For a Christian, there are no stakes in a cosmic sense for anything we observe in the news: Christ will come victorious. Our job is to endure in hope, and share that hope with others.

These should all be obvious truths for a Christian. Yet increasingly I find Christians a bit confused on this basic question of evil. Call it a Flight 93 election, make allusions to Rome, raise the hue and cry over looming persecution of Christians or regulation of Christian worship—at the root of these I sense not just a political question, but a theological one.

It seems some Christians believe this stuff really actually matters, that the “spiritual warfare” scripture speaks of actually is against “powers and principalities,” despite the Bible explicitly saying, no, spiritual warfare is not about politics, but your own immortal soul.