Buffy Blamed For Women Leaving Church

[Relic]

Buffy huh? Didn't a cross save her from Luke in season one? How about alittle love for that? It's not Buffys fault, I blame Joan of Arc, and I say "well done" All of the sudden, people started realizing women can be generals and warriors and talk to God with out needing a father/priest. (Imagine that women are people too!)

That's real life empowerment to me, my direct link to my beliefs. (But look what it got her) Church lattely has been slow, maybe with the price of things and the divorce rate...maybe people are working and the day of rest has become another 9-5? Maybe belief is on the decline? Empowerment has nothing to do with it in a negative way though. Would the alternative be desired? Non empowered people? People who don't believe and think and love and respect, but just obey out of what, fear alone? Are you expected to have no role in the role your suppose to play? I don't think thats in the best intrest of any instituion that expects longivity. I'm Christian, my wife is Catholic, I've been lucky enough to have both good pastors and priests. thankfully they don't buy into alot of the crap like this.

"Why is it when you talk to God it's called prayer, but when God talks to you it's called schizophrenia?" a famous comedian from Uncle johns bathroom reader.

 

[ckg927]

Guys...you're getting worked up over a TABLOID report?

Besides,religion has worked its way into BtVS over the years....let's see: Will's Jewish,Xander's an Episcopalian,Angel has long had an affinity for convents,we never see Buffy without a cross on her....how on Earth can that writer say that,with a straight face?

*snaps fingers*

I've got it! SHE NEVER SAW THE SERIES!

 

[Blondie Bear]

^ In our defense, some of us are American and don't know about British newspapers. I didn't know this was a tabloid.

 

[Veyron]

Buffy and the Church

This article was published in the UK by the Telegraph newspaper today regarding the amount of women leaving the Church of England because of programmes like Buffy and other mainstream television shows promoting Wicca.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer slaying church attendance among women, study claims - Telegraph

If you read the article and then the comments underneath, the majority of them are quite derogatory in their content - with only one or two actually standing up for the show or television in general.

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I think it goes to show, as one of the comments puts it that the Church (in general, not just in the UK) is in dire straights and that the fall off in attendances by females has given them some major cause for concern - as I'm more than certain they have no clue what-so-ever as to how to get people back into churches because, and let's be honest here, most of the religious services held not only in the UK, but around the world are the blandest, most boring 90 minutes that you'll ever spend in your lifetime.
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Edit:
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Ah, just noticed the other thread on the same topic.. my bad.

Although this is typical of the type of day I'm having so far.... 🙁
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[Veyron]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer slaying church attendance among women, study claims - Telegraph

Another Buffy / Church related article published today - this one from the Telegraph newspaper (and the Telegraph is a broadsheet newspaper, not a tabloid).

Checkout the comments at the bottom of the post - some of them are not nice.

 

[Mozzymandias]

Whether the service is boring or not depends entirely on your beliefs. If you have a belief in something it should not really be boring to you at all.

To you the service may be boring but to say a person of Christian faith attending a service it is a joyous occasion to them which is them showing there love for God.

Personally I agree with you, it would be dull to me as I don't believe in a God but there are many who would disagree.

 

[palabravampiress]

It's not Buffy that's turning women off from church. It's a complicated lot of factors touched on in the second article, but with a large emphasis on the female empowerment that shows like Buffy do reflect, represent, and promote. We're in the third wave of feminism, people, and today's young women just don't sit back and swallow the "submit to your husband" stuff anymore. I, for one, argued tooth and nail against my husband's pastor when I got married. He wanted me to accept a lot of women-are-subservient ideas that, quite frankly, simply didn't fit with either my upbringing or my women's college education. If the church wants to continue to degrade women, ignoring the fact that Jesus Christ's life and teachings strongly hinted toward the equality of women, then they're going to have to get used to lower attendance among women. Alternatively, if they want more women filling the pews, then they might want to stop telling them how inferior they are and start telling them about how we're all equals in God's eyes. After all, the case for equality can be made from scripture, too, and much of the passages that promote inequality can be traced to edits by patriarchal institutions like monasteries (or to contributions by, say, Paul, who perhaps had a few sex and control issues; just sayin').

