Why wouldn't anyone see a decline? If you really believe Christianity you will go find a church that proactices it. If you don't then why bother to go to church at all?
BINGO...
""When your religion says "whatever" on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church.""
It's about destroying the work of God, not embracing it. So when a church departs from the Word of God, it's going to die. These places decline because they don't really care about preserving God's Will, they care about themselves.
Exactly!
The goal of these wolves in sheep's clothing is to infest enough individual churches with leftism so that the media can report on how "the church" is moving toward Socialism. They don't care anything about religion as a vehicle for coming to God, only as a vehicle for implementing their (secular) world view and moving the country to the Left.
They tried this only a few weeks ago, claiming the "evangelicals" have become environmentalists and are supporting green candidates for political office.
"CONTACTS!"
How else would you get such hot tips as, "One word: PLASTICS! The future is plastics, my boy!"
(NOTE: I did not check the quote; it is from memory of seeing The Graduate when it first came out.
Note II: I also understand that some choose their church based on how often/how good the potlucks are, and others by how many votes can be garnered by attending.