Florida preacher's anti-Islam actions leave some Pentecostals cold

By Tim Funk

tfunk@charlotteobserver.com

Pentecostalism:vA Christian movement that started with a storefront revival on Azusa Street in Los Angeles in 1906, it has spread rapidly around the globe. Once regarded by many Christians as a marginal and almost embarrassing style of faith in which converts are "slain in the spirit" and followers speak in tongues or perform miracle healings, Pentecostalism has become mainstream.

A 2006 survey estimated that one in four Christians in the world is Pentecostal.
The more than 60 Pentecostal denominations include Church of God, Church of God in Christ, Assemblies of God, the Pentecostal Holiness Church and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. {Source: Religion Newswriters Association}

Like the tiny Florida church that shook the world last week with its pastor's threat to burn copies of the Quran, Central Church of God calls itself Pentecostal.

And like that 50-member Dove World Outreach Center, which put up signs equating Islam with the devil, this 6,000-member megachurch in south Charlotte is not bashful about cursing Satan or about praising Jesus with tears of emotion.

But, on Sunday, interviews with Pastor Loran Livingston and members of his flock turned up zero support for waging war against Islam by burning its holy book.

While insisting that belief in Jesus is the one true path to God, they said they are called as Christians to win converts by showing love, not make enemies by spreading hate.

"The church's business is to tell all people - Jews, Muslims everybody - that Christ loves them and God will save them," said Livingston, one of Charlotte's star preachers, who inherited a congregation of just 22 people when he became pastor in 1977. "I don't think Jesus meant for us to be divisive and militant."

Livingston said he was embarrassed that combative Pastor Terry Jones - the mustachioed man in the news who finally backed down from his plan to torch 200 Qurans - held himself up as a Pentecostal.

The fast-growing brand of Christianity takes its name from the feast of Pentecost, when Jesus' apostles received the Holy Spirit and were empowered to speak in foreign languages. In today's Pentecostal churches, many adherents speak in tongues or perform healings.

"We could get so much more done for the Lord if we would do it his way," Livingston said. "He told (apostle) Peter, 'Put your sword away. If you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword.' We're supposed to be peacemakers. We're supposed to love everybody... It doesn't matter what they've done to us or might do in the future. We're to love them."

During his Sunday sermon to a packed sanctuary and overflow satellite buildings, Livingston made it clear that he and members of his interracial congregation differ from other, non-Christian religions. That includes Islam, which honors Jesus as a great prophet but worships only Allah - the Arabic name for God - as divine.

"There is only one true God - the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - whose son is Jesus," he told his flock, many of whom lifted their hands heavenward and shouted their approval. "In these days, (many) pick a god and put a name on it. No, his name is Jesus."

But in the next breath, Livingston said that same Jesus "teaches us to be kind, teaches us to be peacemakers... The Bible says we are to make peace with all men."

After the service, worshipers on the way to their cars expressed the same themes - Jesus is the only true way, but showing disrespect to people of other faiths is the wrong way to express that.

"There are better ways to get your message out than going to extremes and burning a document that many base their lives on and consider sacred," said Bogdan Pomerlyan, 26, a software developer. "Although I believe strongly in what we (Christians) believe... what (Jones) was doing was pushing people farther away, not trying to get them closer."

Romanian-born Peter Oprea, an entrepreneur who lives in Marvin, said Jones was just looking for media attention when he should have considered how his threat would feel if it were reversed, and a Muslim imam were threatening to burn Christianity's sacred book.

"I wouldn't feel comfortable if I heard my Bible would be burned," said Oprea, 40. "I respect a holy document even though it's not my own."

Constantin Nasui, 56, of Harrisburg, agreed, saying the better way to counter Islam - "a false religion," he said - was to pray for Muslims.

Jesus, Nasui said, "is love, kindness, compassion."

And he's the truth and the only way to God, added Leah Ponds, 30, a nanny who lives in Charlotte.

"When you have the truth - Jesus Christ is the truth - then it's not necessary to do anything that would stir up something in other people," she said.

Putting up signs that say Islam is evil turns people off and builds walls, she added. Instead, said Ponds, who will leave soon for a mission trip in some predominantly Muslim countries, Christians should try to share their belief in Jesus - and let God take it from there.

"I want to talk to (Muslims) and just lift up Christ," she said. "Because Christ will draw people unto himself."

A little blunter in her views Sunday was Tricia Pope, 39, of Denver, who was making her first visit to Central Church of God in a decade.

She agreed with Florida pastor Jones that Islam is of the devil - "anything that is not of Jesus is of the devil" - and said a battle between Christianity and Islam was prophesied in the Bible.

Still, she agreed that burning Qurans is a wrongheaded idea, and not the way to bring more people to Jesus.

In fact, Pope, a stay-at-home mom of two children, said she's worried that Jones and his tiny Pentecostal church in Gainesville, Fla., may have turned people off to the Christian message.

Said Pope: "I just pray that people will not judge Jesus based on what he is doing."



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