I find it hard to believe that there’s some agenda against friends out there. What I find much easier to believe is the auto industry lobbying against public transport and for urban sprawl.

Agree; I'd actually theorize that the parent's comment has cause and effect backwards - when church is something you're compelled to attend, you overcome the heavy lift of having to load the family up into the car, drive, find somewhere to park, and attend services. And once you're there, conveniently, you're surrounded by people with at least one thing in common.

It heavily depends on church. The ones on more radical side really try to isolate you from the outside as much as possible. Not all of them tho.

>I find it hard to believe that there’s some agenda against friends out there

Freedom of assembly / association is not something that's neutral, politically. In certain regimes, it has been explicitly banned to gather in groups. It others, it has been recognized as an essential human right, and law has been made to recognize this.

So if you take this into account, there could very well be an agenda. But I don't think so either - I think isolation is just a byproduct currently. But I also think that it's a still a useful one - isolated people are easier to control, and unhappiness drives business.