I don't think this article is complete bunk. I mean, blaming Buffy is ridiculous. One TV show cannot take down one of the world's most powerful institutions. Insofar as Buffy is possible due to changing views that it also explores and promotes, though, I think it does reflect broader cultural changes that are hurting church attendance. I find the emphasis on Buffy's Wiccan component particularly interesting, especially as Wicca is the modern attempt to reconnect with the very nature based religions that monotheistic religions like Christianity worked so hard to destroy. I'm not surprised to see Christians condemning Wicca and Wiccan-related shows, I just think it's rather telling that the article chose to focus on this aspect of things rather than on, say, Willow's Jewish family, the show's reverence for the power of Christian symbols, Riley's church attendance, etc.



Note: Before they eventually became called Catholics, early mainstream Christians literally killed my favorite Christians, the Gnostics, who actually had a female component to their trinity as well as a more mystical approach to religion. If only the Gnostics had stayed around, man! If only!

 

[Ripper 08]

ok firstly i don't beleive in religion as a consept full stop! its just there to organise and controll the masses who do beleive. i respect those who do beleive in religion and have no problem with it, it's just not for me.

now this article says in its firts line (the one that i read from the dailymail) "Christian churches in England have lost at least 50,000 women from their congregations every year since 1989, says a sociologist."

buffy wasn't around in 1989 or for a good few years after so how the hell can it be blamed for those who have left the church during this period???

buffy isn't the only programme to contain whitch craft so how the hell can it be singled out alone, surely those other programmes with witch craft in are influincing people to take up witch craft aswell not just buffy!!!

this is just an easy target for the media to blame something on, next they'll be blaming brum for all the cars on the road and the congestion troubles and thomas the tank engine for railway delays.

its just like with the global warming shenanagans they blame it on all our cars and factory polution but in fact cows produce more of the gas that cuases global warming and so do volcanoes.

it's not buffy's fault that society is changing its just something that has to be gotten use to, people aren't as religious as they used to be a few years ago and this isn't down to a television programme its down to free will and the individual

 

[Veyron]

Oh the times, they are a changin'.

A line from a song.

An apt line from a song.

I'm not religious in any way, shape or form, but some members of my family are, and it's been pointed out that attendances at churches in the UK have been dropping regularly since what was it? 1989? Okay - perhaps they have - but that's not Buffy or Joss' fault - it's modern day society to blame.

Culture changes, people change - their ethical and moral values differ from older generations. During the war years and for perhaps one or at the most two decades afterward - so well into the 1960's a lot of people prayed for God or what-ever deity they followed to make changes in their lives - not just financial stuff or love, or what-ever - they were praying for their lives - from the end of WW2 upto and including early the early 1970's war was and still is a major part in people's lives.

Then along come pot smoking, drug taking youths who set out the "free love" movement and this was adopted by the younger generations. Not withstanding - some of the older generations - those born in the late 40's, early to mid 50's adopted this lifestyle change too - and the inevitable followed - people protested against war; people protested against the "hippies" who were taking vast amounts of drugs and what-not; and in the middle of it all was religion.

Religion, as you may or may not know, has caused more wars on this planet that anything else. Religion and religious beliefs have killed more people that Hitler did with his "master plan" for the Jewish people. I'm not condoning what happened to the Jewish people of Europe and I understand they were persecuted and murdered in their millions - but why? Religion, ethnic cleansing, the creation of a master race of blonde haired, blue eyed Europeans - the Aryan race as Hitler called them. God had nothing to do with the out-come of the 2nd world war - it was free men who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that you and I could do as we please today - because if Hitler had of been the victor in WW2, I'm damned sure that we wouldn't be talking about Buffy on a BBS.

