Actually the idea of the dark ages is largely a myth. In terms of the timeline of advancing technology, there wasn’t much of a dip in the Middle Ages, it was still a slow but steady incline until exploding in the renaissance. The church was also not a counterforce to science and progress, in fact most of the time they were the ones funding and pushing new discoveries. This is not to undermine your original point however, and I do agree that the government should NOT be less secular.

3