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What Does the Bible Say About...Religious Discrimination?

What does the Bible say about people who discriminate against churches? I am Catholic and a minister at a prison. I feel the warden does not allow us certain things because we are Catholic but the Pentecostal churches are allowed the same things we are turned down for.

Answer

Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. (Matthew 5:11-12)

That passage doesn’t totally apply to your situation, but it does point out that people will persecute God’s people. God doesn’t promise us roses without thorns.

In answer to your specific question, however, the Bible doesn’t say anything about people who discriminate between churches. There is a simple reason for that. In the first century, when the New Testament was written, there was only one church. The splintering of the churches didn’t begin until centuries later. Some date it to the eleventh century, when the Eastern Orthodox church excommunicated the Pope of Rome. (The division actually started as early as the fifth century, if not before.) So the Bible could not address discrimination among Christian churches, because there was none.