A story here.
My brother works with a guy...hardware engineer...who in his mid-20's...met a very nice & conservitive woman (divorced, 1 kid)...who was reformed Pentecostal (a drifter). For old fashioned minded guys, she was a perfect 10. He married her and had a daughter. By mid-30s...she decided it was time to go back to hardline Pentecostal, which he went hand-in-hand with her. She was quickly accepted back into the church, and of course, did the tongues routine. He was educated, an engineer, very logical and common-sense minded...and couldn't get this whole thing into his mind. Her entire family...after almost three years of getting him into the tongues routine...felt he could never be in the inner circle. So they suggest she might find a better husband. She was still a very dedicated woman and stood by the husband but these week-after-week episodes at the church didn't make for much of a relationship. Last I heard...five years later...still married but he isn't invited to family functions, nor would he go anyway.
Its a faith that demands you be in their inner circle or else you are labeled an outsider. Its their system and they are free to do so. There is no reason to demand changes amongst the group. But the tongues routine is more of a joke and out of 10,000 verses in the Bible...its rather amusing that you circle one verse and concentrate strictly on one alone to base your religion. Its a great book...seems like you would want to base a religion on its entire contents.
There's more than one verse about tongues.
And, the sort of phenomenon you describe about inner circles--
I'VE OBSERVED THAT IN EVERY DENOMINATION I'VE EVER BEEN AROUND EVEN AS AN OBSERVER.
That IN-GROUP/OUT-GROUP stuff is a psychodynamic/sociological fact of human life--especially where the congregation is not shepherded by a wise, humble, anointed leader and such is allowed to go on.
To some degree, there will always be an inner group.
PETER, JAMES AND JOHN were such with Jesus. Folks who give more of themselves, lay more of themselves on the altar tend to be more intimate with God and vice versa.
The issue is not so much an inner circle--the issue is how permeable--closed/open is it; how balanced is it; how humble is it; how healthy is it; what's the criteria for membership based on etc.
I could likely, given enough observation time, point to very deadly, haughty, exclusive etc. inner circles in probably more than 80% of the congregations in the USA of any denomination.
At this church I went to they had requests for songs. I requested "What a friend we have in Jesus". At the end of the song the song leader said, "now let's sing a song more uplifting". I was dumbstruck. I thought to myself what could be more uplifting than What a friend we have in Jesus? They liked singing those songs with the repetitive verses. I like the old time hymns. I love to sing them because they have so much meaning. I would never darken those doors of that church ever again. Plus they had a lot of seriously dysfunctional people attending. Not that a church isn't where they should go, but they had some issues, and some with a position in the church. I found it much safer to just watch Dr. Stanley, someone who is very grounded in the scriptures.
Any faith that tells you to divorce your husband and find another one is way off track. They are NOT typical of charismatic churches. I'm not a big fan of A of G churches myself but I had never heard that one before.