Carlton Pearson - "To Hell With Hell" at All Souls Church

[Applause] come Sunday as the movie come monday is the movement what you want wants you because what you want is you that's where Monday comes in Who am I on Monday after Sunday let's discover that let's recover that let's reclaim that together that's where I am the movie is fantastic my past 65 years are wonderful but now I'm so excited about what's gonna happen exit I think you are too you want to know what's next movie for me what's next for you and those you love you might be the leader in fact you really are you can be come and sign up for come Monday org to become a part of this amazing movement that's global and we're hearing from people all over the country as well as all over the planet Pakistan India way down in South Africa people want to go to the next level this is next level living this is next level thinking this is next level be see you there the next great move of the Holy Spirit would be initiated by black people and that he was going to have a leading part [Music] we welcome every one of you name by name person by person individual by individual we're so glad to have you we don't just welcome you we really want you here regardless of what you think or how you are what your opinions are we love the mix we love a mystery we love to flap for you but we don't write no I'm kidding we just embrace it just gets better and better and gooder and gooder all the time I'm gonna talk today about one of the most incendiary intimidating and frightening concepts in the in the Christian or religious construct nothing has worried me more in my faith walk than the possibility that we're failing as Christians and losing so many people to hell that has been the thing that has not at me all my life until I stopped believing in it and that that's what the gospel of inclusion was at first I actually believed in hell I just didn't believe anybody would be in it because of the finished work of the cross that was my Christian perspective and of course that didn't go over well so I went through some hail I believe everybody goes through hell but that nobody ultimately goes to hell the thought is weird the late mark twain said faith is believing in something you you know eight so which means you don't know it so faith is for people who doubt not enough because I have it too faith is for when you don't know when you know you don't need to believe you don't need to be convinced of anything so Albert Einstein said unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth all religions are caught up in these different belief systems and and the authority of the authoritarians of that particular discipline insists you believe you go to seminary to be inseminated comes from SEMA that's where it comes from seeding into you whatever the dog or doctrine of the particular denomination or Church who founded the seminary and want you to go there for the insemination all of us whether you went formally to seminary or not were inseminated usually by our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and the culture in which we were reared and practice doesn't just make perfect as my friend miles says practice often makes permanent there are permanent beliefs in you or ideologies in you psychologically that have been there all your life like if I say God what flashes in your mind most of us who are honest would see an Einstein looking character with a long white beard a row of a scepter sandals maybe some palm leaves a angels Fanning eating some grapes ism I've heard all the stories about Jesus with dreadlocks and you know Jesus with an afro and Jesus looking like me but if you say jeez it's the first one I see is the one that used to hang in our house white face Rouge on the lips hair blown out and curled blue eyes and that Gibson I thought they kill that one and we made another but you grow up with these images in your mind and that God is usually making a list checking it twice gonna find out who's naughty or nice he's checking with Peter how many books you got in there with all them nail we got just so many but everybody's naming in here but the ones that are are the spelling is crooked you know with demands of standing in line waiting for Peter to find your name in an omniscient God's book who should know everything anyway but they they gotta put your name in there what's your name let me see what Richard Johnson you got a middle name there's a whole bunch of richard junk richard james johnson well that's a whole but what's your mama who may need seen you hasn't shown offend everybody else standing in line lord i hope to god mind right and we sort of believe that concept all our life and that Peter will see if our name is written there and if it isn't go to hell to hell with you to hell with you to hell with you so those thoughts in a good portion of America is it interesting that Karl Marx then repeated by Vladimir Lenin and finally evidently Vladimir Putin bought the statement religion is the opiate of the people religion is a narcotic that allows you to sleep and make sure out of touch with reality he looked to America to find mr. breath mr. Putin did what group he could use he what group was very religious and were so into the drug that he could seduce them talk to me somebody and he that that's what the news is telling us that he used the media and used social media to find a group haven't happened to have been evangelicals the ones which both had a good news that death but he got him millions of them and that those are people who believe like I have been taught to believe to believe in