For a more careful execution of this topic refer to my Romans series or to the Romans Issue . My main point will be this: that the Gospel winds up being a practical help that can be used to cure any form of boasting evidenced in cynicism, pharisaicism and judgmentalism. To prove this, I'll focus on Paul's argumentation in Romans.

With the tri-fold assumptions in place: (1) the Church is made up of people; (2)that the Church could only come about after certain historical requirements were in place; and (3) that the Church's leadership  is divine (in other words: God is the church's leader), we can safely move on to the purpose, or goal, of the Church. An ambitious goal for one post but that's what you can expect from a probable-heretic.

Why even have assumptions anyway? I mean, why can't I simply study The Church without any assumptions whatsoever, like a theological tabula rasa?

All of us work with assumptions. A Social Darwinian would look at the emergence of the Church as the end result of the natural progression of an evolving creature attributing survival to a higher purpose to give its existence meaning. Perhaps some remnant of previous forgotten survival which has no real historical basis save as some form of coincidental situational magic (like worshiping the God of Corn in the hopes of good crops, having a good corn harvest and thus having the worship verified) . Those would be fine assumptions to make in the Social Darwinian framework when speaking to a crowd of people who have already assumed the Darwinian model but that wouldn't do as a scientific breakdown or Historical study.

In my last post there was an assumption which I didn't bother bringing attention to but which colored the entire post. That being that New Testament Principles in the Church is a worthy stake to claim. With two thousand years of Church history that sort of assumption should raise a couple of serious questions.
If anyone does appeal to the New Testament, why bother appealing to those principles?