n both contemporary and ancient warfare there are supposed to be rules to war. Most nations covenant not to target children, civilians, or hospitals. These are agreed upon values. These vulnerable populations are to be treated as sacred, and they are not supposed to be targeted.

Some nations distort this value. They will embed their military headquarters inside hospitals, schools or in centers of civilian populations. This strategy is not to protect the vulnerable. The intent is to use the vulnerable as a shield. They lace their compounds with children. They decorate their headquarters with civilians. They use the sacredness of life as a shield so their enemies don’t attack their plans, or strategic centers.

That military strategy has been adopted as a political strategy. In the United States we are governed by a “Make America Great Again,” (MAGA) strategy. To be clear, MAGA is a political ideology. It supports the idea of small government, state’s rights, high immigration standards, and “America first” policies. At the same time these are political ideologies that marginalize the poor, endanger the immigrant, cap female progress, and insult minority communities. It is a dangerous political ideology that fuels fear, division and feeds upon the fragility of many in the majority culture.

Yet the genius of MAGA is not the strength of its ideological focus. It is the shield it uses as a barrier from critique. The leader of the MAGA movement professes no personal belief in God or personal conviction about the faith of Jesus Christ. Yet he touts himself as the one who is “bringing religion back to America” or “Making Christianity hot again.” MAGA claims the Bible as the reference for its principles, making social issues like gender identity and abortion, their target. They have sought to create an unholy trinity composed of Republican policy, patriotism, and Christian faith.

They look to create an image of an American Jesus, draped in the Stars and Stripes, who speaks English and who is partial to our way of living. The stealth of the strategy is that they have so aligned these distinct and separate values as one, that if you critique the one, you are then accused of attacking the other.

Christ and MAGA are separate beings yet they have sought to make them Siamese twins. Far from caring for church, sacraments, God or prayer, many have subtly used them as a shield. They house political schemes under the banner of the church so that in order to critique unethical policy, you have to attack the church.

And those aligned with them have been so deceived that they treat criticism of MAGA policies as an attack on God, religion or the church. And some don’t look to proselytize people into the way of Jesus, but they are MAGA evangelists acting as if embracing one is embracing the other.

The power and purity of the Christ movement is diluted daily through this unholy political association. Jesus maintained a healthy autonomy from earthly political association.

“My kingdom is not of this world . . . If it were I would fight for it.” Jesus is neither Republican nor Democrat. He is neither American nor conservative. His kingdom operates according to a separate set of values. Values that precede the American experiment and that will outlive time. You have the right to embrace whichever political worldview you choose. But you should never conflate it with the gospel of Jesus Christ and it should never be exalted above the gospel or the commandments.

We must divorce MAGA from Christianity. There needs to be a separation of assets and property. We should fight for theological alimony and push for full custody. The Christian movement will suffer irreparable harm and lose its moral power and prophetic voice if it stays in this unequally yoked merger.