Hell Jesus said upon this rock I'll build my church and the gates of Hell when he he used the word ecclesia he didn't but though the Greek Septuagint translated his Aramaic statement for the word ekklesia rather than curios kurios means congregation or gathering or assembly but but that Casilla means they called out Lynette meaning out of places to call that he I will build my church my echo see are the called ones on a rock of authority in Christology the logic of one sent and to me that doesn't just mean him being sent but all of us being sent to this plane or planet to experience our divinity and express it what if creation wanted to experience its creation and here we are as humans struggling and imagining that we are divine that we are like God in that we create stuff like this and sound systems in lights and electricity and plumbing and technology that will have stunned you robots I don't even know if some of you might be real y'all y'all check folks today some of y'all move like robots so let's let's check each other what if I'm robotic what if what if they're we talk about smart phones and smart homes and smart TVs and I told somebody if we'd make some dumb things we could make millions cuz they may call them smart phones for people dumb like me don't don't don't know how to operate them I gotta give it to my children or call my kids and say how do I do this how do I do I have it they have it but these this generation seems to be connected with the iCloud they came here with these little science these little computers in their hands and they just can can do it I was good at a tricycle and I'm still trying monster cycle in the cycle and I'm 65 years old well jesus said upon that's right I'll build my church gates of Hades shall not prevail Jesus actually never used the literal angler word hell he used the word which would be Aramaic or Hebrew Gehenna meaning gully or Valley or Gorge of Hinnom the sons of Hinnom it had been there as I've said earlier at least 500 years when he spoke to the people in the first century because Jeremiah makes reference to it and there's a reference earlier in the book of Chronicles but Jesus makes the reference to the town dump in the southeast side of the Old City of Jerusalem I've been there's at least 12 times it doesn't exist anymore it's just a park benches and and palm trees and it's a beautiful casual area where people come many don't know that that was the town dump where carcasses of animals and and strangers and and because sometimes there in the first century there as many as million or two million people living in the surrounding year but everybody brought their junk and their their garbage to that place Dante is the one who made eternal punishment exotic and real and as well as Christian back in the 12th century the Catholic Church bought into that the Roman Catholic Church fully embraced Dante's work because it it put enough fear in the hearts of people that they filled up the cathedrals you kept the coffers of money full religion still does that based more on fear than on faith I often asked my precious fundamentalist friends and evangelical friends do we need Jesus to protect us from God you could say gods hell but I've got sponsored hell if God invented hell if God had a man what can I do to really get these crazy people who don't believe I love them what can I do if they don't believe I love them and that my mercy endures forever I got to come up with something if they don't accept my son whom I'm gonna send down there and he's gonna die for them and that's something this God required a blood transaction a vicious bloody ex-fix iation on a cross how he'll give up his breath and his blood and he will actually suffocate almost nude after having been beaten with a cat of nine tails that in the bottom end of each of those strips of leather there would be some sharps shell or rockets or with it hits it tears the flesh put a crown of thorns the some of those thorns and I've seen them ago as at least an inch into the skull make a spectacle of it then I'll forgive kill him hard and then I'll forgive those who believe in my love so viciously ordained they gotta love me if you don't love me and believe in me I will kill you and torture you that's the only choice you have love me worship me serve me you creep and if you don't to hell with you now we would never say it that way but I happen to see it that way because I had to reach lost people not actually feeling found myself I felt saved but not safe because that God is so temperamental and I never know what I'm gonna tick him off throws these tantrums and volcanoes and out and hurricanes and tornadoes and and cancer and and AIDS and he just he destroys those who don't love him he or like him here and then he them infinitely vengeance is mine saith the Lord see the belief in both and authentically and genuinely believe in these things authentically genuinely cosponsors such a pathetic and pitiful assumption on reality when you believe in a God who would torture you or somebody you love most of you if you think you're going to heaven you want your family to go with you because you're already down here living in hell with him you want your family to go with you to heaven often one of our Noah's sons and their wives what the wives have said to Noah son - Noah son to him they were married my mom and dad are outside this Ark and your mom and dad are here can you get your dad to just crack that door quickly I have a pregnant sister I have a brother just got married I have an aging grandmother or great-grandparents was 500 years old when he started the