Week 3, The Rise and Fall of Carlton Pearson, Episode 304, Prologue and Act One

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/304/heretics

Listen to the Prologue and Act One, 30 min

When faith and spirituality is based on fear and the fantastic, devotees often face a crisis at some point in their life. Fear can be a great motivator in the short period and many leaders learn how to use it to manipulate people, especially when it is centered around the reality of evil. But, in the end, fear is a failed way to motivate people spiritually; especially, it become increasingly poor at drawing people into a life-giving relationship with Jesus. This episode is about an American preacher named Carlton Pearson who grew up in this kind of environment and ultimately gave up on it and key elements of the Christian message in response. This episode raises important questions about how to be a church that does not manipulate people for short term “religious success” but instead sustains people in a life-long walk with God that can weather doubts and challenges.  

1.     Have you ever experienced spiritual manipulation, either in the Christian church, or outside of it?

2.     Have you ever reached a crisis of faith like Carlton Pearson? How did you work through it?

3.     This episode pointed out one of the facts of American Christianity, which is that most often races worship separately. Sundays are the most segregated day of the week in America. What do you think about that? Why is that the case? Often it is Pentecostal churches that are the exception to this rule. Have you seen churches bridge the divide?

4.     For a while, Carlton Pearson became prominent in the Christian world, as well as in some political circles. What role do you see Christian “celebrities” playing in the American church today? When is this helpful, when it is problematic?

5.     Carlton experienced great success in his ministry originally. How did he respond to that “success”?

6.     Carlton experienced a crisis of faith when faced with images from the crisis in Rwanda. What misunderstandings did he seem to have about God’s mission? How do you react to the experience he had in prayer with God as he watched the images from Rwanda?

7.     Carlton had been taught that God was the inventor of hell. How do you respond to that idea?

8.     If Carlton had a more balanced Christian faith and experience how might he have responded to his faith crisis, especially if his theology had been centered first on the love and grace of Jesus, rather than the fear of the devil and hell?

9.     Carlton fell into what is traditionally called “universalism” the idea that either everyone is saved and has always been, or that following the cross, everyone is now just, saved, regardless of their response, even their possible rejection of the Gospel and of God. How do Christians remain centered in the grace and love of Jesus without falling into the error of universalism?

10.  Carlton came to not only doubt the crisis of sin and separation from God, but also came to doubt the authority of scripture based on the process the early church went through to decide on the books of the New Testament. How would you respond to his doubts?

11.  How do these passages inform the conversation: 

1 Timothy 4:10 New International Version (NIV)

That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.

1 John 2:1-2 New International Version (NIV)

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. ² He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

12.  Many people might try to develop a theology or a doctrine based on one or just a few Bible passages. The two passages above, on their own, could be taken to “prove” universalism. But they are easily explainable when taken in light of the rest of New Testament teaching – letting scripture interpret and balance itself.   How do you reconcile or explain these two passages in light of the rest of scripture? 

If you are interested in the rest of this story and what happened to Carlton next, listen to the second half of this episode, Act Two, found at: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/304/heretics