Why are young men returning to church? And why aren’t young women joining them?

One thing that strikes me is that politically speaking, there is a huge gender gap--men skew conservative, women liberal. So I wonder if part of the issue is that many churches are becoming increasingly comfortable for conservatives.

Which can be, of course, good and bad, because you don't want your churches tied to politicians, especially of the Trump variety. And you definitely don't want your church to be increasing the gender gap between men and women; our churches were accused of being overly feminine, and now is it the opposite? What about Christlike instead?

>>So I wonder if part of the issue is that many churches are becoming increasingly comfortable for conservatives.<<

While I’m sure it’s true that there are politically oriented churches out there that are targeted to “conservatives,” even among churches like mine that don’t do politics, I would argue that traditional churches are more comfortable for conservatives because of the change in America’s ethics and morals. The average person doesn’t have a well-founded “Judeo-Christian” heritage today. Although I’m sure it’s true there weren’t more true Christians around when I was a kid, I’m old enough to remember when “common decency” was actually more common than it is now.

Since our church does preach against things like today’s sexual mores, abortion, lawlessness in general, and stands for righteousness, biblical gender roles, etc., it stands to reason that conservatives are going to feel more at home there than those with a liberal outlook on all of those items. As you point out, the fact that men are trending more conservative and women more liberal would explain quite well the disparity between the numbers of women and men in church. You don’t have to be a hyper-masculine, Trump-oriented bunch of people to turn off liberals or modern women. You just have to be out-of-step with our society, which a Bible practicing church naturally will be.

There is a reasonable conservatism--being pro-life and the like--that follows from our faith, and then there is a knee jerk MAGA conservatism. As Dave no doubt knows, I'd assert that the risk is when reasonable conservatism gives way to knee jerk.