In many contexts religion is weaponised through the politicisation of theology and the religionisation of politics. This paper asks how public theology can discern divine presence amid such sacralised power. I develop diagnostic criteria that combine a Wesleyan moral imagination with political-theological analysis: attention to the poor, non-domination, truthful speech, and the refusal of purity myths. Short cases from Brazil, South Africa, and Europe illustrate how these criteria expose counterfeit transcendence in nationalist, racial, and market liturgies. The argument concludes with a proposal for civic practices that keep the Creator-creation difference alive without retreating into privatised faith, enabling faithful presence in plural democratic spaces.