The Bishop's splintered influence was underscored this week as different factions paid tribute to Pearson at various memorial services that have raised questions and objections about how best to remember him.
Before his peers would label him a heretic, the late Bishop Carlton D. Pearson was once one of the best known preachers in the nation. Pearson underwent a cataclysmic theological shift that altered the course of his life – and his legacy among the canon of American Christian leaders. Pearson, 70, died Nov. 19 after a brief battle with cancer.