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You, of course, like most Westerners are a bit misguided when you talk about early Church-State relations. The state, the Roman Empire, which adopted Christianity as its official religion, was not "decaying" as you put it. (We Eastern Orthodox Christians see the adoption of the Gospel by the Empire as part of a prodiential plan for the spread of the Holy Gospel: "in the fullness of time" was operationalized by God as meaning when His chosen people from whom the Christ would spring were incorporated for the first time into a stable multi-ethnic state with a generally used linga franca (Greek).)

The Empire lasted until 1453, albeit shorn of its Western provinces by barbarian invasions, and slowly dwindling to a city-state in its last years. The so called "Fall of Rome" in 476 was nothing but the retirement of the last Western Augustus. It may have been imprudent of the Emperor to trust the affairs of the Western Empire to Germanic chieftains raised to the rank of "Patrician of the Romans", but that's what was done.

Incidentally, having introduced the subject of Orthodox Christianity into a thread on libertarianism, I would point you all to the bioethical writings of H. Tristram Englehardt, Jr. In Foundations of Christian Bioethics he makes a very good case for a libertarian ethical arrangement in societies in which uniformity of content-full moral judgement does not exit precisely because it allows those who hold traditional morals to live by them free from state hinderance.

I hope both libertarian and anti-libertarian conservatives on this thread read carefully the ideas of the use of state power the author of the original article proposed. They include on both attacks tradition and the market. The strain of anti-libertarianism proposed in the article should be anathema to all American conservatives whether we are trying to conserve the classical liberalism of the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment and the American Founding or a longer tradition from Christendom or a broadly defined "Judeo-Christian tradition."

Incidentally, having introduced the subject of Orthodox Christianity into a thread on libertarianism, I would point you all to the bioethical writings of H. Tristram Englehardt, Jr. In Foundations of Christian Bioethics he makes a very good case for a libertarian ethical arrangement in societies in which uniformity of content-full moral judgement does not exit precisely because it allows those who hold traditional morals to live by them free from state hinderance.

I hope both libertarian and anti-libertarian conservatives on this thread read carefully the ideas of the use of state power the author of the original article proposed. They include on both attacks tradition and the market. The strain of anti-libertarianism proposed in the article should be anathema to all American conservatives whether we are trying to conserve the classical liberalism of the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment and the American Founding or a longer tradition from Christendom or a broadly defined "Judeo-Christian tradition."

Excellent. Thank you.

see the adoption of the Gospel by the Empire as part of a prodiential plan for the spread of the Holy Gospel: "in the fullness of time" was operationalized by God as meaning when His chosen people from whom the Christ would spring were incorporated for the first time into a stable multi-ethnic state with a generally used linga franca (Greek).)

Yes, this is called the principle approach in the Home School curricla that my children are (and will continue to be) taught.

My point, and it was not answered by you, is that the church had a lot more conformance to the gospel when Christians met in homes and not grandiose basicallae, no matter what the denomination. "The church" in the book of Acts, was not a place, but a community, a manner of living, and people showing G-d's love. That faded away when the church become "of the World" and not "aliens and strangers" in the World.