Two weeks later, a Pentecost conference with international guests took place in Mühlheim/Ruhr. 2,500 participants received attendee badges; the press reported that up to 10,000 people attended the evening events. During this conference, the Berlin Declaration was read aloud, and a response to it—the so-called “Mühlheim Declaration”—was drafted on September 29, 1909, while the event was still in progress.

Eight months later, in May 1910, the actual split occurred at the “Community Conference” in Gnadau. Sixteen of the spiritual leaders voted against any contact with the “Pentecostal Brethren,” with four abstentions.

Now that the statement, which had once been private, had, so to speak, acquired official status, it took on a surprising momentum of its own that bore no relation to the actual reason for the statement and triggered an event of a magnitude unprecedented anywhere in the world.

Suddenly, as a Christian, one was faced with the decision of whether to support or oppose the Pentecostal revival. There was no “middle ground.” Within a short time, polarization set in throughout the entire Body of Christ in Germany, and within a few years, a complete schism had taken place.