Did Christianity get co-opted?

I often feel unseasy around Christians or those wearing crosses as my experience with Christianity is that it is a doctrine based on hierarchy, submission, and punishment. It is fueled by comparison, hate, shame, and fear.

But then I know Christians who swear to me that their experience is all about love. ...how can that be?

Well I recently learned about Gnostic Christianity. This was one of the earlier forms of Christianity and it was much more focused on inner experience and knowledge rather than institutions and punishment. But then, somewhere around 300 ce it shifted. ...it got co-opted.

And that makes perfect sense. We can see now that’s how politicians and “leaders” of all varieties function today. They take something that is very popular among “the people” and twist it and turn it to fit their needs.

Perhaps the tyrants of the day co-opted what Christianity was, and made it conform to their hierarchy, submission, and punishment based structures?