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CARLTON PEARSON’S GOSPEL OF INCLUSION
This article first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 30, number 4 (2007) as a companion to the feature
article The Dark Side of Eternity: Hell as Eternal Conscious Punishment by Robert A. Peterson. For further information or
to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org
Carlton Pearson grew up in San Diego, California, as a member of the conservative Church of God in
Christ, the world’s largest Black Pentecostal denomination.1 He was eventually ordained in the Church of
God in Christ. He also attended Oral Roberts University, but failed to graduate.2
In 1981 Pearson founded Higher Dimensions Evangelistic Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with an initial
membership of 75 members.3 The Center quickly grew to more than 5,000. In 1988 he started the popular
Azusa Conferences at Oral Roberts University, attracting 20,000 or more participants every year,4 and for
many years he was a regular on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. In 1995 he was made a bishop by the
International Communion of Charismatic Churches.5
Pearson’s slide into heresy began in childhood when he formed the faulty view that God is out to get us if
we aren’t good. “So we had all that mentality, be good, be godly, be right, be holy….Or else you go to
hell.”6 It particularly bothered him that his grandparents, also preachers, became involved in drinking
and adultery before their deaths. In his view at the time, they were probably in hell. Pearson says, “I was
resentful of God. See, if you fear God the way we’re taught to fear him, you’ll serve him, you’ll believe in
him, you’ll worship him, but you probably will never really love him.”7
Despite his reservations, for many years Pearson taught the orthodox view of salvation. The turning point
in his preaching came in the mid‐1990s whi