Carlton Pearson, influential Oklahoma megachurch founder who rejected hell, dies at age 70

The founder of a former megachurch in Oklahoma known for rejecting the idea of hell and supporting gay rights has died. Bishop Carlton Pearson died Sunday in hospice care in Tulsa due to cancer according to his agent. Pearson was 70. Pearson founded Higher Dimensions Family Church in Tulsa and by 2000 its membership reached 6,000. Membership fell to a few hundred by 2008 after Pearson began teaching what he called “the gospel of inclusion,” a form of universalism, which does not recognize hell. The church, renamed New Dimensions was folded into another church as Pearson became a United Church of Christ minister.