Been a while since I have posted... I am looking foward to the upcoming school semester... looking foward to, yet utterly fearing. (College buddies can back me up on this one.)  I think I got my mother a little angry yesterday.  The whole situation is kind of strange, we could discuss any issue of denomination and I remember her once saying neither protestants nor roman catholics are necessarily the followers of our Lord Jesus.  But then as my critique (also with critique toward my own short comings) shifts through the conversation the spinning needle on the selection pie chart in this game of churchianity lands on the Pentecostal movement.  First and foremostly, I have nothing personal against the Trinitarian Pentecosal Church.  (The Unitarians and myself are still locked in debate; they're losing.)  But well the natural question I always asked is how dedicated to Christ is the group.  This question itself consists of many other questions.  Importantly I myself focus on addressing issues of utmost trust in the will and power of God, accuracy, and authenticity.  Now before I continue I do know of men whom were either branded or branded themselves pentecostalists, whose goal it was to fully seek and serve God in book Spirit and Truth.  Men such as my departed uncle, Mohammed Ishmael.  Who at his uttmost breaking point, left his family's tradition of Islam and came seeking the light that only Christ could offer.  I would say I am sure of him now, because he can do no more for the sake of the Gospel.  I would say he had a very high energy level, yet he was very conservative.  He was on fire, yet so aware that God was in control, I would say that He was much more aware than the greater part of the Assemblies of God in the 5 boroughs of New York City.  I do not speak these kind words as a form of respect toward the sake of his R.I.P.  No, I am establishing a benchmark.  Personally, I could care less how much or how little noise you make, or how much you dance.  But in his example I would say I never heard complexity.  Just the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus.  He was a sensational person, but I wouldn't not corall him with the rest of AG saying that he was easily sway to exercise sensationalism as a form of propaganda.  Of such, everyone should be warned, including the Assemblies of God, and greater Trinitarian Pentecostal Church.  Now like I said, more or less I am using his life as a slight benchmark (Christ as the ultimate benchmark, of course).  Now for the majority of my life I grew being indoctrinated by the Pentecostal Church.  Yet it is not until I ended up rejecting all denomination in all forms, including the Pentecostalism was it that I noticed life started finally pointing toward Christ.  I have noticed that on some occasions (those occasions with full Holy Biblical foundations and the truth filled revelation of the Holy Spirit).  That they preached for the most part the simplicity of Christ.  One thing that set back a higher degree of respect for the organization was this crazy teaching/interpretation of scripture in which a minister said it would be illegal that God should situate himself in the physical realm because of His nature, and the dominion in which He gave men, the same minister stated the same of Satan.  I would say that the Pentecostal Church has for the most part given too much credit and power to Satan.  Along those lines I asked the simple question, what about Jesus' temptation where Satan says that he now has dominion given to him from men.  A slight question that would dispell an entirely incorrect doctrine.  Simply stated for many of us, we understand by scripture and by experience that God is omnipresent.  This would have posed a problem because the greater feeling in the organization is that they really trust their ministers on all they speak.  So when I said, "I took notes, I am going to check on the things he preached about," conflicted sparked.  Simply the lesson to learn is that in one sense or another (as previously discussed in the barber shop a.k.a. the forum) to some extent all denominations are cults, and I believe the minute inclusion they have to the Christian title shift focus off of our Lord and our God.  You see I used the Pentecostal Movement, and my uncle as examples.  But putting both aside the lesson to be learned still rests on Jesus Christ.  The prejudices of the demoninations will not stand in the kingdom of heaven.  I have sat quietly as Pentecostalists try to convince me that I have no revelation or experience of the Holy Ghost because I haven't experience God in their way (now the thing is I could tell that that I have visually seen and audibly heard the Lord Jesus Christ in all His glory and what would they then say about my experiences with God, even I don't down-play an individuals experience with God because I have had such an experience. In my mind every, experience with God is equally pertinent when it leads a person to Christ. Perhaps these few think I am lying, does it matter? The resting question that sits in my head is do they say this because I choose to see God as my Master rather than my tool?  I can reminesce on Benny Hinn's name-it-and-claim-it teaching, totally without Biblical basis, for we read that it is according to the will of God that things are brought to past.  I am reminded of T.D. Jakes' modalist tones.  And I am given goosebumps of chilling fear to think that these are the people (as well as many other Protestants) that recite the Apostles' Creed, yet make modifications to it, one of which is the removal of the part that says I believe in one holy catholic and apostlic church.  I believe it's an issue of insecurity.  Plain and simply to wrap this up, sometimes you find yourself among Christian, sometimes you find yourself among Protestants.

I.H.S.

Dean N. Gunraj