I am very proud to be a baptised and confirmed LCMS Lutheran, now living in England.

It is sad to see numbers declining and the link with changing demographics and family structures. We live in a world where the value of marriage has diminished and children are raised in households taking many different shapes; it is their 'normal' as much as married life has been 'normal' for older generations. This is compounded by the arguments of an increasingly secular world that discredit the Bible and religion altogether. The controversy around Kurt Eichenwald's Newsweek article in December is one example (see: http://www.newsweek.com/2015/01/02/thats-not-what-bible-says-294018.html).

My fear is that the America of my children's generation will be much like England is today--where one study found that nearly 1 in 2 18-24 year-olds identifies as an atheist and only 5% of residents regularly attend religious services in the Church of England (the established Church). The arguments made against the Church are made more convincingly than those for the Church, which has led the Church of England to take logically inconsistent positions as it tries to find its way forward (e.g., accepting women priests but not women bishops). Those logically inconsistent positions simply alienate more people from the Church and reinforce secularism.

This is where, I believe, the LCMS stands strong: I look to the Church for solid, Bible-based arguments for the issues that communities are wrestling with in a way that defends the Bible rather than diluting it. Jeffrey Kloha and Justin Taylor wrote rebuttals to this piece that went some way to responding, though they could have gone further (see:
https://reporter.lcms.org/2015/commentary-newsweek-on-the-bible and
https://reporter.lcms.org/2015/newsweek-on-bible).

It would be great to see the Church an even stronger leadership role in rebutting arguments made by critics such as Eichenwald and Prof Bart Ehrman (an evangelical Christian who is now deeply skeptical of the Church). Their criticisms challenge the legitimacy of Biblical texts (translation errors, late additions, etc.) to take on issues such as gay marriage, abortion and the nature (or relevance) of salvation. It would be great to see responses to these arguments which go to their level (e.g., to authorship, context and language) to make the case.

Challenging the societal narrative would help, I believe, reach out to more diverse communities who search for Christ--and fight the forces that are turning American society, in a religious sense, into the more secular world of Western Europe.