leon Podles in "The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity" (Spence, $17.95).
But that began to change in the 13th century. Dominic and Francis, two religious leaders who became saints, warned their followers to concentrate more on men. They had begun to notice a gender imbalance among the faithful.
The warnings, Podles said, went unheeded, and within a century, the Dominicans, a Catholic religious order, were ministering mostly to women.
Since then, wherever Western Christianity has spread, Podles notes, "the church has become feminized."
Barna Research Group has found that, while more than...