her name is yvette flunder and she was originally ordained in the same church as carlton pearson. but her church today bears little similarity to anything carlton had ever known. we have people who are in recovery from drugs and not recovering well in every situation. people who are homeless, imminently homeless. living with hiv. all worshiping together in the same place. even bishop flunder would be unwelcome in many churches. she s a lesbian or as she puts it, a same-gender loving person. the whole room was almost all gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual people. i mean, i had never been in a room full almost 99% gay people. praising god and singing and dancing. carlton explained to them his new ideas about hell. his notion that heaven was waiting for everybody, even then. perhaps especially them. and when he was done, bishop
bp s website says the oil containment system stopped working due to a blocked frame arrester. ramping up security for all world cup teams after a fan broke into england s locker rooms and confronted team members and captain david beckham. they say it is unacceptable and they will step up security. now we take you back to the program. carlton pearson, the pentecostal bishop, would become a mega-preacher, a star, who had been invited to the center of influence, had staked it all, everything, on a change of heart. he d stopped believing in hell. and so he stood up in that big church of his, in front of his thousands of worshipers, and let it all out. and for the first time in all of my life as being a christian, i really, not only love god, i started liking god. he called it the gospel of
i think religion itself is all about control, from the vatican to the pulpits, the high places in the church. it is a matter of authoritative control. a form of religious tyranny. now i consider myself a freedom fighter. trying to get people free from the paranoia and the penalty of following these people who say it s our way or the highway. and his own religious leaders, his fellow churchmen were, no surprise, dismayed. listen, i love him. he s not qualified to preach in my church. not by the book. not by the book. he s not qualified. they re afraid i m going to lead people to hell. they re afraid that i m going to lead people away from the tradition. they re afraid. everything s fear. that s exactly what bill timms says. you re leading people to hell. yeah. but you are a demon possessed. yes, yes, uh-huh.
it was so much for us to buy this plastic this really ugly if you compare it to this. we glued it on the windows. see what this is? we never thought we would ever get close to it but we we mimicked it. it was like a status symbol. if somebody had ugly stuff up on their window, that s so precious to me. the mentality. we were so proud of that. and something else. they were very serious about an issue some mainstream denominations often soft-pedal or avoid altogether the question of hell. but in carlton s church it was central. it was the sermon every sunday. the awful fate awaiting unbelievers. we were told not laugh. stop joking. we heard all of that stuff. god going to get you. the devil going to get you. i thought both of them were after me. there was a quiet riot going on
inclusion. because it included everybody, not just christians or evangelicals or fundamentalists. there would be conflicts of course, but surely, he, of all people, could convince his congregation and maybe the evangelical community to welcome his new idea that everyone is saved. that hell is a place after death does not exist. so is it really authentically biblical to believe in the hell we ve been taught? but you don t always get what you wish for. my wife and i heard it on television. just outside tulsa, carlton s home turf, is a fiery old-time pastor named bill timms. timms had once been a mentor and friend to carlton. and now? well, this was a shock. he says they re all saved. and if they re all saved, what s he preaching for? that ought to be the end of it. if jesus made the way for everybody and they re all safe and happy, what s he preaching for?