The mistake I see in most “Christian” discourse is the assumption that Christians are destined to be the ones with worldly power in the first place. Power & faith make an uneasy calling for a few at best. To equate power over others with Christian mission is not Christian. 1/x

Most often when a Christian tries to seek power in terms of a modern nation state, they wind up taking on the logic & ethics & goals & means of the state, which leads to sophistry, violence, pragmatism and injustice towards outliers. They forget the Cross. 2/x

But the problem is much worse than even that. By associating faith with nation and politics, the different tools and values of each color each other. One begins to think lies are justified, that sophistry is good, that war could be God’s will, even if “justified” by sophistry. 3/

Because humans can’t easily tell things in a group apart. Remember “one of these things is not like another” skits for children? They’re needed because we automatically associate feelings with the grouped items/ideas/people. 4/x

The emotional bleed between grouped ideas/people/topics is also how propaganda works, as well as libel. The alt right has perfected the method. Pair a person with scare words & unrelated images/ideas (eg, Marxist or totalitarianism), & no evidence is required. 5/x

The targets of the propaganda, primed to not question associated/grouped ideas, don’t investigate. (The far left does this, too, with threats of “suicide,” for instance, if someone says 3 year olds are under age of consent.) The feelings are the tools. 6/x

Getting back to the original point, Christians can begin to feel that the sense of righteousness and power rushes are part of their faith when they group/associate religious ideas & political power. They can’t tell the difference any longer. 7/x

Which is horrible for the Christian sense of discernment, and makes for the possibility of religious fervor misapplied to promote violent conflicts. There are loads of other dangers in the misconception of Christian faithfulness as = hegemony, but these are some of the worst. 8/8