Indeed, but I think the Church pulled off that trick long ago when it demonized the Gnostics. The simplification of Christianity was required for Christianity to be implemented as Rome's official religion. Western Christianity has been transactional for centuries.

The Protestant Reformation complicated the religion, but the mainstream variety that was suitable to American conservative politics has once again become a dumbed-down bastardization of the original, perennial myth (of the dying/suffering and rising heroic savior mytheme from the pre-Christian Mystery Religions).