Scholar warns feminism has become a ‘megachurch’ replacing faith, family and Christian virtue

An author of 11 books, including an upcoming title on feminism, says the movement has evolved into a kind of secular "megachurch" with its own doctrines, rituals and moral code — one that she argues now serves as a substitute for faith, family and traditional Christian virtue.

"Feminism actually is not a subset of Christianity. It's actually a rival to Christianity," Carrie Gress, a fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at Catholic University of America, told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.

Gress is the author of the forthcoming book "Something Wicked: Why Feminism Can’t Be Fused With Christianity," which she says examines how feminism has "quietly captured the minds and hearts of women by mimicking aspects of Christianity. Through its own ‘commandments,’ ‘virtues,’ ‘evangelization,’ and even ‘a sacrament,’ feminism has become an exceedingly powerful megachurch."

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"In many respects, it can actually be seen as a megachurch," Gress told Fox News Digital. "It has taken on so many of the aspects of Christianity."

According to Gress, feminism was designed from its earliest roots as a substitute belief system — one she says is fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.

"So feminism has its own sacraments, virtues, rites, evangelization — all of that. The simplest example is to look at what I call the ‘commandments of feminism,’" Gress said.

"There are three of them, and they started actually back in the early 1800s," she added. "Percy Bysshe Shelley [husband of "Frankenstein" author Mary Shelley] is the romantic poet who actually put them together. These ideas of his in-laws, his mother-in-law Mary Wollstonecraft and his father-in-law, William Godwin, and then his own idea. And these ideas were, to have contempt for men, to really shun monogamy and to embrace promiscuity, and then to be involved in the occult. And those are sort of the three tenets of feminism."

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Gress’ argument echoes earlier reporting and scholarship that have explored similar themes.

A 2015 article in The Atlantic entitled, "When Feminism Becomes a Religion," stated: "The feminist movement today has startling similarity to religious fundamentalism. There is the same dogmatism, the same zealous fervor, the same fear, the same clinging to certainty and the absolute conviction in one’s own correctness. Dissenters are marginalized, castigated, even cast out. The psychology is identical; all that differs are the goals."

The article, authored by Chris Bodenner, a former senior editor at The Atlantic, continued: "But just as with religious extremists, feminists are fearful of what science might do to their perfect tapestry of beliefs, and what it might lead to in society, even if this doesn’t make any sense. It saddens me that friends I grew up with who were negatively affected by this mindset in the context of religion have traded that in for a different version."

In an article published in The Cut, Nicki Minaj was quoted as saying, "I want your goal in life to be to become an entrepreneur, a rich woman, a career-driven woman. You have to be able to know that you need no man on this planet at all, period, and he should feel that, because when a man feels that you need him, he acts differently." 

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A 2020 interview with Senegalese feminist Diakhoumba Gassama, titled "Feminism Is My Religion," likewise described feminism as a belief system guiding moral and personal choices.

"To me, feminism is definitely beyond belief," Gassama said. "It’s a vision and a value system. In the same way some people are religious, I can say feminism is my religion. Everything I do, whenever I have to decide between A or B, I ask myself: are my values going to be respected? Am I going to be able to look at myself in the mirror in the same way?" 

In 2022, Medium published an article titled, "Women Don’t Need Men, And It’s Breaking The Manosphere," authored by Ossiana Tepfenhart, who wrote, "Studies show single, childless women to be the happiest. Women no longer need a man to make a living or have kids. They have been doing it all on their own for a while."

Gress argues that feminism sells women a false promise, which is that their greatest fulfillment lies in autonomy, careerism and detachment from family.

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"So feminism has created an idol, which is, of course, female autonomy," Gress said. "It's taught women and continues to tell women that our greatest happiness and our fulfillment is going to come when we are living by and for ourselves, when we're not married or marriage isn't really the center of our life, as well as our children, that those things are actually obstacles to the happiness that we're going to find in a career." 

According to Gress, feminism also diminished the cultural value of children by framing them as impediments to productivity.

"Now the sad part is, of course, that women are really made for relationships," Gress said. "They're made to love others. And we can see that this desire to love and to mother others hasn't evaporated. It's just shifted to another place. And this is why we see so much of a boom in the pet industry. Women are just choosing to nurture pets in a way that they in the past would nurture their children and focus on their family." 

She added: "Women have been targeted with this idea so that we will be angry and will be more politically helpful. And you can see this, I think, any of the women's movements. These are not movements or events that are showing happy, healthy, thriving women, but they really embody a kind of anger, rage, envy, contempt. All of those things are sort of shot through the movement at this point."

Gress believes that reversing feminist cultural trends requires restoring the traditional roles of men and women, not rigidly, but purposefully.

"It's really the restoration of womanhood and helping women see that," Gress said. "And I think that is really where it's going to help men too, because we're going to get men back to understanding what their purpose is. And when both roles understand their purpose, not that they're fixed or that there's not some overlap, but when a couple comes together and is working towards a common goal instead of working against each other, that's really where you see major gains happen in the family. And in the culture and, you know, ultimately, in civilization."

Fox News' Alba Cuebas-Fantauzzi contributed to this report.