Opposing communities plan separate memorial services for Carlton Pearson

[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nn(RNS) — In a video released shortly before he died, Bishop Carlton Pearson described the kind of memorial service he hoped for. It would be “slammin,” he said, with gospel musicians and a eulogy from his longtime friend Bishop Yvette Flunder.“I want to see the excellence of what we are, what we do under the anointing with class,” he said in the YouTube video recorded from his hospice room and released by Larry Reid Live. “I want to show diversity.”
In the days since Pearson died on Nov. 19 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the how and where and with whom to celebrate the life of the controversial preacher and musician has become a point of contention among the many communities, some at odds with each other, who are grieving his death from cancer at age 70.
There are now three churches planning services in Tulsa and two in Atlanta. Flunder will not appear at any of the services in Tulsa. At the root of the separate services is also what caused the rifts in Pearson’s own life: a rejection of hell and an embrace of an inclusive gospel that saw legitimacy in a range of religions and identities.
“(T)he whole world is saved, but they just don’t know it,” Pearson famously said after his theological shift in his 2006 book, …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]