Carlton Pearson, preacher considered a heretic for denying hell, dies at age 70

Bishop Carlton D. Pearson, an evangelical pastor who was abandoned by his large congregation after declaring there was no hell and championing gay rights — and whose story was told in a 2018 Netflix film — died Sunday in Tulsa , Okla. .

His death, at a hospice care center, was caused by cancer, said his agent, Will Bogle.

Before he was ostracized by the evangelical establishment, Bishop Pearson was one of its leading figures: a board member of Oral Roberts University, an adviser to President George W. Bush on faith initiatives and one of the country’s first black televangelists.

An annual revival that Bishop Pearson led, the Azusa Conference in Tulsa, a mix of ministry and music, drew as many as 20,000 people and produced best-selling gospel records.

“The night shifts were always sprinkled with heavy, heavy hitters in the gospel industry,” says Yolanda Adams, a Grammy Award-winning singer whose career took off after an invitation from Bishop Pearson. The 1996 conference brought together a group of evangelical leaders declared him ‘a bishop in the Lord’s church’.

But his downfall was decisive when he questioned core doctrines, leading to his formal branding as a heretic and the loss of most of his congregation.

In the 1990s, while watching a TV report about children going hungry during the genocide in Rwanda, Bishop Pearson had an epiphany. He could not believe that God would send innocent souls to hell who had not accepted Jesus Christ as savior before their death. He concluded that hell does not exist except as earthly misery created by humans; that God loves all humanity; and that everyone has already been saved.

It was a view he shared in interviews and preached at his church, Higher Dimensions Family Church, which he co-founded in 1981 and which grew into one of the largest in Tulsa, known for its multiracial pews in a city and a faith. evangelical Christianity, which was largely segregated.

“I believe that most people on planet Earth will go to heaven because of Calvary, because of the unconditional love of God and the redemptive work of the cross, which has already been accomplished,” Bishop Pearson told The Tulsa World in 2002. adding that he counted Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists among the lovers. “I’m reevaluating everything,” he said.

The doctrine known as universal salvation and which Bishop Pearson called the “gospel of inclusion” is ancient in theology but is rejected by many Christian churches, including the conservative denomination that ordained him, the Church of God in Christ. the largest black Pentecostal group in the country.

In 2004, the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops was founded declared Bishop Pearson a heretic. It said that Christians who followed him were “jeopardizing the eternal destiny of their souls.” Evangelical leader Oral Roberts, who had been a mentor to Bishop Pearson, denounced him in a twelve-page letter. Bishop TD Jakes, one of the country’s most prominent evangelical pastors, told Charisma Magazine that Bishop Pearson’s theology was “wrong, false, misleading and an incorrect interpretation of the Bible.”

On Monday, inside a statement on social mediaBishop Jakes, the pastor of the 30,000-member Potter’s House Church in Dallas, made no mention of theological differences but wrote that Bishop Pearson had given him a platform for his preaching at the Azusa meeting when he was just starting out . “I will forever be grateful for his discernment during a time when he was so prominent and I was unknown,” he said.

Following the logic of universal salvation, Bishop Pearson stopped preaching that homosexuality was a sin. “We just love people,” he told his congregation. “And we are the most radically inclusive worship experience in the city of Tulsa.”

In 2007, he and other religious leaders lobbied Congress to provide protections against hate crimes against homosexuals. “The issue of not special but equal rights for God’s same-sex loving children is a moral imperative in every community in America,” he said from across the Capitol. (The measure passed by Congress died after a veto threat by President George W. Bush, but that was it signed into law in 2009 by President Barack Obama.)

Because of Bishop Pearson’s apostasy, his church’s attendance dropped from thousands to only hundreds, affiliated ministers quit, and he lost the church building to bankruptcy. Oral Roberts University, the evangelical institution in Tulsa, denied him use of the campus for his Azusa meetings, and he resigned from the university board. When Bishop Pearson, a Republican, lost the race for mayor of Tulsa in 2002, he blamed the controversy on his theology.

But he also found a new audience among some liberal Christians and in the national news media. He became a pastor in the United Church of Christ, one of the most liberal Christian denominations in America. His branding as a heretic was covered in detail in one episode from the public radio program “This American Life” in 2005.

That broadcast formed the basis for the Netflix biopic “Come Sunday,” starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as Bishop Pearson and Martin Sheen as Oral Roberts. Simon & Schuster offered Bishop Pearson a book deal, and he wrote “The Gospel of Inclusion” (2009), in which he declared, “We are all on our way to glory.” Another book, “God is not a Christian, nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu…,” followed two years later.

Carlton D’Metrius Pearson was born on March 19, 1953 in San Diego to Adam and Lillie Ruth (Johnson) Pearson. Both his father and grandfather were ministers. The Pentecostal church he grew up in forbade smoking and drinking, but he found great excitement in church: As Bishop Pearson told “This American Life,” he once “cast the devil out of a girlfriend” at a youth revival.

He attended Oral Roberts University, but left a degree to start his own ministry in 1977. His 1993 marriage to Gina Marie Gauthier ended in divorce.

He is survived by his mother; five siblings, Antonya Robinson, Renee Godbey, Gail Moore, Monica Pearson and Elector Pearson; a son, Prince Julian Pearson; and a daughter, Majeste Amour Pearson.

Mr. Bogle, Bishop Pearson’s agent, said he often asked him if he regretted the loss of prestige, income and worshipers that followed his turn away from Pentecostal Christian orthodoxy.

“I said, ‘You lost a lot of money, don’t you think you should have just kept your mouth shut?’” Mr. Bogle said. “He always said, ‘No, I don’t think I made a mistake.'”