It often seems that there have never been very many Christians in the world; because so very few people - even among the religious - seem even to want what Jesus offered: i.e. resurrected eternal life in Heaven, attainable by following him.
What the mass of religious people want most, is apparently a deity of power.
God/s whose own power is so great and irresistible, that service to the God/s can guarantee that those who serve him/them will win (eventually).
Naturally, when such people call themselves Christian, they make "Christianity" into an instrument of power, serving a God defined in terms of power in this mortal life and world.
An influential minority find "winning" to be no more than a temporary palliative; because these people are irresistibly-aware that evil pervades all Men, winners as well as losers; and because disease, degeneration and death make our mortal life a tragedy.
What such people desire most deeply is escape from the tragedy that is mortal life on earth.
Naturally, when such people call themselves Christian; they make Christianity into a religion of escape; a religion of palliation in this temporary and illusory mortal life and world; escape into complete absence of all suffering (perhaps bliss) in the next, and real, world.
It is natural, and probably inevitable, that people will make their religion into a vehicle of what they most want; but it is confusing for those who instead want what Jesus offered.
When the overwhelming mass of Christianity actually is about power; and its "advanced" practitioners primarily desire escape - and when power or escape fill most of Christian discourse - it becomes difficult, or perhaps in practice impossible, for someone who innately wants what Jesus actually offers to recognize "Christianity" as the place he can find what he desires.
This is why I think we are compelled to seek fundamental knowledge concerning our deepest wants in a manner that is direct and personal, intuitive and simple.
If we do not, or cannot, find the necessary knowledge for-ourselves and validated by-ourselves - in faith that the true deity will guide the sincere searcher sufficiently for the purpose; then I see zero possibility of actually finding Jesus's offer by a process of sifting through the colossal and growing archives of public religious discourse.
Note Added: The above analysis suggests why Christianity has declined, and is declining.
If you are religious, and it is power you really want in the 21st century; then Christianity is not the place that somebody would seek a share of power. The obvious power religions are not in Christianity but in the plainly-monotheistic world religions.
Affiliation with power might be sought by supporting or converting-to the global monotheism which has been growing so rapidly in zeal, numbers, and nations over the past century. Or else a power-seeker might seek affiliation with to the global racial monotheism that has such a disproportionately large share of world power, wealth, and influence.
As for religions of escape: a much purer and simpler and more escape-orientated religion than Christianity can be found among the Western philosophical (and Theosophy-derived, "perennialist") versions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism. And (overlapping with these) there is a large, growing (and socially-acceptable, Establishment-supported) Oneness spirituality of the New Age.
In sum; both for those who seek power, and those who seek escape; there are more straightforward and "effective" alternatives to be found outwith Christianity.
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