The women’s movement will present a growing threat to patriarchal religion less by attacking it than by simply leaving it behind.

Carol P. Christ, a leading feminist theologian, argues that entrenched religious patriarchy is most effectively undermined not by direct polemic but by withdrawal of women’s attention, loyalty, and participation. The “threat” is demographic and cultural: when women stop investing spiritual energy in institutions that define the divine, authority, and community in male-centered terms, those institutions lose legitimacy and social power. The quote also implies a constructive alternative—women creating or embracing new spiritualities, symbols, and communities—so that change comes through reorientation rather than perpetual confrontation. It frames feminist religious transformation as a shift in practice and belonging, not merely critique.