Oklahoma megachurch founder Carlton Pearson boring at 70
The founder of a broken-down megachurch in Oklahoma who was as soon as branded a heretic and misplaced one viewers — but gained a brand contemporary one — after he rejected the foundation of hell and supported tickled rights has died, his agent said Monday.
Bishop Carlton Pearson died Sunday evening in hospice care in Tulsa as a result of cancer, said his agent, Will Bogle. Pearson was as soon as 70.
Early in his ministry he was as soon as even handed a rising important person on the Pentecostal preaching circuit and usually seemed on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, bringing him to a global viewers.
YOUNGEST KNOWN TULSA RACE MASSACRE SURVIVOR DEAD AT 102
From a ministry he started in 1977, Pearson in 1981 founded Elevated Dimensions Family Church in Tulsa — later is called New Dimensions Church, whose membership numbered about 6,000 by the flip of the century.
Membership plummeted to a pair of hundred by 2008 after Pearson began instructing what he called “the gospel of inclusion,” a create of universalism, which doesn’t witness hell.
In 2004, the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops Congress declared Pearson’s instructing about hell to be heretical. The discovering came a year after Pearson defended his views at a doctrinal forum.
“Because of our anxiety for the many of us who can even be influenced to adopt this heresy and in so doing place in risk the eternal destiny of their souls, we’re compelled to declare Bishop Carlton Pearson a heretic,” wrote Bishop Clifford Leon Frazier, chairman of the joint college’s doctrinal commission, in accordance to Faith News Provider.
Pearson’s beliefs additionally ended in his resignation from the board of regents of his alma mater, Oral Roberts College in Tulsa, and a prick up with the university’s founder and his mentor — evangelist Oral Roberts.
Bogle said Pearson suggested him that he did not think he had made a mistake with his theological switch.
“Other folks had been forced to inquire of of what they had been asserting” about salvation, Bogle said. “And as polarizing as Bishop Pearson has been his whole life … he was as soon as a terribly staunch man, he didn’t employ himself seriously, he cared about folks.”
In 2007, Pearson helped lead hundreds of clergy contributors from all over the nation in urging Congress to pass landmark detest crime and job discrimination measures for tickled folks.
Pearson was as soon as shunned by other evangelical leaders, branded a heretic and later grew to develop into a United Church of Christ minister. Elevated Dimensions come what could misplaced its building to foreclosure and Pearson preached his closing sermon there in September 2008 as the church was as soon as absorbed into All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa.
He is now listed as an affiliate minister with All Souls.
“We hope, upon hearing this news, that it is most likely you’ll presumably presumably employ some time on the present time to ponder on how Bishop Pearson has touched your life. Take into story the highest intention it is most likely you’ll presumably presumably pass on the take care of and knowledge he has imparted to you,” the church said in an announcement.
The Rev. Robert Turner, who pastored at Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church in Tulsa till 2021 said he was as soon as “dismayed” to be taught of the death of a person he even handed a mentor.
“His phrases had been so poignant and prophetic,” said Turner, who said he met Pearson when he arrived in Tulsa in 2017 and now pastors on the Empowerment Temple AME in Baltimore.
After the give intention of his broken-down ministry, his yarn was as soon as chronicled in a prolonged episode of public radio’s “This American Life,” which grew to develop into the premise for the 2018 Netflix movie, “Attain Sunday,” starring Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Pearson ran unsuccessfully for Tulsa mayor in 2002, a defeat he blamed on public response to his teachings.
He most recently was as soon as a life coach with New Dimensions with a weekly are living broadcast on Fb and YouTube.
Pearson, in August, posted a social media video from what regarded as if it’d be a sanatorium room and he said he had been combating cancer for 20 years.
In a September video he said was as soon as diagnosed with prostate cancer two decades in the past, but was as soon as diagnosed with bladder cancer over the summer season.
“I am facing death … I’m not afraid of death, I’m not even afraid of demise,” Pearson said.
“I don’t anxiety God and if I was as soon as going to anxiety any one, I’d anxiety a pair of of his so-called folks because they are able to also additionally be some mean sons of biscuit eaters, as my brother frail to speak,” Pearson said.
FORMER FIRST LADY ROSALYNN CARTER DEAD AT 96
In 1995, Pearson called Nation of Islam chief Louis Farrakhan a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” for preaching the reverse of Martin Luther King Jr. and criticized the upcoming “Million Man March” to Washington, D.C., that Farrakhan organized to promote African American solidarity and family values.
Pearson in 2000 was as soon as among a neighborhood of 30 clergy who told then President-elect George W. Bush on faith-based fully social capabilities.
Pearson additionally authored books, including “The Gospel of Inclusion: Reaching Beyond Non secular Fundamentalism to the Suited Adore of God” and was as soon as in the documentary film American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel.
Pearson is survived by his mother, a son, a daughter and his broken-down wife, Bogle said.
—
On-line:
Fox News agency contributed to this file, revealed by ORDO News editors.
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Same old Terms And Stipulations.
To salvage rid of any confusion arising from assorted time zones and sunlight hours saving changes, all cases displayed on our platforms are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
