Carlton Pearson, founder of Oklahoma megachurch who supported gay rights, dies at age 70
OKLAHOMA CITY — The founder of a former megachurch in Oklahoma who fell from grace and was branded a heretic after embracing the idea that there is no hell and supporting gay rights has died, his agent said Monday.
Bishop Carlton Pearson died Sunday evening at a hospice in Tulsa due to cancer, his agent Will Bogle said. Pearson turned 70.
Early in his ministry, he was considered a rising star on the Pentecostal preaching circuit and appeared regularly on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, reaching an international audience.
From a ministry he began in 1977, Pearson founded the Higher Dimensions Family Church in Tulsa in 1981 – later known as the New Dimensions Church, whose membership numbered about 6,000 at the turn of the century.
Membership dropped to a few hundred in 2008 after Pearson began teaching what he called “the gospel of inclusion,” a form of universalism that does not recognize hell.
Bogle said Pearson told him he did not believe he had made a mistake with his theological change.
“People were forced to question what they were saying” about redemption, Bogle said. “And as polarizing as Bishop Person was throughout his life… he was a very good guy, he didn’t take himself seriously, he cared about people.”
In 2007, Pearson helped hundreds of clergy from across the country push Congress to pass landmark measures against hate crimes and anti-gay employment discrimination.
Pearson was shunned by other evangelical leaders, branded a heretic, and later became a minister of the United Church of Christ. Higher Dimensions eventually lost its building to foreclosure and Pearson preached his last sermon there in September 2008 when the church was absorbed into All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa.
He is now listed as an affiliate minister of All Souls.
After the collapse of his old ministry, his story was chronicled in a feature-length episode of “This American Life” on public radio, which became the basis for the 2018 Netflix film “Come Sunday,” starring Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Pearson’s beliefs also led to his resignation from the board of regents of his alma mater, Oral Roberts University, and a rift with the university’s founder and his mentor: evangelist Oral Roberts.
Pearson ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Tulsa in 2002, a defeat he blamed on the public response to his teachings.
Most recently he was a life coach at New Dimensions with a weekly live broadcast on Facebook and YouTube.
Pearson posted a video on social media in August from what appeared to be a hospital room, saying he had been battling cancer for 20 years.
In a September video, he said he was diagnosed with prostate cancer 20 years ago, but was diagnosed with bladder cancer over the summer.
“I’m facing death…I’m not afraid of death, I’m not even afraid of dying,” Pearson said.
“I don’t fear God and if I feared anyone I would fear some of his so-called people because sometimes they can be mean sons of cookie eaters like my brother used to say,” Pearson said.
In 1995, Pearson called Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” for preaching the opposite of Martin Luther King Jr. and criticized the upcoming “Million Man March” on Washington, D.C., which Farrakhan organized to promote African-American unity. and family values.
Pearson was among a group of 30 clergy in 2000 who advised then-President-elect George W. Bush on faith-based social programs.
Pearson also wrote books, including “The Gospel of Inclusion: Reaching Beyond Religious Fundamentalism to the True Love of God” and starred in the documentary American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel.
Pearson is survived by his mother, a son, a daughter and his ex-wife, Bogle said.