Thursday, October 9, 2008
Eight years ago, Bishop Carlton Pearson's Higher Dimensions Church had about 6,000 members. He served as a guest host on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, was a member of the Oral Roberts University board of trustees, and was among group of black religious leaders who advised President-elect George W. Bush after the 2000 election.
But Pearson then began preaching that everyone goes to heaven, a theology he calls "the gospel of inclusion." Not long after, evangelical leaders rejected Pearson, the membership in his church fell to a few hundred, and the church's property was lost in foreclosure. Its few remaining members have now been merged into a Unitarian congregation.
Pearson now believes that literally everyone goes to heaven. He believes that the blood of Christ pays for everyone's sins. Everyone's. There is no hell in the afterlife. He believes that hell is the suffering that people experience on earth.
Here he is being profiled on ABC News:
Here's Part 2.
And here's the print version of the same story.
Yes, I noticed Ted Haggard on there, and the irony isn't lost on me. I'm not sure about the timeline, but apparently this video was filmed a few years ago, but the church just officially folded this month.
What's interesting to me is that the media seems to be noticing that doctrine matters to Christians. (Shocking, but true.)
"I couldn't reconcile a God whose mercy endures forever, and this torture chamber that's customized for unbelievers," Pearson said.
And he often agonized over the fate of his non-Christian family members. According to his faith, they were doomed to hell.
"How can you really love a god who's torturing your grandmother? And that's what I went through for years."
The more he studied, the more Pearson saw the Bible not as the literal word of God but a book by men about God -- primitive men prone to mistranslations, political agendas and human emotions. And one night, as he watched Peter Jennings' report on the parade of suffering in Rwanda, he had a revelation.
"I remember thinking that these were probably Muslims because God wouldn't let that happen to Christians," he said. "Unbelieving Muslims, little starving babies and that they were going to die and go to hell."
"And that's when I said, 'God, how could you, how could you call yourself a loving God and a living God, and just let them suffer like that, then to suck them into hell?'" he continued. "And that's when I thought I heard an inner voice say, 'Is that what you think we're doing?' I said, 'That's what I've been taught. You're sucking them into hell.' And that voice said, 'Can't you see they're already there? That's hell. You created that.'"
Pearson believed that God was telling him hell is the creation of man on earth.
Another interesting thought - Pearson believes that God told him there is no hell. I wonder if this is an example of how a theology that practices and preaches that "God told me" can lead to doctrinal aberration?
From 2003-
TULSA, Okla. - Bishop Carlton Pearson, the nationally prominent evangelical preacher, has already stirred one controversy for preaching the doctrine of inclusion - that everyone is saved no matter what they do.
He’s about to light another fuse.
Pearson, founder and pastor of Tulsa’s Higher Dimensions Family Church, now says he believes “it is reasonable” that Satan himself will go to heaven. It’s possible, he says, that God could have made a mistake in condemning Satan to eternity in hell.
“Is God not big enough to change the devil?” Pearson said in an interview. “I can conceive of the devil bowing down and repenting to God, saying, ‘I competed with You, but I was wrong. I’m sorry.’ “
Asked if that “confession” would be enough for God to forgive Satan and allow him into heaven, Pearson replied, “He (the devil) came from heaven.”
This is not intended to be a "let's blast Carlton Pearson" post, and please don't let the comments become that. Rather I am interested in the wrongness of his thinking, and the subsequent response of other Christians.
Personally, I see him as a victim of a theology that teaches that "God speaks new revelation" and him allowing circumstances and personal human reason to trump the Word of God.
I would be curious to know why Pearson thinks the early church suffered such intense persecution.
Would he say that the early church just completely missed the point and suffered needlessly? Because surely a gospel of inclusion would not be offensive, rather, the early church folks would have been the life of the party.
Its as if when God spoke to Pearson, he said "Paul had it all wrong, let me tell you what's really going on"........yeah, THAT happenned.