What I’m saying is they did take the education function but did not take the religion function, but are infiltrating it. Liberalism started infiltrating our mainlines churches since about the end of the 1800’s, and really began in earnest in the pre-depression era. Liberal theology sought their inroads through hyper-criticism of the bible, and they found opportunity in the seminaries of the hierarchical mainlines. The Catholics were harder to change, I think because of their having one guy at the top who called the shots. Evangelical/fundamental churches were harder to infiltrate because so many had an independent local church governance, so weren’t subject to rules and rulers from denominations.
OK now I gotcha.
Pretty much aligns with history.