During the Cuban Missile crisis, people prayed to God to find a resolution to the issue and some say that God played a role in defusing the situation by allowing the governments involved to resolve the issue without too much political upheaval - resulting in neither side loosing too much respect from their allies by the concessions they made. But religion had nothing to do with the out-come of the crisis - it was politics and eventually good sense.

Catholics are a mystery to me. They always have been and they probably always will be. They elect an older religious figure, who is supposedly wiser than the rest to lead them - fair enough - one of God's chosen so to speak. That's cool. But why do they have so many stupid rules? And we can all probably guess on the one I'm going to pick on - no birth control. Why would any form of religion say that? Why would they not allow people in their faith to not have children if they don't want to? Personally I don't know and if I'm telling the truth I don't want to know - so please, don't start a religious war after this post is done about the rights and the wrongs of Catholicism.

But again, religion causes war and trouble - look at Northern Ireland - it was them versus us -- them being either the Catholics or the Protestants' depending on your point of view - and that war raged on from the early 1920's and probably prior to that right up until the late 1990's, early 2000's.

War and religion don't mix. Religion and religion don't mix - that's why in my book people who go to church and who believe in such things should keep their opinions to themselves or within their religious groups. Just because you don't agree with what the other religious group down the road said doesn't mean that you should march mob handed down to their place of worship, kick the door in, beat them all to death with big sticks and set fire to the place just because it's not what you believe. Live and let live.

Fine words, fine motto - but in the end - not achievable as long as there are multiple religious bodies on the face of this planet.

Oh, and Buffy has nothing what-so-ever to do with the amount of people leaving the churches in the UK or anywhere else - that's called FREEWILL.

 

[Kean]

The Daily Mail is a complete and utter rag of a paper. I wouldn't use it to line my dust bin.

I find this kinda funny considering the local priest when I was in school used to encourage us to watch Buffy because she was such a strong role model, I guess this artical proves not all clergy are as forward thinking as Fr. Seevers.

Women aren't going to church because life has changed, the world has changed and the church hasn't.

 

[The Chosen]

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

That article made me laugh.

 

[Buffanator]

Bwwwahaahahahahahaha!!! Religionastas are SOOOO funny!!! :lmao:

Personally, I have to AGREE because I did "leave the church" BECAUSE of Buffy. But it wasn't because of the wiccan issue... it was vampires! The drinking of blood! The enjoyment of evil! Cause hey...Everybody knows that WITCHCRAFT isn't real... 🙄 Heh.

I wonder what those *50,000* women are up to these days? 😉

 

[Blondie Bear]

I wonder what those *50,000* women are up to these days? 😉

Actually, if it's 50,000 per year since 1989, which is 19 years, then they've lost 950,000! That's a lot of women to be practicing witchcraft! Maybe it's time for another round of burning.

(I am TOTALLY KIDDING. I in no way advocate the hunting and burning of witches or those suspected of being witches.)

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

Actually, if it's 50,000 per year since 1989, which is 19 years, then they've lost 950,000! That's a lot of women to be practicing witchcraft! Maybe it's time for another round of burning.

Which is ridiculous, cause witches - they were persecuted, wicca good and love the earth, and Woman Power, and I'll be over here...

 

[Violette]

I just read the article and all I can say is.. LOL. They also blamed Harry Potter and burned HP books a while back.

"She also said television icons such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who promote female empowerment, discourage women from attending services."
^ They don't expect us to have all females in shows & movies to go back to the old "damsel in distress" image, do they?

 

[hazzard]

this is so funny--people will blame anything on anyone or anything these days. people aren't going to church in the same way they used to because the world changes, it evolves and no one has time for corrupt, sad, deluded institutions that are stuck in the dark. one of my favourite bumper stickers that i have proudly displayed in my room says: "sorry i missed church. i was busy practicing witchcraft and becoming a lesbian."

 

[Kimz]

LOL i did have to laugh when i seen this last week!
bloody hilarious!
i agree...if they can get away with blaming peoples behaviour on a movie or tv show they most definitly will! lol
theyre so full of crap lol
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