I think you missed making the bigger connection here between declining group participation, particularly church attendance, and Church politics.

The reason placating the most extreme, fearful, and paranoid members is a problem is due to the impact this has on the group. Reasonable people don't want to accept obvious nonsense on faith or peer pressure. The root problem is that crass political ploys aimed and influencing the gullible usurps the rational capacity of churchgoers. When enough people are influenced to create a critical mass, it brings down the congregation, and people leave the Church quietly, and new members don't join to replace them.

Evangelical Churches portray the liberal enemy as the cause of their problems. In reality, the problem is the conservative media poisoning their minds with falsehoods, generating fear, and breaking apart these congregations from within. Fox News is the Trojan Horse evangelicals allowed into the sanctuary, and now they must deal with the consequences of that choice -- diminishing participation, less donation, and ultimately, less positive influence in people's lives.