Haven't read the whole thread, didn't want to go down that rabbit hole again. But to opine on the original question, the decline in church attendance can mean nothing good for our society. When I was growing up, it seemed just about everyone attended church and society was on the whole much more well-behaved and civil. Being in church made you part of a community, and there were behavioral expectations that one felt compelled to meet; a sort of peer pressure, if you will. I am sure there were some, perhaps many, who simply warmed the pews and whose behavior outside of church was, shall we say, less than exemplary. But the church served to keep a lid on the sinful impulses that we all have. That lid, to the extent that it is still in place, is not as tight as it used to be and we see the result everywhere around us. And I do believe that regular church attendance might eventually have brought some into a real belief in Christ. It did for me.
I am not saying that just because someone doesn't attend church they are a bad person; I am saying that in my opinion the more people that a society has attending church, the fewer bad people it will have.
