By my understanding; it was once (almost) inevitable that Christianity would be conflated with "Church" (although exactly which Church, was very soon a matter of deadly dispute).
Whether or not such conflation of Christianity and Church was once inevitable, so that it was natural, spontaneous, and necessary for a self-identified Christian to conceptualize his religion in church-terms; this conflation is now contingent upon personal choice.
Indeed, the situation is almost reversed; in that it is now natural and spontaneous - and almost unavoidable - for each Christian to conceptualize his own Christianity separately from Church.
The tendency to mental separation between Christianity and Church happens in the modern Christian's own mind; even when that Christian asserts and believes in one of the orthodox-traditional, church-defined conceptualizations of being-a-Christian.
The inner mental separation of Christianity from Church probably explains the progressively-increasing over the decades, shrill-aggression of Church-first Christians in their advocacy and apologetics.
In other words, in arguing for an external and groupish conceptualization of Christianity as necessarily Church-originating and sustained; they are arguing, primarily, with themselves!
In other words; the trad-orthodox advocates are fighting their own recurrent inner tendency to separate their Church from Christianity - a tendency that is forced upon them by the continual crises and conflicts and profound schisms, endemic within all the Christian churches - as of 2025.
I believe that human consciousness, human thinking, has changed over the centuries; and what was once natural, universal, and almost irresistible; has become a forced-choice - and almost impossible.
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