The continuing decline of the mainline

Washington Post: "Liberal churches are dying. But conservative churches are thriving."

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.

Read the whole thing. See also the comments (hundreds of them) about the article at Instapundit.

Here are some notes I made relevant to this topic in seminars I've attended going back to 1999.