The Christian Church, as we see in Acts and the Epistles, is the believing people gathered around the Apostles. Not each one all by himself, scorning the others because they are sinners. Every time "Church" is used in the NT, it is used in the context of the believers as a Body, not just as atomized singletons.
St. Paul explains magnificently that this "Body" which we are, has many members, and they are organized: cells, tissues, organs, systems; senses, limbs; "In Christ we form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." (Romans 12:5) "The eye can't say to the hand, I don't need you -the head can't say to the feet, I don't need you." "In the Church, God has appointed first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues." (I Cor 12:28)
And immediately, starting v 29: "All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they?"
They have different roles, but one Spirit. They are organized, not freelancers: essential to each other.
To use the analogy of oceanic life, there's a difference between one trillion zooplankton, disorganized and dispersed through the sea-water like cell-soup, and one trillion cells organized as a blue whale. The Church is like the living, unified whale, not like the plankton soup.
"Today that equation is upside down. Today the 'church' is its leadership and what that leadership says it is."
No, the Church is the Body of Christ and what Christ says it is. It is He Who gives her, the Church, His authority and His protection.
"Can a biblical argument be made that the bride of Christ is a building? A handful of people in bright robes? No. It cannot. Those things are material. "
I don't know of anybody, at any time in history, who has ever said "the Church is a building" or "the Church is a handful of men wearing robes.". It is a straw man argument: you're arguing against what nobody said.
The Church is not a field of rock-rubble, a heap of sand or a pile of bricks. It is organized, "built," a community, a LIVING building, built of LIVING stones, " Ephesians 2:20 "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone."
"If you get on a cruise ship and end up on Gilligan's island for the rest of your life, separated from those men in that building, is your soul suddenly in jeopardy because you cannot tithe or attend service of those men in that building?"
Of course not, Another straw man argument.
The history of the Church is replete with men and women, desert fathers, hermitesses, who literally did the Gilligan's Island thing --- off to the desert, off to the mountains, the Irish monks taking off into the North Atlantic in their coracles, living alone or in small groups with nary a steepled building in sight. They did not do this to deny or repudiate the Church, or to cut themselves off from the Apostles and their successors, but to love God and serve His Church with intense prayer, and to spread His Church on whatever shores those coracles would land.
"But In fact, Catholics across the world are very much on that island now because the men in the building (etc etc)... our relationship with god has improved, not declined."
"The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, money-hungry, power-hungry, hypocrites, or even as those guys in the robes in the big church buildings..."
You are aware, I suppose, that the Church is, humanly speaking composed entirely of sinners and has been from the beginning. This is not an argument against Her holiness, since Christ has saved us, is saving us, and will in the end save us entirely from all attachments of sin and all of sin's toxic consequences.
Ignatius of Antioch, third Bishop of Antioch, disciple and successor of John the Apostle, knew what the Church is:
So, Norm, who is your bishop and what do you think he would say about all this?
I don’t have a bishop. I left the building that is today ‘the church’ years ago. For the very reasons I stated previously.
Quoting verse isn’t helping your position. In fact it is making my point. The entire basis of my position is that the church leadership has abandoned everything ‘the church’ stood for. IE, God, and replaced it with material concerns. Because He’s the very thing the Catholic leadership has turned it’s back on with their socialist/homosexual/silence on abortion agenda.