Are Evangelical Worship Songs Driving Young Men to Eastern Orthodoxy?

Not long ago, a friend asked me about an article he’d come across online, one of those stories combining news and analysis that makes the rounds on social media and stirs up conversation among the Twittering class. The gist went something like this: There’s a gender gap in Baptist youth groups (they skew overwhelmingly female), while the Eastern Orthodox are attracting young men who are fed up with the effeminate nature of evangelical worship songs and teaching style.

Analysis like this shows up on a regular basis, often backed by a few anecdotes and hastily assembled statistics. Claims like this frustrate me, not because there’s nothing true in the anecdotes but because the narrative being presented isn’t borne out by the statistics, and because I suspect writers who want a certain narrative to be true will cobble together whatever fits to give their pet project or pet peeve a kind of propulsive power. Don’t you know things are moving in this direction? So get with the program!

Interrogate the Claims

Let’s interrogate the claims in this popular-level narrative. Is there a gender gap between Baptist youth groups and Eastern Orthodox young people? Is it true that Baptist youth groups skew female, while the student ministry in more liturgical denominations is made up primarily of young men? What would it take to establish such a claim?

More than a couple examples from youth ministry in your town, that’s for sure. You’d need to survey hundreds of youth groups across the country, from various denominations, to determine their gender composition. A couple anecdotes from this or that church don’t suffice.

For the second major claim—that worship style is to blame—let’s assume there is a gender gap in American youth groups, with Baptists skewing toward young women and the Orthodox drawing in young men. How would we determine the reason for that gap?

We’d need to survey and interview young men to find out why they opted out of student ministry in a Baptist church and why they joined the Orthodox. We’d need both quantitative and qualitative research that points to worship music and the teaching style as the dividing factor between young men and young women.

No such research exists. Which means the social media stir about young men abandoning evangelicalism because the worship songs are too emotional or effeminate is based solely or primarily on a handful of conversations, or it’s the author’s or commenter’s biases and predispositions driving toward conclusions that prop up whatever version of the church they prefer.

Is Orthodoxy Surging Among Young Men?

Last year, I examined some of the claims about young men flocking to Eastern Orthodox parishes. The articles on this phenomenon are heavy on stories and light on stats. Yes, a handful of Orthodox churches are seeing a large percentage increase in young men, and that’s an interesting story, for sure. It deserves to be reported on.

But there’s a story because of how tiny Orthodoxy is in America. There are four times as many Baptist churches in Tennessee as there are Orthodox churches in the entire country. Percentage increases can seem dramatic when the baseline is small. A church growing from 40 to 80 members can celebrate 100 percent growth year over year, but it’s the same numerical increase as another church across town growing just 10 percent (from 400 to 440 members).

To be clear, I’m not saying there’s no renewed interest in other traditions. There is. In the world of YouTube and Instagram, all kinds of Christian traditions are now “accessible” in ways they weren’t before. Wings of the church that young people were unfamiliar with have now come into view, with the internet giving voice to traditions, large and small, across the spectrum.

So, yes, evangelical pastors and church leaders should expect to encounter young people curious about other traditions, especially Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Gavin Ortlund is doing great work in this area, making a biblical and historical case for Protestantism, often digging into the minutiae of historical events and doctrinal claims as he engages prominent arguments for other traditions.

I’m not denying the renewed interest in other Christian traditions. I’m simply pointing out how easy it is to discuss this renewed interest in a way that fosters a false narrative—that masses of young people are suddenly discovering and converting to Orthodoxy.

It’s easy to find testimonials of young evangelicals converting to Catholicism or Orthodoxy, and the more you come across, the more you might assume a fast-growing trend. But the more significant movement, statistically, is the non-headline-making emptying of the Catholic Church and the much higher rate of Catholics (especially from Latin America) converting to Pentecostalism. These converts don’t publish their testimonies in flagship magazines, but numerically they’re more significant.

Do Young Men Reject Contemporary Worship?

Now, let’s return to the claim that Baptist youth groups have all the girls, while all the guys are flocking to the Orthodox Church in town, supposedly because of a distaste for evangelical worship songs.

I don’t know of any research firm that has tracked at a granular level the rates of participation in student ministry (which would differ from an age-breakdown denominationally) and the reasons students switch traditions. Which means any article or social media post based primarily on anecdotes can be countered with other anecdotes. So here are mine. I get the opportunity to speak at churches from various denominations, and I often attend conferences where I interact with pastors and church leaders. In the Baptist youth groups I’ve observed, there’s no noticeable gender gap.

