Discerning the Spirits

Michael Adam Beck and Isaiah Park

Part I—MAGA: Cult, Sect, or Political Preference?

This past Sunday, a long-time church attender stood up, walked out, and slammed the door in the middle of Michael’s sermon. No sane pastor wants parishioners to leave because of a sermon, but in a sociopolitical moment like this, what if it’s an unintended metric of faithfulness?

In that part of the sermon, we were exploring the historical figure of Herod, a megalomaniacal king obsessed with grand building projects that bore his name: the Herodium, the Temple expansion (later known as, you guessed it, “Herod’s Temple”), and Caesarea Maritima. A ruler riddled with paranoia, he murdered his own wives and sons to protect his power. A man awarded the title “King of the Jews” by his patron Caesar Augustus, he did not take kindly to magi from the East searching for the one “born king of the Jews.” Unwilling to be upstaged by an infant Messiah, Herod ordered children killed, bodies buried, and files redacted.

Later, we asked the parishioner, a MAGA-aligned, two-time Trump voter, why she was so upset. She stated the sermon was “getting political.” We suppose the parallels between Trump and Herod were too close for comfort.

Across town, in the church Michael and Jill are planting, a queer couple, each carrying deep trauma from prior church experiences, have found Compassion United Methodist Church to be a genuine spiritual home. One is now on the preaching team. At the same time, they are facing escalating discrimination at work and hostility in the wider city.

In the Fresh Expression gatherings that Isaiah leads, when we circle up for spiritual conversation, some describe Charlie Kirk as a sainted truth-teller, while others experience him as a racist, misogynist, and bigot.

There are a lot of walkouts these days, a lot of slammed doors—and sometimes, much worse. Maybe you are facing similar challenges; if so, this series is for you.

Scripture calls believers to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1), recognizing that not every powerful voice, compelling movement, or religious claim is animated by the Spirit of Christ.

What Is MAGA? (Make America Great Again)

We write this series as pastors and planters who lead congregations in cities deeply shaped by MAGA politics. Additionally, one of us is a graduate instructor of sociology at a public university. In ministry, one of the most persistent challenges we encounter is walking with people who have been traumatized by harmful distortions of Christianity. In the classroom, we face a parallel challenge: teaching evidence-based truth and critical thinking in a post-truth society where the very notion of shared reality has become contested. In both spaces, the question beneath the surface is the same: “What kind of moral and spiritual force are we dealing with right now?”

This series, “Discerning the Spirits,” is an attempt to answer that question carefully and faithfully. Drawing on sociological research, history, and current ministry experience, our goal is not to caricature people or reduce complex lives to labels. Rather, it is to offer a discernment guide, especially for pastors, planters, and congregants, so we can name what we are encountering, understand why it has such power, and respond as followers of Jesus rather than as reactive culture warriors.

This first installment asks foundational questions: “What is the MAGA movement, sociologically and spiritually? Is it simply a political preference? A cult? A religious movement? Or something more complicated?”

Why “Cult” Might Not Be an Accurate Analytic Category

In popular discourse, “cult” is often used as a moral insult, a shorthand for “dangerous,” “brainwashed,” or “crazy.” Images of Jim Jones and the People’s Temple, Heaven’s Gate, and the Branch Davidians may come to mind. Sociologists of religion resist using the designation in this way, not because harm and manipulation are imaginary, but because it collapses analytic categories into unhelpful caricatures. In classical sociology, cult is not synonymous with fake or deviant religion. It is one category and sequence within a descriptive typology of religious organization, alongside church and sect.

In this framework:

• Churches are institutionally stable, socially accommodated, and often intertwined with cultural or state power.
• Sects arise in protest against a perceived loss of purity or faithfulness within a parent tradition. They claim continuity but demand stricter commitment or reform.
• Cults, more commonly referred to today as new religious movements (NRMs), are innovative formations that introduce new revelation, charismatic authority, or extra-canonical sources of truth.

Importantly, these are descriptive categories, not moral verdicts. Many traditions now recognized as world religions, including early Christianity, would have fit the sociological definition of a cult at their inception. Movements can migrate across categories over time.

