For once? I’d have thought it was a dude more often than not. “It Happened One Night”, “His Girl Friday”, “The Awful Truth” (Ralph Bellamy seems to have been born to play this role), etc. TVTropes used to call that character “The Baxter” after the 2005 romcom told from the POV of one.

The fantastically comprehensive Uchronia site has a list of the oldest alternate histories, from Livy through 1939's classic “Lest Darkness Fall” by L. Sprague de Camp.

The problem with the church scene in Man of Steel, as someone else pointed out, is the idea that at a time when everyone on Earth has just found out that a) alien intelligence exists and b) it’s an imminent existential threat, a church in Middle America is empty except for the pastor.