It’s funny - we’ve had decades of “worship wars,” arguing about guitars and drums versus organs and pianos. We’ve also had decades about “inclusion and equality wars” - battles about whether female and LGBTQ humans have equal status with male cisgender heterosexual male humans. We’ve had a century of “charismatic/Pentecostal wars” about whether speaking in tongues is allowed, required, or forbidden. And we’ve had literally centuries of arguments between Protestants and Catholics about whether you can have church without one headquarters in Rome.

But we’ve had very little conversation about what the main purpose, prime directive, or essential function of the Christian religion in general and the church in particular is supposed to be.