Liberal Christianity is Paying for its Sins?

Here's an interesting article on the decline of mainline churches in the LA Times of all places:

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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).

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.

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.

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This echoes what Dr. Iannaccone was teaching in his economics of religion class last year. If a church doesn't distinguish itself from the beliefs of the world, it essentially has nothing to offer.

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"Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference."
-- Edmund Burke, 1795

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Dr. James Buchanan (Nobel Prize Winner) taught at a seminar I attended last spring. He feels as though the churches in the US have traditionally been the guardians and preservers of cultural morals necessary for the preservation of our society. He also believes that they have been failing in their mission -- particularly the mainline denominations. According to Buchanan, if people stop believing in God, they will start to look for salvation from the government. I think he is right and that explains much of the trend towards government solutions for all of society's ailments over the last 70-80 years.

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"When a Man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything. "
-- commonly attributed to G.K. Chesterton

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As churches abandon their historical doctrine, they not only being to decline in membership and fade away into irrelevance, I believe there is a large decay in the social capital of society. This must be part of what Jesus meant when he commanded Christians to be the "salt and light of the world".

I believe Christianity is a key cornerstone of Western culture in general and American culture specifically. I do not know what direction our culture will take if Christianity loses its foothold in influencing Western thought and morals.

Questions: What will become of the West if churches decline? Is there a general decline of religiosity or orthodoxy in the US or it just happening in certain denominations with others responding by strengthening their beliefs? What data would you use to support your belief? Do you agree that Christianity a cornerstone of Western culture? Why or why not?

Further Reading:
Here is an article from Business Week on the Economics of Religion.

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