Not only did Buffy Summers slay vampires with the greatest of ease, but she also decimated Britain’s female church-going population – at least, so says a new study.
According to a British report cited in the Telegraph, an estimated 50,000 women are quitting the church each year because of the sci-fi series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The study claims that during the past 20 years the women deserted their congregations because they feel that the church was no longer relevant to their lives.
Instead, women are turning to the pagan religion Wicca, in which females are prominent. Wicca has been portrayed positively in the past decade through media such as the TV series Charmed (1998-2006), the film The Craft (1996) and the Harry Potter franchise.
Heck, even the 1960s TV series Bewitched made Wicca seem enchanting, what with its simplistic plots, cheery laugh track and adorable baby witch, Tabitha Stephens.
“Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by Wicca, popularised by the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” said the report’s author, Dr. Kristin Aune, a sociologist at the University of Derby.
"Young women tend to express egalitarian values and dislike the traditionalism and hierarchies they imagine are integral to the church.”
The report comes at a key time for Christians in Britain. Last month their ruling body voted to let women become bishops for the first time, but traditionalists warn that the move will devastate the church population if it goes ahead.
“Women’s ordination, as priests and now bishops, has dominated debate and headlines – but while looking at women in the pulpit we have taken our eyes off the pews, where a shift with more consequences for the church’s survival is underway,” said Aune.
Her research, published in the book Women and Religion in the West, cites an English Church census which found more than a million women have abandoned churches since 1989.
What’s more, it claims women have bid churches farewell at double the rate of men in the past decade.
The Church of England declined to comment.
Sarah Michelle Gellar played the titular character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer from 1997-2003.
Thoughts? melissa@tvguide.ca
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