At one time, Bishop Carlton Pearson was the pastor of the Higher Dimensions Evangelistic Center, later named it Higher Dimensions Family Church which was one of the largest churches in Tulsa, Oklahoma. During the 1990s, it grew to an average attendance of over 5,000. Due to his stated belief in universal reconciliation, Pearson rapidly began to lose his influence in ministry with the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops and was eventually declared a heretic by his peers in 2004. Carlton later became Interim Senior Pastor at Chicago’s Christ Universal Temple.
His annual Azusa conference saw attendance swell to 50,000 per event. The popular conference helped give numerous ministries an international platform and recognition including TD Jakes and Joyce Meyers.
He took to Facebook to write this note to his followers:
I am not gay, but wouldn’t apologize nor be ashamed if I were. I love my wife dearly and have been married to her for over 20 years. We have scores of married and single gay friends we love and respect. You don’t have to be gay to love gay people and even hang out some with them. You don’t have to be a divorcee to love, support and respect them. Neither do you have to be Muslim or Jewish to have friends from those religious disciplines. As Inclusionists, we teach that we don’t have to go along to get along and that we can mind many of the same things without necessarily having the same mind about everything. Inclusionists believe Peace is possible, both individually and globally.
Jesus was accused of eating with “sinners” (Mark 2:15) and protecting prostitutes and adulteresses from the stones of the religious right of his day, called Pharisees. The word Pharisee translates “separatist” or “separated” in both Hebrew and Greek. I am an Inclusionist and proudly so.
Many of my self-righteous detractors accuse me of being gay because I am so outspokenly supportive of gays. Next to the Jewish community, the same gender loving (SGL) community were the first to reach out to me after hearing my Gospel of Inclusion. Do these same people, suspicious of my sexuality, also say I am atheist, a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Scientologist because I hang with, love and accept them all and others, including those hypocritical so- called Christians who hate themselves and everyone else?
I’m not preaching false doctrine, just exposing it while dealing with some 2000 years of entrenched and mostly erroneous indoctrination. I love Christ and so- called “Christian values” but those taught more by Christ than most Christians.
It both amazes and amuses me that so many Christians simply cannot believe that someone loves unconditionally in the way they like to proclaim Jesus taught and did. Most so-called “people of faith” actually have more fear than faith or more faith in their fears than in God. Or perhaps when I say God as it relates to fundamentalists, it is commensurate to fear of God or faith in their fear of his wrath, in effect is their worst fear. Their God, in order to keep them from sinning, something they presumably would prefer and habitually do, threatens to send them to an eternal customized torture chamber. I once feared that god and his hell too, but I no longer do and I don’t even believe in that manmade and presumably bible supported god or his hell. Even the heaven I believe in is not the one in the Christian bible. That one is too gaudy for my taste. I never liked the streets of gold thing. Reminds me too much of my old TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Stage). BTW, my dear 84 year old mother keeps one of the 3 TVs in her bedroom tuned to TBN 24/7 Lol! . I actually prefer sands and beaches to walls of Jasper and topaz as the book of Revelation describes and prescribes. And why would heaven need walls anyway? Moreover, as I close, most gays I know are much more like Christ than many of the Christians I know. And most of my same gender loving (SGL) friends, both male and female, seem to be better (not bitter) and more responsible and loving Christians than most common fundamentalists. Same is true of many of the non-Christian SGL people. I could say the same thing about several of my atheist, Jewish and Muslim friends as well. Again, this is not a criticism, but an observation and an important one that must not be ignored. Being in church or a church no more makes you Christlike than being in a garage makes you an automobile. What say ye?
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