Why are women leaving churches and where are they going instead? A journalist explains.

(RNS) — Before she was an agnostic and a religion reporter known for her sharp analysis of abuse in churches, Sarah Stankorb was a faithful United Methodist who believed she was called to Christian ministry.

“My green, leather-bound Bible lived on my nightstand and traveled with me to church each week and to youth group meetings and retreats,” she writes in her latest book, “Damned If She Does: Why Women Quit Church and What It Means for the Future of Religion.”

Then in college, she was exposed to different, non-literal interpretations of the Bible and her faith shattered.

“It hurt as if someone had died,” she writes. “A part of myself surely did.”

Several years later, in 2014, a landmark religious landscape study from Pew Research Center reported that religious disaffiliation was growing among men and women at about the same rate. Stankorb told RNS she knew two things: She wasn’t alone in her departure from religion and readers needed more context.

“I knew that women are almost always more religious than men,” the Wyoming, Ohio-based author told RNS. “We tend to inherit religion from our mothers, and when women start to leave in numbers similar to men, you’re usually…