Current:Home > InvestCarlton Pearson, founder of Oklahoma megachurch who supported gay rights, dies at age 70 -ForexStream
Carlton Pearson, founder of Oklahoma megachurch who supported gay rights, dies at age 70
Algosensey Quantitative Think Tank Center View
Date:2025-04-08 10:22:05
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The founder of a former megachurch in Oklahoma who fell from favor and was branded a heretic after he embraced the idea that there is no hell and supported gay rights has died, his agent said Monday.
Bishop Carlton Pearson died Sunday night in hospice care in Tulsa due to cancer, said his agent, Will Bogle. Pearson was 70.
Early in his ministry he was considered a rising star on the Pentecostal preaching circuit and frequently appeared on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, bringing him to an international audience.
From a ministry he started in 1977, Pearson in 1981 founded Higher Dimensions Family Church in Tulsa — later known as New Dimensions Church, whose membership numbered about 6,000 by the turn of the century.
Membership plummeted to a few hundred by 2008 after Pearson began teaching what he called “the gospel of inclusion,” a form of universalism, which does not recognize hell.
Bogle said Pearson told him that he did not believe he had made a mistake with his theological change.
“People were forced to question what they were saying” about salvation, Bogle said. “And as polarizing as Bishop Person has been his whole life ... he was a really good guy, he didn’t take himself seriously, he cared about people.”
In 2007, Pearson helped lead hundreds of clergy members from across the nation in urging Congress to pass landmark hate crime and job discrimination measures for gay people.
Pearson was shunned by other evangelical leaders, branded a heretic and later became a United Church of Christ minister. Higher Dimensions ultimately lost its building to foreclosure and Pearson preached his final sermon there in September 2008as the church was absorbed into All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa.
He is now listed as an affiliate minister with All Souls.
After the collapse of his old ministry, his story was chronicled in a lengthy episode of public radio’s “This American Life,” which became the basis for the 2018 Netflix movie, “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 split with the university’s founder and his mentor — evangelist Oral Roberts.
Pearson ran unsuccessfully for Tulsa mayor in 2002, a defeat he blamed on public reaction to his teachings.
He most recently was a life coach with New Dimensions with a weekly live broadcast on Facebook and YouTube.
Pearson, in August, posted a social media video from what appeared to be a hospital room and he said he had been fighting cancer for 20 years.
In a September video he said was diagnosed with prostate cancer two decades ago, but was diagnosed with bladder cancer over the summer.
“I am 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 was going to fear anybody, I’d fear some of his so-called people because they can be some mean sons of biscuit eaters, as 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” to Washington, D.C., that Farrakhan organized to promote African American unity and family values.
Pearson in 2000 was among a group of 30 clergy who advised then President-elect George W. Bush on faith-based social programs.
Pearson also authored books, including “The Gospel of Inclusion: Reaching Beyond Religious Fundamentalism to the True Love of God” and was in the documentary film American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel.
Pearson is survived by his mother, a son, a daughter and his former wife, Bogle said.
veryGood! (88511)
Related
- Why Sean "Diddy" Combs Is Being Given a Laptop in Jail Amid Witness Intimidation Fears
- Stassi Schroeder Shares 3-Year-Old Daughter's Heartbreaking Reaction to Her Self-Harm Scars
- Linkin Park Reunites With New Members 7 Years After Chester Bennington’s Death
- Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Green Peas
- Why members of two of EPA's influential science advisory committees were let go
- Apple juice sold at Walmart, Aldi, Walgreens, BJ's, more recalled over arsenic levels
- A man went missing in a Washington national park on July 31. He was just found alive.
- Proof Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Are Closer Than Ever After Kansas City Chiefs Win
- McConnell absent from Senate on Thursday as he recovers from fall in Capitol
- Ashton Kutcher Shares How Toxic Masculinity Impacts Parenting of His and Mila Kunis’ Kids
Ranking
- Costco membership growth 'robust,' even amid fee increase: What to know about earnings release
- Selena Gomez is now billionaire with $1.3 billion net worth from Rare Beauty success
- A Maryland high school fight involving a weapon was ‘isolated incident,’ police say
- Walz says Gaza demonstrators are protesting for ‘all the right reasons’ while condemning Hamas
- Jamie Foxx gets stitches after a glass is thrown at him during dinner in Beverly Hills
- Police say the gunman killed in Munich had fired at the Israeli Consulate
- Apple juice sold at Walmart, Aldi, Walgreens, BJ's, more recalled over arsenic levels
- Half of Southern California home on sale for 'half a million' after being hit by pine tree
Recommendation
In ‘Nickel Boys,’ striving for a new way to see
News organizations seek unsealing of plea deal with 9/11 defendants
Bull that escaped from Illinois farm lassoed after hours on the run
Autopsy performed on rapper Rich Homie Quan, but cause not yet revealed
Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Triathlon
Nevada inmate who died was pepper sprayed and held face down, autopsy shows
Kourtney Kardashian Shares Sweet Family Photos of Sons Rocky and Reign
Jannik Sinner reaches the US Open men’s final by beating Jack Draper after both need medical help