Very few, if any, christians follow the christian idea of anything.

Oh, I don't know about that. There are plenty of people into wealth and status and possesions as their top priority. And that is, in fact, ONE of the dictionary definitions of materialism. The other is the one you mention -- the philosophical sense of the word.

So Christians didn't invent a new meaning for the word. What they ARE often guilty of, is to conflate two very different meanings or usages of a word. They do this with words like "faith" and "theory" for example.

Here, I don't think that's even the case, as they have separate critiques of philosophlical materialism and of "the love of money". However they ARE still conflating something quite often in my experience: some of them have a tendency to assume that if a person is wealthy or respected that they automatically got that way because they sold their soul for money, power and status. This doubtless comes from the Biblical teaching that "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into heaven".

Also, I have little doubt that some people in and out of Christianity who aren't versed in philosophy, aren't even aware of philosophical materialism (the notion that the natural world is all there is, that there's no supernatural world) or that it shares little more than the word "materialism" with the other meaning. And I am sure that some believe one leads to the other.

That is something that interests me. Their material things help their worth as a human being. They progressed in life, by how much they have to show for it...in material possessions!

Not sure I understand. Are you saying no one pursues material wealth over all else?

No one thinks critically enough to ever examine the beliefs they hold.
Especially in the current age of intentional ignorance and FAKE NEWS.