This matters because calling MAGA a “cult” in the popular sense may feel emotionally satisfying for opponents, but it obscures the real dynamics at work and often shuts down any potential dialogue.

Sociologically, MAGA Is a “Sect”

Émile Durkheim, a sociologist, argued that religion is both a social phenomenon and a set of individual beliefs. As a social phenomenon, religion binds communities together while maintaining a sense of the sacred. People do this with shared rituals, meanings, and moral commitments, according to Durkheim.

From this perspective, MAGA is not a religion. It does not have an integrated cosmology, ritual calendar, or doctrine of ultimate meaning. Yet it clearly functions as a para-religious movement, borrowing heavily from religious symbols, narratives, and moral authority, and it is especially entwined with Christian nationalism (which we will explore more fully in part 3).

MAGA is more appropriately categorized as a sect claiming to purify and reclaim Christianity. It does not replace Christianity; it embeds itself within it. It claims continuity with “real,” “biblical,” or “true” Christianity. It treats dissenting Christians not as fellow believers with different interpretations, but as apostates, compromisers, or enemies. It does not introduce new scripture but reinterprets existing scripture in the service of political loyalty.

Thus, in the classical sociological framework, MAGA behaves less like a freestanding cult and more like a political sect embedded within Christianity, a movement that redefines faithfulness in terms of grievance, loyalty, and power rather than repentance, humility, or love of neighbor.

This distinction matters for ministry. While cults have high exit costs and can harm significant numbers of people, it is far harder to confront an imperially supported sect that insists it alone represents the faithful remnant.

Charismatic Authority and the Trump Paradox

Max Weber, another important sociologist, shaped modern understandings of authority, vocation, religion, and power, especially through his analysis of charismatic leadership and the role of ideas in social change.

His theory of charismatic authority is essential for understanding MAGA. Charisma, in Weber’s sense, is not charm, intelligence, or moral excellence. It is a social relationship in which followers attribute extraordinary authority to a leader, especially in moments of crisis.

This helps explain what is called the Trump paradox. Outside the MAGA moral universe, Donald Trump does not appear charismatic in any conventional sense. His public persona is visibly manufactured, from the orange spray tan to the stylized comb-over weave, reflecting a carefully curated spectacle rather than the traits traditionally associated with attractiveness.

His unscripted speech is marked by a limited and repetitive vocabulary, minimal syntactic complexity, and frequent factual errors, patterns that contrast sharply with expectations for intellectual or moral authority. He displays little knowledge of history, sociology, or public policy.

He has openly rejected one of the most basic practices of Christianity, repentance, claiming he has nothing to repent for. At a memorial service for Charlie Kirk, following a call to “love our enemies,” Trump broke from prepared remarks to add, “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them,” drawing applause from the crowd.

Charisma is sect-bound. Within MAGA, Trump’s violations are not disqualifying; rather, they are proof of authenticity. This is because, for followers, the group defines what counts as right or wrong, so actions that repel outsiders can deepen loyalty among insiders. Cruelty becomes courage. Ignorance becomes common sense. Moral failure becomes evidence that he is “real” and therefore trustworthy. His authority does not rest on wisdom or virtue, but on his willingness to transgress norms on behalf of the in-group.

Sociologically, this is an example of charisma degenerating into personalized, unaccountable authority.

Empirical Evidence: Asymmetric Loyalty and Conditional Democracy

This diagnosis is not speculative. A series of experiments by Andrew S. Franks and Farhang Hesami in 2021 analyzed “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS), defined as the belief that critics of Trump react with automatic, irrational hostility, opposing him regardless of the actual content of a policy or claim. Their study found that Trump supporters consistently align their views with Trump regardless of the policy content, whereas Trump detractors respond primarily to the substance of claims rather than their source. The authors found no evidence for widespread TDS among critics (more on this in part two). Instead, they documented asymmetric loyalty among supporters, meaning that Trump supporters showed symptoms of TDS, not the critics.

More troublingly, in post-2020-election experiments, nearly half of Trump voters supported counting votes only when doing so benefited Trump. Support for democratic norms became conditional on loyalty to the leader.

