Religions and churches are analogous to Tolkien's Rings of Power

The Rings of Power - but especially the One Ring and the three Elven Rings, seem to describe something profound about reality. 

Sauron infuses much of his native power onto the One Ring; which gives him the ability to dominate the other Rings of Power - and, more generally, dominate the will to power of other beings. 

But, the transfer of power means that, when the One Ring is destroyed, Sauron cannot hold-himself-together anymore; he cannot sustain himself coherently as a functioning "self", but diffuses into a dark spirit of largely-passive malignancy. 

What is often missed by readers of The Lord of the Rings (but which was insightfully described by Paul Kocher more than fifty years ago); is that the Elves did something analogous with their three Rings, with analogous but inverted positive benefits; and similar negative consequences after their power was broken.  

The Elven Rings were made by a transfer of vitality from Elves-generally, into the Three Rings specifically. 

The Rings were apparently intended to focus and strengthen Elvish (or rather, specifically High Elven, Noldorian) characteristics - purity and the preservation of unstained beauty, in the case of Galadriel and Lothlorien; wisdom, learning, and healing, in the case of Elrond and Rivendell. 

(Gandalf's Elf Ring was given him by Cirdan, and thereby seemingly repurposed from its original intent.)

I infer that the Three Rings were made exactly because elvish vitality and power was already declining, as a consequence of prolonged residence in the mortal lands of Middle Earth (which was by will of Eru; who always intended that Elves gradually be replaced by Men). 

The Elven Rings were made, therefore, with the ambivalently-virtuous motivation of stopping the ongoing decline in Elvish vitality. 

And for so long as the One Ring was not being wielded; the Elf Rings worked well; and in Rivendell and Lothlorien, High Elven culture continued for thousands of years longer than anywhere else in Middle Earth - but at the price of being increasingly cut-off, encapsulated.  

But, when the Master Ring was destroyed, all the racial vitality of the Elves that had gone into the making of the Three Rings was dissipated and diffused, much like Sauron's beingness.  

Immediately; the special qualities of Elrond and Rivendell, Galadriel and Lothlorien, began to decline, dwindle, fade...

The High Elves could not longer remain High; but must revert towards the much lesser cultural and intellectual level of the "Silvan" or Wood Elves - or else migrate to the Undying Lands before this declining process could advance too far.  

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I believe that Tolkien was here expressing a profound and general truth about the benefits and disadvantages of concentrating our innate vitality - our human qualities. 

I think that - across the large timescale of human history - there was a decline in the natural and spontaneous spirituality of humans; a decline in the immersive and passive awareness-of, and participation-in the divine.

In effect: there was an intent to stop this process of spiritual alienation; by concentrating and focusing our "spiritual vitality" into what is called religion: into religions and churches, into abstract systems of rituals and symbols. 

Religion is therefore a "Ring of Power". 

But, it turned-out that the Elven Rings, and church religion, did not stop the decline, but only delayed it. 

Outside of the increasingly encapsulated worlds of serious religion; the decline in human spirituality and Man's alienation from the divine continued... indeed it accelerated; given that the spirituality has been drained from it and poured into the churches. 

By this analogy; the various Christian revivals can be seen as the re-forging of further Rings of Power - further attempts to stop this decline by increasing the focusing and concentration.

These later Rings included (in general terms) greater demands for personal commitment, efforts at training of mental powers by new rituals or more frequent practice, increased exclusion of the secular from the sacred... etc. 

At the same time religions functioned like Rings of Power - achieving a sustained awareness and participation of the divine, in the cut-off context of "churches" and their activities - but at the cost of sucking spiritual vitality and divine awareness from the rest of life, and from humanity in general... 

An unintended cost of religion, was therefore the creation of "the secular" - what was not within the concentrated scope of religion, necessarily became secular. 

And as the underlying trend of human alienation continued; the secular realm expanded, while the divine and spiritual realm of religion shrank.

My main point is that when Man has created religion, and infused his churches with much of Man's native spiritual vitality - this means that when churches are destroyed, this focused and concentrated spiritual power is dissipated. 

Much as Sauron minus the One Ring was weaker than if the Ring had never been made; and as the Elves declined more suddenly and rapidly after the power of the Three Rings was lost than if the Elven Rings had never been...

So, Mankind's alienation from the spiritual and divine is more severe and intractable after the decline of church religion, than it would have been if we had not invested so much of our religious vitality into institutional, symbolic, and ritual forms. 

Thus; many modern people living after the (de facto) death of the churches and religions; experience this institutional loss as fatal to the divine and the spiritual - and without church, they feel that there is and can be no God, no creation. 

Post-religion; experienced-reality has been drained - abruptly and very fully - of purpose and meaning; and therefore of lasting personal significance. 

Although some churches/ religions sometimes did an effective job for many centuries in some places in sustaining contact with the divine and spiritual realms; because the spiritual and divine was thereby concentrated, focused, protected by the structures of church and formal religion - it now seems that when mankind's innate consciousness changed, and these social structures lost their power and integrity - then we are left worse-off than we would have been if churches had never existed. 

The churches functioned, therefore, analogously to the Elf Rings in their intent and effect; and in the consequences after the power of religion first declined and then was destroyed.