"The Gospel" and the Modern State....

What has "happened" to the "Gospel" and "The Church" in Modern society?  How do we understand life, and time and text and tradition?

 Much has transpired over time that makes it hard to hold to "biblical faith" or "biblical Christianity". Christians believe that history is "God"'s time/story. Westerners think in linear terms concerning their faith. There is a beginning and an end. God created the heavens and the earth and Christ is to come again. Faith is understood within the text as a developing story, God's story in Christ. Salvation was understood as  "accepting" the story, and identifying with a Christian community.  How faith communities understand themselves is the real issue after the Protestant Reformation.

Faith, as Protestants undestand it, is what liberty of conscience is to our Founders. Therefore, the Protestant Principle "works to fragment "faith" into diverse communities. The Roman Catholic Tradition understands itself as a political community, because it determines what each person's duty is to remain within it "graces". Such a political stance might grant crimes and punishments against the Church, but not necessarily against the nation-state, as these are seen as "spiritual" offenses. Since the West values a linear view of history, change is assumed.As America is primarily understood as a Protestant nation, how did America come to understand "Faith"?