The dynamics of church rise and fall have always been interesting to me. I think it’s a portal the gives a look into deeper societal trends. Apparently there’s a sort of [renaissance](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15320763/site/newsweek/) happening in mainline denominations:

>The difference between them and a conservative, evangelical megachurch is that the megachurch says, “This is the tradition and there’s one interpretation”–where tradition is like a statue in a museum that you’re never supposed to touch. In the new mainline churches, tradition is more like the clay from which you make the statue.

This sounds similar to some things that Rob Bell has said, and some of the things that are discussed in the article sound very ‘emergent’ as well. I think there is definitely a deeper tradition of scholarship to draw on in mainline protestantism (N.T. Wright is an Anglican) and in catholicism. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future. Clearly the American religious experience is light years away from the European one. We probably will not see the death of mainlines here like Europe essentially has.