Eh, that's the church as an institution. I mean religion in the more abstract sense. Political leanings becoming tied to a religious stance has become ridiculous, and has watered down Christianity quite a lot, to the point where even Trump gets to go pray once a year and call himself the Christian vote. It's also been remarkably divisive, as naturally, a lot of Christians aren't that, and hot political debates somehow become religious debates.

Tying religion to politics has allowed politics to slowly pull that horse further and further, to the point where "Christianity" now means southern fundamentalism to a lot, maybe even most, people. I think without political influence, we'd be a lot closer today to how Christianity started, and is meant to look.

Well it is, look at Malaysia for example

Edit. Ok you're being sarcastic lol

The separation of church and state has forced American denominations to compete in a marketplace for souls/money, and they have become ruthlessly efficient corporatized entities, using marketing and business-process management, and exploiting tax advantages and high switching costs.

This is not a product of separation of church and state, but of the atrocious combination of hyper-capitalism and tax exemption for religious organizations.

lmao, so the church and state shouldn't be separated because the government is inefficient and its inefficiencies should remain to be inflicted upon the church?

that's... actually kinda based, lol. i do appreciate the objective and the unconventional method to achieve it. however, i think there's a difference between being a government entity and having control over governance. the latter should never be given to the church, because that's one hella fast way to surpass all the damage they have managed to do under the american system. for example, while your statements seem accurate for western europe and the nordics (emphasis on "seem", i don't live there) but over here in hungary the "christian democratic party" is literally the only party our government is in a coalition with, and they get to pass discriminatory laws basically as fast as they can come up with them. the closest analogy i can give is imagine if all the shit that's going on in those red states was going on country-wide with no one left to oppose it.

that's also what europe looked like before the "age of enlightenment", which is separation of church and state is so important in public consciousness, even if not technically implemented.

still, i do like your idea, and yes, inflicting bureaucracy upon the church would be helpful. maybe it's not a separation of church and state that we need, but protection of the state from the church's influence.

Such an interesting statement. I can kind of see what you mean. Would you happen to have more reading material on this topic? It would be very appreciated.

Yeah it is one of the unexpected results. It is an imperfect analogy but Europe Christianity has become a domesticated animal that knows not to cause trouble. American Christianity is a mean badass sewer rat that not only fends for itself but can't be killed. I really doubt anyone could have predicted this before it happened.