Curses!

That's the exclamation I think when I hear someone taking a snippet from the Bible and twisting it to suit their own purposes. But I also think that word because it reminds me of a curse from the Harry Potter books. One of three unforgivable curses in that world is the imperius curse. Use it, and you will land in Azkaban, the wizard prison. When one wizard would point their wand at another (or animal or regular human or whatever) and say, "Imperio," suddenly that creature would do the bidding of the instigator until the curse was broken. What is so insidious about it is a normally innocent person would begin doing things out of character and no one could figure out who was behind it. A notoriously evil wizard could do lots of damage without much hindrance, because if they were careful, no one would be able to prove they were behind it.

I think the analogy is quite clear. We are capable of doing great evil by taking the normally trustworthy Bible and twisting it to do our bidding. And no one can quite figure out why they think something's amiss, because after all, I am quoting the Bible. People have unfiguratively gotten away with murder, by saying, "Imperio," as they tap the Bible page before stalking off to manipulate those around them. But more insidiously, innocent people have ignored context as they read the Bible and started living in a way that doesn't fit in the kingdom of God. And because discernment is one of the most under-practiced gifts in Jesus's body, nobody really gets that certain people are way off from Jesus's calling, let alone knows what a disciple should look like. So release the Bible from the imperius. Do its bidding instead.