This one has the strong scent of "well, duh" about it

So a Wilfried Laurier University professor of religion and culture, David Millard Haskell, writes a Washington Post column  in which he cites a study of 22 mainline Protestant churches in Ontario that he and his colleagues meticulously designed in order to allow for this and allow for that, and comes to the conclusion that you and I knew he would come to.

Let me back up just a bit. He starts his piece by citing Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong's book Why Christianity Must Change or Die and conferring legitimacy on it by citing all the liberal theologians who have heaped praise on it since its publication 20 years ago.

Then he lays the groundwork for getting into the methodology and findings of his study by saying basically, "What we found indicates that Spong had the wrong remedy for institutional Christianity."

Professor Haskell, had you afforded Spong the presumption that he was right before you went to the trouble of conducting your fancy-pants study?

Because what you found seems pretty obvious to most people, I feel safe in saying:

We also found that for all measures, growing church clergy members were most conservative theologically, followed by their congregants, who were themselves followed by the congregants of the declining churches and then the declining church clergy members. In other words, growing church clergy members are the most theologically conservative, while declining church clergy members are the least. Their congregations meet more in the middle.

For example, we found 93 percent of clergy members and 83 percent of worshipers from growing churches agreed with the statement “Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh-and-blood body leaving behind an empty tomb.” This compared with 67 percent of worshipers and 56 percent of clergy members from declining churches. Furthermore, all growing church clergy members and 90 percent of their worshipers agreed that “God performs miracles in answer to prayers,” compared with 80 percent of worshipers and a mere 44 percent of clergy members from declining churches.

Outside our research, when growing churches have been identified by other studies — nationally and internationally — they have been almost exclusively conservative in doctrine. As we explain in our academic work, because of methodological limitations, these other studies did not link growth to theology. But our work suggests this is a fruitful avenue of research to pursue.

I found his tortured striving to see some esoteric reason for this rather amusing:

What explains the growth gap between liberal and conservative congregations? In defense of liberal churches, one might venture that it is the strength of belief, not the specifics of belief, that is the real cause of growth. In this case, pastors embracing liberal theology are just as likely as conservative pastors to experience church growth, provided they are firm and clear in their religious convictions. Yet different beliefs, though equally strong, produce different outcomes.

Got that? It might just be the "strength of  belief, not the specifics of belief."

This is a classic example of cultural observation so clouded by moral relativism that it must deny that which is right up in its face.

I wrote my master's thesis in history on this subject, the emptying of the pews in mainline Protestant churches, 27 years ago.  My own inspiration was the Presbyterian church I had grown up in. Recall that two big issues on America's radar in those days were US attempts to roll back the spread of Marxism-Leninism in Central America, and the outcry on the Left over US nuclear missiles in Europe. The "peace fellowship" hosted by the church was on the anti-freedom side of both issues, quite vocally so.

It hasn't changed. I go by there occasionally and always look to see what kind of banner they are currently hanging on their wrought-iron fence. Sometimes it's one that says, "Torture is always wrong." Sometimes it simply sports a rainbow. The latest one says that immigrants and refugees are welcome there.

And I have it on good authority that its services are sparsely attended.

Professor Haskell, while it's true that fewer post-Americans are going to church overall, the ones who are go because church is - ostensibly, anyway - a unique institution in that it deals with how one is going to spend eternity. If, instead, all one hears is identity politics and guilt-mongering, someone interested in actual church is going to bail and go find a place that talks about the salvific blood of Jesus and the promise of the empty tomb.

Not exactly rocket science if you haven't mucked up your mind with a lot of gobbledy-gook.