But for the message to be compelling, it must also be clear. Their challenge is in communicating an identity rooted not in some watered-down Christianity that mimics social progressivism, but rather a holistic, historic, and even uncomfortable Gospel that keeps the redemptive work of Jesus radically at the center.

Is liberal Christianity committing suicide? New York Times columnist Roth Douthat thinks so. Yet by forecasting the inevitable demise of mainline churches that move in the direction of affirming women in church leadership and genuinely welcoming gays and lesbians, he provided a rare opportunity for some healthy soul-searching in my denomination. You see, I serve in one identified by Douthat as doomed to extinction. The Presbyterian Church (USA), like Lutheran, Methodist and Episcopalian denominations, has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s. Last year alone we lost 63,804 members nationwide. That’s a bad sign any way you cut it.

But mainline supporters seem to have simply satisfied themselves with a hasty rebuttal. They’ve criticized the grossly broad brush Douthat paints with on his ambiguous “liberal” versus “conservative” canvas while using a selective interpretation of church demographics. He ignores the fact that theologically conservative churches have also begun to decline in numbers, including his own Catholic faith, which is losing its non-immigrant adherents in droves. Conversely, if liberal theology really was killing mainline churches, they should have been shrinking decades before the 1960s. However, the decline didn’t begin until the Highway Act of 1956 and mass use of cars in America set off suburban sprawl. This transferred worshippers from the established mainline churches out of the city and into the waiting arms of evangelical churches—a branch of American Christianity practically synonymous with suburban and conservative.

I agree with the mainline defenders up to a point, but I can’t help but feel that if the “women-and-gays-destroy-churches” theory is unfounded, the “suburban sprawl” theory is not much more than an excuse. After all, there were mainline churches in the suburbs that could have absorbed the urban exodus. How then did evangelical churches siphon them away? Not only that, but non-evangelical churches grew rapidly as well. “Prosperity gospel” churches, often known as “health-and-wealth” churches, went from obscurity to making up to 17% of America’s religious landscape—and happen to be one of the few groups evangelicals and mainliners both dislike.

So how do we interpret the data in a way that does not necessarily paint our respective denominations in a good light, but rather gets us closer to the real causes and cures for mainline decline? Look no further than capitalism. Religious capitalism.

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Colin Kerr is director of campus ministry of The Journey at the College of Charleston and the Citadel Military College. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]