Prejudice: What My Mother Never Taught Me

Living on your own for the first couple of years really opens your eyes to what you did and didn't learn as a child. For example, I've come to realize that I never really saw prejudice growing up.

I remember a few years back, before I moved, I heard someone use a racial slur for Jews. I had to ask what the word meant, because I had never heard it before. A good friend of mine told me how glad he was that I had been unexposed to it.

I had grown up being taught that the Jewish people are an important group, that in Biblical times they were chosen by God to be His people (See Deuteronomy 7:6-8). So I had never heard any slurs directed against them, and I never had a negative thought about them.

That was just one example. But the type of prejudice that I was really unaware of was religious. Now, I’m not talking about Christian against Buddhism or Islam, or anything like that. I’m talking about prejudice within Christianity, against other Christians only.

When I first moved to the area and started attending a Christian college, I was amazed at how there was a church on every corner. On Sundays there are always cops outside several of the larger churches to direct traffic because so many people attend these places of worship. I would go to Panera Bread in the mornings and see people reading their Bible, or I’d hear people praying. I was amazed! What a wonderful, God-loving place this is!

But then I began to hear it: snide remarks meant as jokes, “Oh, well, he’s a Presbyterian, so you know what that means.” 

No. Really, I don’t. What does it mean? 

Or, people might say, “So, you believe in _____­­­____? You must be one of those Calvinists then.” Once my friends here found out that I had attended a Baptist church for a short period of time with my family, it spread like wildfire that I was “one of those ‘Baptists.’” Which of course must mean that I don’t dance, that I like to sit quietly in the back row of the church and say “amen” at appropriate times, must never raise my hands in the service, and that I really like to eat potluck dinners.

I. Hate. This.

I grew up in non-denominational churches (save for a short time at the Baptist one). These were Bible-believing churches where you were saved if you believed that Christ died for your sins and arose again. We take the Bible as God’s word to us, something to live by and believe. And that’s about it. No back-biting, no bickering, no running down denominations.

My mother had always told me that denominations are simply because people have different comfort levels of how to worship. You pick your comfort level. If you like a quieter, more conservative service, you might choose Presbyterian or Methodist. If you like more singing and dancing, you might be closer to something Pentecostal. Granted, some of these had bigger differences, but still, it really comes down to the worship style.

But here, but now, I find myself surrounded by Christians hating other Christians. Usually they play off their prejudices as jokes. But these jokes aren't funny. How are we ever going to spread the Gospel to those who haven’t heard it if we can’t stop fighting amongst ourselves and pointing out our differences? It leaves me with a nasty taste in my mouth and disappointment of those who are supposed to be showing the love of Christ to others.

And every time I think about this, all I can think to say is, “You know, there won’t be denominations in heaven.”