Why do religions have a winter?

Why is it that every Dispensation has a winter? A time when the fortunes of the Faith have reached their fullest consummation, and it nows begins to decline into the mire of orthodoxy and excessive dogmatism?

Perhaps because religion is not about belief in God, but love of God. If religion were never to decline, but rather reach a pinnacle from which it never receded, then belief would be easy, and who would believe that such belief was not synonymous with true love? The Faith declines that it may be renewed, so that in each age there are reasons for people to wonder Who God truly is, rather than merely accept what has come to be regarded as unquestionably true.