i think the story behind "people are doing [x] and we don't know why!" is that the people (aka the money/institutions) behind the study don't want to know the answer. i've seen other versions of it around other bangers like "what can we even do about the opioid crisis?" they are looking for a clinical or technical solution to a material problem. they are still dropping hundreds of millions at research institutions to study the opioid epidemic, even though we know how to prevent drug addiction (improve people's material conditions, address it as a disease of despair), because they want a different answer that can make the powerful even more powerful.

with the mass exodus of USians from churches, it's the same type of deal. sex abuse scandals and their cover ups, wealth concentration among church elders, corruption. not to mention, all the things you say about being able to ask questions on the internet, because frankly the pat answers of the suit at the church are mostly unsatisfying. it's not like US evangelicals place much emphasis on pastoral care anymore. it's all culture war bullshit, MLM recruiting, and passing the hat for a mission trip to some place where people are executing LGBTQ+, or increasingly, to cover the legal fees and civil court damages of whatever institution covered up for a sex predator. for as many as are willing to ride that psycho train, it's probably >3x that are looking for or finding the exit.

the church leaders don't want to hear that. they don't want to hear that the solution is to melt down their thrones and sell their G4 to help people in crisis, to push their chips in and comfort the afflicted. it's the pharisees all over again. they want to hear that the solution is a new way to say "Abracadabra!" or that 5G blocks prayers or some other garbage that will let them continue to feather their nests.

I would say you are right to an extent, that access to information and the increasingly secular society is more and more out of step with conservative Christian ideology.

But, it’s also true that the progressive Episcopalian and Congregationalists are doing terrible, and are basically moribund. It’s also I think true that Gen Z is actually more spiritual or whatever then millennials, but a lot of it is going into less traditional forms of religion. There are more people practicing witchcraft than there are Episcopalians in the US. So I think this actually has more to do with capitalist forces that promote social alienation, and which are naturally at odds with the structured community organized religion has.