Overheard recently: "I'm wondering what's the difference between church and the bar?"
In church you pray for the Spirit. In a bar you pay for the spirits? (Sorry, couldn't resist!)
Anyways...
Everybody knows your name…
When Jennifer and I lived in Springfield, MO, and worked at the Assemblies of God headquarters, our friendly pagan neighbors invited us to join them at a neighborhood bar for lunch. We were on our way back home from church where we had invited them, so we figured a little tit for tat was probably in order.
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
The editors of Leadership journal have posted another incisive commentary on the state of the Church today in their Out of Ur weblog. It’s about how we (in the Western church) have turned the gospel into a pimping enterprise. There’s nothing really new here, it’s the same complaint Bonhoeffer had about “cheap grace.” But the language is, well, provocative. From church planter Jonathan Yarboro:
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.…
