Pastor Denounced for His Salvation Teaching

The Rev. Carlton Pearson, Grammy-nominated singer and high-profile pastor of Higher Dimensions Family Church in Tulsa, Okla., is under fire from fellow evangelicals for teaching that most everyone will be saved, even those who do not accept Jesus Christ.

Several assistant pastors have left his church, attendance has dropped, and Pearson said the controversy likely cost him a bid for mayor earlier this year. His theology has been denounced by several evangelical broadcasters.

Pearson’s alma mater, Oral Roberts University, forced the pastor off its board and barred him from using its buildings or sending buses so students can attend his services.

Conventional evangelical belief says Christ’s death and resurrection make salvation available to all people, but each person must accept that salvation. But Pearson says that “all will be saved, with the exception of a few.”

Hell, he says, is for those few who “deny in their hearts that there is a creator, who have a disrespect for the deity.”