Having recently attended services at two churches, one belonging to the Episcopal Church, long one of the most important American denominations, and the other to a “more conservative” offshoot, Stephen Cranney writes:

At the former, known for its grand architecture and progressive stance on contemporary social issues, the congregation was dignified yet notably older. At the second location, a congregation buzzed with energy. Young families filled the pews, cutting-edge media accompanied a crisp, not missing-a-beat homily from a relatively young preacher.

The statistics, Cranney notes, back up his observation: attendance at mainstream Episcopalian churches has dropped dramatically over the past ten years, while the conservative offshoot, the Anglican Church of North America, has grown steadily. And the same is true for other denominations as well:

If liberalization and changing doctrines to align more closely with faddish social sentiment make a religion more popular, we would expect to see these trends reversed. . . . While almost all faiths are struggling in the increasingly secular 21st century, it seems clear that the “liberal” faiths are struggling more than others. The reasons why are complex, and it is impossible fully to address the debate here, but . . . it is likely that churches that exhibit some tension with the background environment, that are distinctive enough for people to see something different in them, are the ones that thrive.

Yesterday, the beepers used by hundreds of Hizballah operatives were detonated. Noah Rothman puts this ingenious attack in the context of the overall war between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group:

[W]hile the disabling of an untold number of Hizballah operatives is remarkable, it’s also ominous. This week, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told reporters that the hour is nearing when Israeli forces will have to confront Iran’s cat’s-paw in southern Lebanon directly, in order to return the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along Lebanon’s border under fire and have not yet been able to return. Today’s operation may be a prelude to the next phase of Israel’s defensive war, a dangerous one in which the IDF will face off against an enemy with tens of thousands of fighters and over 150,000 rockets and missiles trained on Israeli cities.

Seth Frantzman, meanwhile, focuses on the specific damage the pager bombings have likely done to Hizballah:

This will put the men in hospital for a period of time. Some of them can go back to serving Hizballah, but they will not have access to one of their hands. These will most likely be their dominant hand, meaning the hand they’d also use to hold the trigger of a rifle or push the button to launch a missile.

Hizballah has already lost around 450 fighters in its eleven-month confrontation with Israel. This is a significant loss for the group. While Hizballah can replace losses, it doesn’t have an endlessly deep [supply of recruits]. This is not only because it has to invest in training and security ahead of recruitment, but also because it draws its recruits from a narrow spectrum of Lebanese society.

The overall challenge for Hizballah is not just replacing wounded and dead fighters. The group will be challenged to . . . roll out some other way to communicate with its men. The use of pagers may seem archaic, but Hizballah apparently chose to use this system because it assumed the network could not be penetrated. . . . It will also now be concerned about the penetration of its operational security. When groups like Hizballah are in chaos, they are more vulnerable to making mistakes.