But even if there were, it irks me to see such a broad-brush condemnation of evangelical worship songs as “effeminate” or “emotional” as somehow responsible for driving young men from the church. The narrative goes something like this: We’re losing young men because our worship services are too expressive, too emotional, too focused on intimacy with God—as if “Jesus is my boyfriend.” All this skews feminine, so it’s no wonder men are attracted to formality and liturgy in songs and prayers.

As I mentioned above, no statistics or surveys prove or disprove this narrative, which is why articles and posts lean on anecdotes (“I talked to a young man at the Orthodox Church who thinks chanting is better than Hillsong!”) and often come from someone with an axe to grind about worship services they view with disdain.

Is Expressiveness Feminine?

But I want to press more on two aspects of this critique. The first is that expressiveness in worship—showing emotion in some way—codes as feminine over masculine. That being demonstrative is somehow emasculating.

Now, I’m not arguing for today’s typical evangelical church service or youth rally as the epitome of worship for young people. There are different modes and expressions in worship, with cultural and regional variations. People with different personality types will gravitate toward certain styles or songs. That’s to be expected. I love both the exuberance of contemporary worship and depth of liturgical services.

My point is that expressiveness is neither masculine nor feminine. It’s men who are commanded to lift up holy hands in prayer (1 Tim. 2:8). It’s King David who danced with all his might before the ark of the Lord (2 Sam. 6). You cannot convince me that a young man singing out at the top of his lungs his love for the risen Christ in an evangelical worship service is effeminate while the young guy with a scraggly beard kissing icons in an Orthodox service is masculine.

Is Modern Worship Just ‘Boyfriend’ Songs?

The second aspect that deserves pushback is the complaint that most modern-day worship songs fall into the “Jesus is my boyfriend” category, that they’re all cringeworthy expressions of intimacy with Christ.

We can find plenty to critique in today’s worship—an inordinate focus on what we are doing in worship rather than what God has done, the neglect of essential Christian doctrines, and the slippage into something entertainment-driven with a loss of God’s transcendence. What’s more, I grew up in the ’90s. I remember more than a few contemporary Christian music hits that could have doubled as simple love songs—a word tweaked here or there—as artists sometimes sought crossover success.

But that’s not the case today. Critique today’s worship songs all you like—the theological views of the churches they come from, the lack of global diversity, historic truths that don’t show up frequently enough in the lyrics—but there’s been positive movement toward a greater focus on the cross and resurrection of Jesus. The overly saccharine “Jesus is my boyfriend” songs are largely a thing of the past.

But Trevin, you say, there are still a bunch of songs that address Jesus in ways that seem uncomfortably intimate, or too personal, or too individualistic! Some songs seem just one step removed from the romantic, and even if it’s clear the song is about Jesus, it’s too much for the masculine men among us!

OK. What kind of songs would you prefer? Something that doesn’t enflame our hearts and or express our affections for God?

Was Charles Wesley effeminate in 1740 for singing, “Jesus, lover my soul, let me to thy bosom fly”?

What about the great Isaac Watts, who wrote “The Voice of My Beloved Sounds”?

Then there’s the theologian (and Crusade champion!) Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153):

Read Jonathan Edwards on the “sweet delight” he felt in God when he read the New Testament, longing to be “wrapped up to God in heaven, and be as it were swallowed up in him.” Pray along with Anselm of Canterbury: “Make us with our whole heart to hunger and thirst after you, and with all our longing to desire you” and “Let me seek you in my desire, let me desire you in my seeking. Let me find you by loving you, let me love you when I find you.”

And who can forget Augustine, throughout the Confessions, whose “love song for a Savior,” rendered here by Sarah Ruden startles us with emotional intensity?

Wag a finger at today’s songwriters and worship leaders for being too expressive or too shallow, but just be careful you don’t climb to a perch from which to look down on all the men above, not to mention King David, the warrior poet who panted after the living God (Ps. 63) and said the “one thing” he wanted most was “to gaze on the beauty of the LORD” (27:4).

If the choice is between Michal’s sophisticated embarrassment at worshipful exuberance (2 Sam. 6:16) and David’s reckless abandon—no matter how masculine or feminine such expression codes—I’ll go with David every time.

Final Plea

My plea is, first, to think more carefully about the articles or posts that show up on social media describing conversions or church growth. They may be true, but they usually don’t indicate a real trend. Nor do they prove or disprove one’s preferences in worship.

Second, avoid broad-brush criticisms of today’s worship styles and songs. Ask good questions and be specific with critique when necessary, but don’t become so broad and general in your concerns that you cordon yourself off from Christianity through the ages and make it harder to encounter the Lord in song.

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