The Dove, the Flag, and the Fire
A Lament for Pentecost in a Compromised Church
Artist: JESUS MAFA
Yesterday we celebrated Pentecost, the moment in the Church calendar that falls fifty days after the Resurrection. It finds its roots in the Jewish Feast of Weeks (Shavuot) when the Law descended at Sinai to be written on the hearts of God’s people. In Acts 2, that descent is fulfilled again, not with stone tablets, but with the Spirit himself, coming not to erase the Law, but to reveal the Word in power. It’s the day when tongues of fire appeared, when the Holy Spirit came just as Jesus had promised, not as a spectacle, but to empower ordinary disciples to become bold witnesses bringing heaven to earth.
Growing up Pentecostal, I’ve come to expect that day to be filled with altar calls, impassioned prayers, and hunger for more of God. Services would stretch into Sunday evenings with revival fire, prophetic words, and moments that marked me deeply. I have vivid memories of waking up on Monday mornings exhausted from a holy fatigue of a people who had spent the night contending for the presence of God.
I’ve seen services where the atmosphere was charged with hunger, flags waving in rhythm with intercession, people dancing in embodied praise, oil poured with expectation, modesty cloths gently laid over those who had fallen under the weight of glory (if you know, you know).
I’ve witnessed deaf ears open and blind eyes see. I’ve watched as people rose from wheelchairs and took their first steps in years. I’ve seen addictions break in an instant, marriages once unraveling woven back together, diagnoses reversed, and demons cast out of those long tormented. I’ve stood in rooms where the Spirit of God moved not just with power, but with tenderness, where hearts turned, postures shifted, and holiness settled like a presence you didn’t want to leave. For me, Pentecost has never been just a commemorative day on the calendar, it has always been a way of life, a posture of pursuit, an ongoing cry for heaven to invade earth. It’s a constant call for Spirit fire and wind to consume and transform.
And yet, if I’m honest, something in me aches. Not because I doubt what I’ve seen, but because I wonder if we’ve settled for moments of power without allowing the Spirit to reshape the patterns of our lives. Many of the men and women that once stood beside me at the altar, who knew how to “call down fire” from heaven, who wept for revival, now live lives marked by relational isolation, political radicalism, and quiet xenophobia. Many still attend church. Many still contend at the altar, but the tone has shifted. The prayers sound twisted, dominated by ideological shifts, not surrender and cruciformity. The fire feels tinged with something different, something strange.
And I must ask: when the fire came, did we let it burn away what was false? When we cried for revival, did we yield to the reformation work required to receive it? Or was our experiential service for our feelings of accomplishment, that we’ve conjured this great God at our own will in our timing?
I’ve stood in rooms where the Holy Spirit felt like electricity in the air, where people fell to their knees under both conviction and joy, and yet I’ve watched as egos go unchecked, and I’ve watched nationalism creep onto the altars, and I’ve watched performance impersonate presence. Somewhere along the way, the symbols that once formed us, the table, the cross, the flame, have become more like the artificial green plants lining the stage of my old church, meaning to look like something alive, but ultimately plastic to the touch and gaudy in nature. I still see churches waving flags, but they seem to have dropped the cross so they could do so.
Whether we are conscious of it or not, we are constantly being formed. There is a liturgical phrase: Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi. Simply meaning, the way we worship shapes what we believe, and what we believe determines how we live. I’m afraid, friends, that we’ve been worshipping the wrong things.
We have built auditoriums designed to fill the room with volume but lack the reverence to still our hearts to hear the voice of the Spirit. We’ve exchanged the sacred act of baptism for a photo op to push brand clarity. Our communion table has been pushed to the margins to make space for a conference stage. Reaching others in their point of need has been substituted for event planning. Fire has dissipated into a fog machines, Wind has been reduced into hype, and Spirit prayers have devolved into tribal slogans that push a brand not the Kingdom forward.
Now, let me pause. I’m not here to demonize conferences, fog machines, events, and emotion. I’m not against brand clarity or intentional messaging. But what I am seeing, is a Western Pentecostalism that is more about performance than surrender, power over presence, and leadership development with intent to command a crowd but has forgotten how to carry a cross.
Beloved child of God, if the only fire we know is manufactured, we shouldn’t be shocked when the heat fades and we see nothing refined.
My sorrow runs deep as I watch those I love, people I’ve grown up with, worshipped beside, wept at altars with, now bow to the altar of political ideology. They’ve bought into the false religion of power, nationalism, and politics. Some have traded Spirit for strategy and others formation for allegiance. I’ve seen people exchange the dove for the eagle, the cross for the flag, and Christ for Caesar. This isn’t a drift, it’s a false religion dressed in the language of power and patriotism. Yet it’s done in church, so we call it holy.
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi.
How we worship shapes what we believe. What we believe shapes how we live. And right now, our lives are revealing more than we realize.
Here is my obstinate hope, all is not lost. Yes, what we see in our churches look like ideological nationalist zealots. Yet, Jesus had zealots, idealogical nationalists, and tax collectors too. Simon Peter was a nationalist at heart. He may have been a businessman of a fishing vessel, but in his heart he believed power and authority would come by Jesus kicking out the Roman government or simply conforming it to his ultimate will.
Yet, Jesus didn’t command him to storm the capital of Rome, he told him to feed his sheep. Jesus didn’t bless his sword, he told Peter to put it away with the warning, ‘Those who live by the sword will die by it.”
It was Peter, that same Peter, who on the day of Pentecost preached the best message Christianity has ever known. It was Peter, whose language, by the Spirit, was miraculously heard by every international person in the vicinity calling people to worship Messiah Jesus. It was Peter who called the people, not to rise up with arms, but to go down to the water, be baptized, repent, and be filled with the Spirit. Peter – the reformed nationalist turned Spirit-filled evangelist.
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi.
So what of us? If Peter can be reformed, so can we. If the fire could fall on a man who once swung a sword to fight for nationalism, surely the Spirit can fall on us too, crucifying our desire for power. If Peter can be anointed and reformed, so too can the Spirit (re)form us. The church in the West needs to look more like Acts 2 than Mark 8:32 and I will be honest, it’s going to hurt a bit. I don’t want the Spirit’s power to anoint my agenda, I want it to undo me and make me look more like Jesus.
Isn’t that what Pentecost is all about? It’s not to electrify but reshape and empower a people to further the gospel, not a political ideology. It’s not to create high emotive moments, but repattern communal life around humility, presence, and witness. There was nothing about the upper room that was meant to stay there – it was the holding place for those who worshipped, believed, and then lived.
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi.
So, this is the Pentecostal call I put to you. Don’t remember fire, return to the altar that holds it. Come to the table and embrace those who will sit beside you. They might not hold your theology, they may not look like you, or vote like you, but they’re partaking with you and Jesus calls them worthy to do so. Step back into baptism, where our old selves are buried, and a new creation comes up gasping for pneuma.
What the church needs isn’t more noise, flags, or rallies. We need the Spirit that sanctifies.
We need a Pentecost that doesn’t pass in a weekend, but roots in a people. If your soul aches for more, I encourage you to come to the table. Not as symbol alone, but to encounter the real presence of Christ. If you have friends or family, set aside time for Jesus today in community.
This is his body, still broken for the world.
This is his blood, still poured out for you.
This is where Pentecost continues.
Take, eat, receive.
Let the fire fall again, but this time, let it refine us.