It is [the] mixing of political and ecclesial authority that has led many Christians in the present age to cast significant doubt on the model of church unity built around or tied in any way to political authority. Rodney Stark has argued again and again that the cultural and political establishment of the church historically led to its decline, even if it also manifested organizational unity on the surface. The environment in which the church thrives is always the missionary context where the claims of Christianity engage the claims of diverse religions or diverse cultural settings unprotected by political authority. Whenever the church was given a noncompete clause, so to speak, it lost its vitality.