I was reading this blog article entitled “Growing Up Pentecostal Not What It Used To Be” where the author got to hear the stories of how his mother and grandmother experienced ‘persecution’ for being Pentecostal experiencing such things as shunning to rotten eggs being thrown at them.

The author of the article mentions how to this day, he has experienced “Pentecostal prejudice” of ice cold stares and wrong treatment from other Christians because he mentioned that he was Pentecostal.

I experienced it also and learned to just use the word ‘Christian’ and ‘church’. Also, being in advanced placement classes, there was more of an openess to those who hanged academically with the other kids and those denominational walls broke down as we learned not to distinguish between baptist, pentecostal, methodist, etc. We learned to become friends and played basketball together in gym class. We learned to become friends and help each other with homework when needed.

I saw what happened to those pentecostals who showed it and their parents forced them to flaunt it in the name of being the ‘poorer the purer’, the ‘fewer the purer’ and the ‘meeker the purer’. I saw the purposed ‘marking’ of those kids as ‘pentecostal and not proud’ when their daughters showed up in the long hair and long skirts (but super baggy gym pants for gym class) and their sons showed up in plad flannel shirts and khakis driven to school by the mom with the same type of long skirts with her beehive hairdo baffling us as to why they had a new Cadillac every three years but lived in a dilapidated mobile home…..

I saw the scorn and ridicule those kids endured.

As I read this article I am reminded of a famous Star Trek episode entitled “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” about the last two survivors from a planet in chaos that were beamed up to the Enterprise. The two men were beamed up fighting each other and the Security team of the Enterprise had to break the fight up. It wasn’t until Kirk and Spock interviewed one of the men identified as a commander when they received a revelation from the man being interviewed

Look at their faces

Both men as revealed throughout the episode and seen via their actions of disturbing the peace throughout the episode revealed how they ‘were better’ and ‘more superior’ than the other man. Very similar to the way that the author of the blog post referenced earlier experienced in his own life.

However, in the past ten years, I have seen a very disturbing trend take place,

The allegations of ‘religious racism’ has done a 180….

Where years ago, pentecostals used to experience shunning, loneliness, rotten eggs from their detractors and denominational elitism from other denominations; the modernized pentecostals and charismatics (especially the hyper charismatic third wave Christians) are now the ones inflicting the shunning and denominational elitism on other Christians.

The hunted has now become the hunter.
The target has now become the target shooter.
The persecuted has become the persecutor.

How!

We heal more people than you…

Our churches have more members than you…

We have more Christian tv shows than you…

We have a better hotline to God than you…

God loves us more than he loves you….

People are leaving your church for my church, that means God loves us and hates you

When Jesus comes, we’ll be gone. You’ll be left behind…

I know… I once participated in the elitism in the name of trying to reserve my ’spot’ in the last days Joel’s Army, Joshua Generation mega-remnant….

I repent. I am gravely sorry. I ask for your forgiveness.

The choice is ours. We can either choose “Backlash” or we can choose “Bible”

I want to leave you with a little bit of insight. At the end of that famous Star Trek Episode, the fighting between the two men gets so bad that there is no chance of peace, reconciliation, and unity between the two men. In fact, Kirk almost self-destructed the Enterprise to show the two men who had the power after one of the men’s will took control of the direction of the Enterprise.

After Kirk shows the two men who is the real boss, the two men continue to fight and feud.

In order to restore the peace to the Enterprise to where it can complete it’s five year mission, Kirk eventually is left with no other option but to beam the two men back down to their chaotic planet and let the two of them either reconcile their difference and learn to live together or the stronger man kills the weaker man but eventually dies in the long run. One of the last scenes of this episode is a screen view of the two men back on their fiery planet fighting…..

But we never know what was the final outcome, unity of self-destruction.

If we are not careful , the church people can still practice ‘religious racism’ against each other and could easily end up acting the same way fighting over who is superior/inferior while the world around them is destructing in a spiritual inferno of filth, sin, death, and depravity that has consumed the environment around them.

What can we do about it…….

Repent first of all for showing prejudice against other real Christians who do not see things eye-to-eye with us.

Replace the word ‘inferior’ with the words ‘brother in Christ’ and replace the word ’superior’ with the words ’sister in Christ’

Come to the conclusion that we must work together not only to survive but to fulfill the Great Commission.