The SA is the only exemple of a functional religion I can remember for my whole time in BM... but unfortunately it has nothing of religious. So if you want to go to the religious, ecclesiastical or mystical instead of listening to a lot of Crixus disputing who spits the furthest away, you're in bad luck. It is not a matter of liking how they lead SA or not. But perhaps you should consider that when you talk about religion, not everyone considers SA a good example just because it "worked" the way the Devs wanted religions to be.
In EC, I can remember only one event of religious friction between the Church of Humanity against the Sacred Grove, mostly because of the propaganda of "humans vs elves" thing. I don't remember other religious strife... and in the end, Ecthelion just wanted to bring every religion in, letting Sirion's own religion to vanish with him. Maybe Xavax can achieve this because they are diversified and fragmented, so they can create two different religions, one in the south and one in the north and then seek for some conflict.
In any case... without Priests or interested people, any advance in any direction is useless. Between SA and a guild, a guild would serve the same purpose.
