Read an interesting piece on the decline of "Liberal Christianity". It goes into some specific causes for the failing of the "church of the future" and it doesn’t get preachy – it just points out the actual result of the changes in doctrine.
The results are not surprising. I have been saying for years that those that seek to water down (tone down, whatever) the Christian to make it more "seeker friendly" – and therefore increase attendance/membership – are completely missing the point of "seekers".
Consider this: If you are seeking purpose and meaning in your life and decide to go check out Christianity. You go to church to discover that everything acceptable outside the church is also acceptable inside the church. Why would you stay? What’s the point of joining something that is in no way different from your current life? What could it possibly change in your life?
Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins
"…Embraced by the leadership of all the mainline Protestant denominations, as well as large segments of American Catholicism, liberal Christianity has been hailed by its boosters for 40 years as the future of the Christian church. Instead, as all but a few die-hards now admit, all the mainline churches and movements within churches that have blurred doctrine and softened moral precepts are demographically declining and, in the case of the Episcopal Church, disintegrating…
…You want to have gay sex? Be a female bishop? Change God’s name to Sophia? Go ahead…
…When a church doesn’t take itself seriously, neither do its members… "
Thanks Jeremy