The church still holds the reins of this civilization. Its collapse can be averted. And yet, although the whole of material culture may not, by the grace of God, disintegrate, the spiritual core is in an advanced stage of decay, and cannot much longer endure the weight of civilization. Everyone now senses the fundamental decay at work, worming cultural strength away at its roots. The fracture lines are becoming increasingly visible on the face of the edifice.
Sophists never learn.
The church is such an ark, and only the church is such an ark. No political party can be a substitute. No spiritual Lone Ranger vigilantes can substitute. Only the corporate exercise of the keys of the kingdom of God. In the days when civilization as they knew it was collapsing all around them, Roman Christians did what they knew they must.