“Dead to the world” includes being dead to Christianism.

Colossians 3.1-4 KWL

1 So if you’re raised up with Christ, seek higher things—where Christ is, sitting at the Father’s right.

2 Think about higher things, not things on the earth:

3 You died. Your life is cloaked with Christ, in God.

4 When Christ—our life—appears, then you’ll appear with him in glory.

Christians, like Paul and Timothy said in Colossians, are meant to identify with Christ. We’re not to let other people lead us astray through useless philosophies, traditions, and tricks; we’re to let Christ Jesus lead us, and him alone. Cl 2.8

The apostles’ argument was that we’re to identify with Christ Jesus so closely, we effectively died to sin through his death. We were raised to new life with his new life. So as far as this world and age are concerned, we’re dead.

No, they weren’t trying to teach Christians that it’s perfectly okay for us to violate the laws of the land, because we’re supposedly dead to our governments as well. Plenty of Christians have tried that interpretation, and used it as a license to be jerks towards pagans, or to justify our libertarian or anarchic politics (and our conspiracy-theory fears of how they might crack down on us for being contrary). Or to simply sin ourselves raw and call it “freedom in Christ”—but really we’re taking God’s grace for granted. Christians can be just as wicked as anyone, and Christianists are notorious for using the trappings of Christianity to get away with all sorts of evil.

Nope; once you read the context of Colossians you’ll realize the apostles were writing about the legalistic expectations of religious people. Certain ancient Christians, same as today, had a very narrow view of how “good Christians” were meant to live, or which of the Pharisee traditions oughta be carried forward into Christianity. And they were penalizing their fellow Christians for not being “Christian” enough for them—as they defined Christianity, not as Jesus, the apostles, and their bible define it.

So when the apostles wrote about being dead to the world, yeah they were writing about being dead to the secular world… but they were just as much writing about being dead to the religious world. To the “good Christians” who were trying to add commands and rules to Jesus’s teachings. Who were trying to enforce their interpretations instead of leaving conviction to the Holy Spirit, to whom it properly belongs.

You’re not gonna find a lot of preachers who point out that fact. Sometimes because they don’t realize it applies to them too… and sometimes because they don’t want it to apply to them too. They want us to “follow me as I follow Christ,” 1Co 11.1 MEV and sometimes really do have the best of intentions.

But we’re to follow Christ. Not them. Not fellow Christians. We’re all fallible; we’re all wrong. Jesus is not. Follow Jesus with us—but don’t follow us. Follow him.