Similarly, a recent study by the University of Washington found that nearly all self-identified MAGA adherents believe the 2020 election was stolen, and many justify the January 6 insurrection, especially when framed in racialized or civilizational terms (Parker & Blum, 2021).

A recent national survey found that individuals who identify as MAGA Republicans are significantly more likely than non-MAGA Americans to say political violence is justified for achieving political objectives, even though they are not more willing to personally commit such violence. The study also shows that MAGA affiliation is strongly associated with traits linked to political violence, including authoritarianism, racism, conspiracism, Christian nationalism, and belief in civil war (Wintermute et al, 2025).

These findings indicate that MAGA is not merely polarized politics. It is a moral system organized around loyalty to the leader, capable of overriding evidence, consistency, and democratic commitment.

Why This Is Not About Education or Intelligence

It is tempting to dismiss MAGA loyalty as a function of low education or ignorance. While Trump does draw disproportionate support from non–college-educated voters, this explanation is insufficient and misleading.

Large-scale surveys (PRRI, Pew, ANES) show that significant portions of MAGA adherents are college-educated, economically secure, and civically engaged. Education shapes how loyalty is defended, not whether it exists. People with higher levels of education may have greater rhetorical and cognitive resources, such as familiarity with political arguments, media narratives, and selective evidence, that allow them to construct sophisticated justifications for positions they already hold. In other words, education can strengthen motivated reasoning, providing better tools for rationalizing allegiance rather than questioning it.

The persistence of MAGA loyalty is not a cognitive deficit. It is an identity-based, sectarian alignment that can absorb education, expertise, and even theological training without relinquishing its core commitments.

Why This Diagnosis Matters for the Church

Calling MAGA a cult in the popular sense may feel cathartic for critics, but it misdiagnoses the challenge, and that’s a problem. While there are aspects of MAGA that are cult-like, its power lies in the fact that it is not external to Christianity. Instead, it is an internal distortion. It sanctifies political power, reorders Christian ethics around domination and exclusion, and replaces Jesus as the interpretive center with a political strongman as moral arbiter.

Sociologist Peter Berger warned that the danger is not when religion disappears, but when sacred symbols are captured to legitimate social control. That warning feels uncomfortably relevant.

The unsettling reality is that MAGA, as a sectarian movement, is not merely a political preference, but is often far more effective at discipling people into its ideology than many churches are at forming people in the way of Jesus. A vast ecosystem of partisan news outlets, podcasts, books, influencers, and social media channels relentlessly echoes Trump’s claims with little or no fact-checking, shaping moral instincts and emotional responses for hours each day. By contrast, most churches have at best an hour on Sunday and perhaps a midweek Bible study. This means pastors, planters, and congregations must work hard to challenge MAGA political identity with authentic Christian formation.

If MAGA functions as a sectarian movement embedded within Christianity, then scandal, fact-checking, and moral exposure will not work the way we expect. This raises the next question, and the focus of Part II: “Why does MAGA loyalty not break when confronted with evidence, critique, or even moral failure?”

References

Beck, Michael Adam. Distortions: How to Recognize and Refute False Christian Claims in American Culture, Abingdon Press, 2026.

Berger, P. L. (1967). The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Anchor Books.

Franks, A. S., & Hesami, F. (2021). Seeking Evidence of the MAGA Cult and Trump Derangement Syndrome: An Examination of (A)symmetric Political Bias. Societies, 11(3), 113.

Niebuhr, H. R. (1929). The Social Sources of Denominationalism. Henry Holt.
Parker, C. S., & Blum, R. M. (2021). Panel Study of the MAGA Movement. University of Washington.

Troeltsch, E. (1931). The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (O. Wyon, Trans.). Allen & Unwin.

Weber, M. (1978). Economy and Society (G. Roth & C. Wittich, Eds.). University of California Press.

Wintemute, G. J., Velasquez, B., Robinson, S. L., Tomsich, E. A., Wright, M. A., & Shev, A. B. (2025). The MAGA movement and political violence in 2024: Findings from a nationally representative survey. Injury Epidemiology, 12(78).