SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
Who is a heretic, and who is holy? The answer, of course, depends on who you ask. Bishop Carlton Pearson was one of the country’s most prominent Black televangelists in the 1980s, but then he was deemed a heretic after he embraced a concept called universal salvation. Here’s Pearson on CNN in 2010.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CARLTON PEARSON: My gay friends – and I have several – over the years, I got tired of sending them to hell. It messed with my theology and my heart. And so I started preaching the gospel of inclusion, saying that Hindus, Muslims, Jews, everybody has access to the grace of the God we preach.
MCCAMMON: Pearson was saying he no longer believed in hell, that almost everyone would go to heaven, and that stance cost Bishop Pearson many members of his church in Tulsa, Okla., and the support of many fellow…
