We had to leave the church we had been part of for over 30 years, because the pastor and staff departed from classical Christian thought. Colleges would need to separate from CCCU, because during the accreditation process teaching following basic theology instead of popular acceptance would endanger their standing. Christianity which is other than a gooey, sweet substance to layer upon a current understanding of goodness as found in Oprah or Rotary is becoming less and less acceptable. Here is an excerpt from a 3,300 plus essay I wrote to clarify my thinking upon our leaving.
“The institution of the Christian Church was designed to act as an outpost of heaven within the finite, fallen world. Christian travelers could secure an anchor in Jesus’ spiritual dimension with praise, prayer, and wisdom as they climbed with a fragile, broken soul through a perishing creation into eternity. Yet all Christian institutions are subject to failing as human pride naturally aligns with the heritage of fallen humanity.
Unfortunately, the Catholic Church became the first case study for the inevitable attack on spiritual identity facing all churches, and Christian institutions. By necessity in caring for Christians and by default in having the only viable institutions after Rome’s fall, it became the politically dominated and spiritually crippled Catholic Church. Its descent illustrates the malignant, destructive spiritual consequences of worldly immersion consistently repeated over time. The Catholic Church displayed the inherent propensity of the human condition for debasement in order to find popular acceptance within secular societies, and became the first human institution or denomination derived from the Christian faith.
In the case of the Roman Empire, the clergy accepted Constantine as the first representative of a Christian theocracy. Founded as a spiritual entity, but forced to care for temporal needs, it merged into a single divine institution with the Roman state.
In its new role, the Catholic Church leadership could contemplate the pride of serving as high priests of the entire known world. Christianity was confirmed as the official state religion by Theodosius in 392 A.D. The Catholic Church built and managed elaborate façades like Potemkin Villages for its new political role, while marginalizing its spiritual mission of serving people who were seeking relationship with Jesus Christ. This new church direction was variously coerced, accepted, imposed, avoided, rationalized, applauded, and managed.
The clergy who rationalized, applauded, and managed the new relationship dominated as Rome fell and Europe entered the Dark Ages.”
Excuse a tad of snarkiness, but what I mean to say is, that sure was a distorted overview of a couple thousand years' worth of the pilgrimage of Christ's Church on earth.
This paragraph encapsulates the difficulty as well as any:
"In the case of the Roman Empire, the clergy accepted Constantine as the first representative of a Christian theocracy. Founded as a spiritual entity, but forced to care for temporal needs, it merged into a single divine institution with the Roman state."
"The clergy" never accepted Constantine as anything of the sort. Constantine himself was not even a professed Christian until his deathbed, when he chose at last to be baptized, not by a bishop who held the Catholic Faith, but by an Arian bishop. And the Church certainly did not subsequently merge into a "single divine institution with the Roman state."
By the late 400's, the invading barbarians took over temporal power and there was no Roman state: which, if your account were correct, would have meant the end of the Catholic Church, but it was not so. The Church continued doing what she has always done by divine mandate: teaching, governing, sanctifying, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
The Eastern Church, so often totally neglected in our slapdash histories of the West, followed a somewhat different course, but even in the Byzantine symphonia of spiritual and temporal power, there was never this merger you describe.
I am not writing this to deny that there were periods when Catholic prelates thought, lived, and ruled like secular princes, nor that worldly leaders often turned their backs on a neglected flock. But we were never left orphans. The persistence of the Church over 2,000 years, holy, Christ-honoring, and growing past the sprawling remains of every other earthly institution, must certainly suggest the activity of Divine Providence to those who are paying attention.