Thank you all for your thoughtful engagement.  I appreciate your ideas, and I offer my sadness to those who have been witnesses to or recipients of, what I take to be, the church's misplaced attention.  There are a range of comments here, so let me respond with some broad observations. 

 First, I take Frida's critique seriously about the fact that what I'm proposing could easily be taken for a baptized version of liberal/progressive politics.  It's easy to think that the means (partisan politics) are the ends (faithfulness to Jesus).  However, what I'm suggesting is not that churches become more "Democratic" in order to appeal to young people; in fact, just the opposite--churches need to worry about aligning themselves with Jesus, rather than the correct political programs.  If those programs are congruent with the aims of the gospel, using them thoughtfully is defensible.  It's a subtle distinction, but on which my argument turns.

As to whether doing all the right stuff (Marcus-Borgy, MoveOn.org-y) will "work" or not in bringing young people back isn't my primary point (some will come back, some won't--for a variety of reasons that often don't have much to do with the church--which is my sympathetic response to Wendy, since I have a teen going through the same stuff).  My point is that churches should be fundamentally concerned with being faithful--and the rest will take care of itself (or not); but that's really God's area of responsibility.  Congregations need to act like Jesus not because it's successful, but because it's right.

Second, as to Bob's point about the kind of change that is necessary, I'm inclined to agree that the easiest way to accomplish this is through new manifestations, since congregational transformation is painstaking work.  However, I'm being primarily descriptive here--which, I think, means that my concern has less to do with  faithfulness gets embodied than with  it gets embodied.  As Bob says, and as i say i the article, tweaking is a distraction.