Are Women Better Christians Than Men?

By almost any measure, women are better Christians than men are. They're more likely to read Scripture, believe it, practice what it teaches, and tell others about it. (Studies suggest that women are also more devout Muslims, Hindus, pagans, etc.) And they're feeling pretty good about it, too: in August, the Barna Group reported that 74 percent of Christian women say they are mature in the faith.

Sociologists Alan Miller and Rodney Stark have posited that women's near-universal religiosity may be connected to other data suggesting that women are generally strongly averse to risktaking. They don't like risking injury, jail--or, it seems, hell. (Indeed, men and women who say they "like doing things for a thrill" are nearly uniform in their answers to religious questions.) On a few questions, though, men come out slightly ahead.