I ran into this last week from my radical Baptist neighbor. My response was that the Baptist Church is motivated to keep the numbers low so they can make people believe that their inactivity in recognizing it is valid. I suggested the next time he goes to church to look around and he might not want to believe it but every other person in there is trying to hide something for fear of rejection. The problem for them is that their participation has bottomed out at around 17% compared to 75% 25 years ago. They can close the doors and I wouldn't be disappointed. It's a cult in my opinion!
Canon
I don’t want to turn the OP”s discussion into one on religion, but here is some feedback on your comment.
I grew up in Baptist Churches; so I feel the need to defend them just a bit as I believe much of their basic theology is sound. I still attend a conservative church for a number of reasons especially the privilege of being the resident heretic.
Your irritation with your neighbor is well founded. In far too many churches the followers are too busy echoing what their leadership is saying, be it fact or fiction. Neither the leadership nor the followers are asking good questions. What is more, the leadership does not encourage questions.
And here is the scary part. Most conservative church leaders encourage their followers to turn their passive ignorance into what can best be called a form of Believers Idolatry; that is they have come to worship their own discipline of worship. When this happens their mind becomes a closed book. This would help explain why there may be as many as 500 different Protestant denominations and about half that many Catholic.
Here is a question for your neighbor now that same sex issues are a common topic. Consider asking him if he or his fellow church members feel any responsibility for the many failed marriages and damaged lives that are a direct result of religious pressure and social condemnation experienced by true and Natural gay men. Men who were (and are) told that the only way they could find respect was to marry and have children even though this was not their Natural calling. These were Naturally gay men whose wives, children, extended families, and friends may have suffered great harm.
Ask him how he should deal with the fact that pressure from his group and others like them is directly responsible for causing many Naturally gay men to become (unnatural) practicing BISEXUALS with his church’s open approval and encouragement.
PS—I am not intending to reflect negatively on bisexuals here. What I am trying to do is agitate your neighbor in to thinking for himself through the manipulation of humiliation.