Dear Ones,

Have you ever heard of Carlton Pearson? His story touches our church. A decade ago, Mr. Pearson was atop the evangelical heap.  A pioneer among black televangelists – and a onetime protégé of Oral Roberts, he led a fundamentalist, Pentecostal congregation in Tulsa, which had a multiracial membership of 5,000 – and weekly offerings of $50,000.

But things began to change in the late 1990s. Mr. Pearson, who was ordained in the ultra conservative Church of God In Christ, started preaching a doctrine he calls “inclusion.”  He says, “Hell has been a crucial fixture for Bible-believing Christians for millennia and only believing Christians were going to get there.”  But Mr. Pearson realized that was wrong and began teaching something else. He says, “There is no hell.  Everybody gets into heaven.  My ministry is inclusive, not exclusive.  I’m no longer preaching and living under that fear-based gospel.”

When his teaching turned to this inclusive message, insisting that salvation is unconditional, granted by the grace of God to every human being, the massive congregations melted away. Within a few months, the 6,000 who had crowded the pews on a Sunday shrunk to a cold and lonely few hundred.  Of course, collections dried up, too.  Oral Roberts, The National Association of Evangelicals, T.D. Jakes and all of his former evangelical colleagues condemned him.  He was officially declared to be a heretic.  Carlton Pearson was simply “disappeared.”  He had no church, no money and no home for his ministry.

It cost him his personal fortunes and his professional success, but Carlton Pearson would only preach a loving God, an inclusive God, one who blesses everyone, in every race, in every religion and every way of being human.  And he has a new home for his ministry.  Carlton Pearson is now a member of the United Church of Christ.  His message of inclusion was welcomed in our church.  He has a new congregation, still in Tulsa, that is growing by leaps and bounds.  He says Christianity has “deteriorated into a cult following that Jesus is protecting us from a ‘good God’ who has a ‘bad god’ in the devil … and he’s making a list, checking it twice.” Pearson says that’s not right, that “Our responsibility is not to transform people, but to inform people of God’s attitude which is good.”

I’m proud to be a minister in the United Church of Christ.  Our theological home nourishes people from a wide spectrum.  I thought you might like to know it includes Carlton Pearson.

Blessings,

Joan