It's certainly multifaceted. I could write a pretty substantial article on this topic. My comment was mostly alluding to the unsupported imagery of a fire and

It's certainly multifaceted. I could write a pretty substantial article on this topic. My comment was mostly alluding to the unsupported imagery of a fire and brimstone pit of eternal torment for all non-believers. There's also excessive pessimism about the implications of Christian values not being mandated by legislature (ex: abortion). For your concerns, I would attribute those to the collapse and corruption of internal governance systems. Without much exposition, churches do a pretty terrible job of ensuring their leaders are moral and capable of conveying responsible interpretations of doctrine. Again this is more or less due to fatalism. EG: "Humans are inherently sinful, therefore there's nothing we can do about awful leaders" If anyone is actually interested in a related article, send me an email. I'll assume that, if a few people spend the effort to send me an email, it will be worth the effort to synthesize a responsible article.