The Carlton Pearson curiosity continues.

Over the last few weeks I've noticed the amount of search engine queries landing on this site have shot heavenward for Carlton Pearson. The searchers have typed:

• carlton pearson goes bad
• carlton pearson has cancer
• carlton pearson has lost his mind
• is carlton pearson gay?
• did carlton pearson get a divorce?

As far as I can tell, Carlton Pearson's "badness" quotient has gotten no worse than when I wrote my semi-definitive exploration of his doctrine of inclusion back in early 2006: "Carlton D. Pearson: The Charismatic Bishop of Heresy." I've read that

Update (07/14/2007): "Carlton Pearson: The closest to God you’ll probably ever get"

On Heresy

What is heresy? The textbook definition is simply:

• An opinion or a doctrine at variance with established religious beliefs … or
• A controversial or unorthodox opinion or doctrine.

And right alongside that definition — at least on this weblog, anyhow — you can find a picture of Bishop Carlton D. Pearson who wants to "rewrite the theology of the charismatic world" by preaching a "Gospel of Inclusion" asserting that Christ's death conclusively reconciled all mankind to God — whether we realize it or not — and that the only separation between man and God's grace is subjective, illusionary, and exists only in unenlightened minds (Carlton Pearson, "Jesus Savior of the World/Gospel of Inclusion — Position Paper," Higher Dimension website, viewed March 5, 2006).

More on that later, but first.…

Sorry it took so long to get these notes and ideas posted from last week’s class—it’s been a very busy week at work, and I haven’t had the time at home to get as much done as I’d hoped. So, unfortunately, this is a bit raw. But, fortunately, I have the audio done, and I have a couple other articles on this topic I can add in subsequent posts as well.

Without futher ado, here’s the audio file, it’s about an hour and twenty minutes long, and it includes some after-class discussion for a few die-hards who hung around to grill the unfortunate teacher. The audio is kinda poor, but it comes with the use-what-you-got technology category. If you can’t listen via the player below, here’s a link to the file.

[audio:http://tatumweb.com/blog/wp-content/mp3/bli-hh-03-2005-09-28-2.mp3]

The main topic today was whether or not Christ spent any time in Hell. I argue against that proposition, even

I'll be teaching a class this next month. I'm deep in the middle of research for it now.

Believe or Not?
Do you believe everything you read...or not? When it comes to the claims of the Bible you have to ask yourself if you believe it...or not? Can you believe what the Bible says about the creation of the universe, heaven, hell and angels? This four part series seeks the answers to these difficult questions.

• Creation...Myth or Fact?
• How Reliable is the Bible?
• Is There Really a Heaven or Hell?
• Do Angels Exist?

I'm working on the "Heaven or Hell" topic. To my surprise, there's a lot more debate going on about Hell than I ever suspected.

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[tags]BlogRodent, Heaven, Hell, belief, religion, christianity, death, afterlife, paradise, gehenna, eternity[/tags]