The Amazing Decline of Liberal Christianity

The L.A. Times reports:

When a church doesn't take itself seriously, neither do its members. It is hard to believe that as recently as 1960, members of mainline churches - Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and the like - accounted for 40% of all American Protestants. Today, it's more like 12% (17 million out of 135 million). Some of the precipitous decline is due to lower birthrates among the generally blue-state mainliners, but it also is clear that millions of mainline adherents (and especially their children) have simply walked out of the pews never to return. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, in 1965, there were 3.4 million Episcopalians; now, there are 2.3 million. The number of Presbyterians fell from 4.3 million in 1965 to 2.5 million today. Compare that with 16 million members reported by the Southern Baptists.

It's hard to run a church when the leaders sound like editors of the New York Times or a tenured sociology professor.