ark so there could have been a lot of old people a lot of babies lot of animals and God said now I'm gonna drown all of them the earth project doesn't work for me we get a little hint into the character and caustic nature of the Creator God in the 6th chapter of the first book of the 66 books of the Protestant Bible he says I don't like the deal I repent and regret that I even made you your mortals I'm not my spirits I'm gonna strive with you forever your flesh your mort mortals you're gonna end up with mortality and a mortuary somewhere well my dad saw his mother laying on a gurney after three unsuccessful attempts to resuscitate her his sanctified mother who taught him Jesus and the blood and the cross and the Holy Ghost and told him to live holy but she back slid for several years because there my grandfather was a womanizing preacher good-looking love the wine and the women took communion and communion believed on body ministry at all chase the women in so many years my grandmother who was a fasting praying holy woman her heart broke she was struggling to read and so was he to raise seven children my daddy is the eldest and delivering it with with discrimination and she was a she was a day cleaner cleaning houses like my mother and my grandmother's on both side of my aunts all of them were domestic workers I remember getting an old pair of tennis shoes or an old pair of jeans and thinking it was Christmas when they would bring things home from wealthy homes they worked in and we were always afraid of Hell and afraid of God and because both of them were after us and we needed Jesus to protect us from both so you got to have Jesus so we all had him somebody said to me one time in high school when I was preaching if Jesus is the answer then what is the question let me get me a back don't be asking me questions I hadn't thought of it but I shouted out the question is why don't you see Jesus as your personal Savior get born again that's not like you think to say how do you realize that the time I was a preaching loved I was preaching law I was out reaching self-loathing rather than self loving that God doesn't like you many Christians say you have to accept Christ if the Christian gospel by the way is not about anybody accepting Christ it's about God accepting everybody because of Christ that's the good news that it's okay between you and God there's no sin between you and God in Christian theology that hasn't already been resolved by the cross now I just don't believe in blood God's that that demand blood sacrifices the way I think that's pagan I think it's borrowed mythology it presents God as very angry and untrusting or untrustable not worthy of our trust the concept of eternal doom or damnation in a little or even imagined customized torture chamber and lake of fire and brimstone is the most obscene repugnant caustic and emotionally costly religious ideology of the ancient and modern theological construct my grandmother's laying like this by the time the doctors leave and the nurses leaving my dad sits behind the curtain and he sees his mom laying there with her arm without stretch her breasts exposed her mouth and eyes open cold dead and she looked like as I've said before she was into place she taught him people who played the dogs and drinking smoked girls so daddy presumed his mother to be in hell quickly he put her holding her hands and over her lap and pushed her mouth whisk much close as he could in her eyes and pull the garment in front of her so when his sisters came in in a few minutes they wouldn't see their mother like that but that's the picture my dad had of his mother until I sat with him at age 78 and convinced him scripturally that the word hell and is not in the Bible of the way we've described it is more Dante than God and that it's all metaphorical and allegorical and even metaphysical that there was no little literal place like hell and that his mother whom he loves wasn't in there infinitely even though he said at the funeral rocking while his sister's crying out quite verbally quite emotionally and the room is packed and all his brothers are there what two of them are preachers struggling with alcoholism the others are alcoholics and they're all there we have drugs kids were all brought up in Pentecost brought up in the Holy Ghost brought up in churches like this pew jumping devil thumping Bible Tolton ready to go to heaven holiness to hell and yet my cousin's one after another drugs alcohol of gangs bludgeoned to death we found them in in mortuaries five days after they had been dead or he found them in a hospital beaten beyond recognition and they were strung out on drugs and alcohol and they were doing everything we were taught against and I kept thinking even then my freshman year of college when my grandmother died what are we doing why isn't this thing working even for the people who taught us it and the grief and agony that I carried for decades for 50 years actually I began to awaken at 50 when my son was calling around my feet and I had just had this baby and I was so proud and so excited I was 41 years old I thought I'd never have children I thought of course I'd never be married I was gonna be single and celibate and serve God I had about all that had about a chastity I didn't actually have one to party there's a minute it too long I had a vow to get out of poverty but I went through all this and I had fear and I had agony and I had I had I questioned God because I was bearing so many loved ones and I thought they were in hell I had forgotten the power of what I had been taught was Redemption and atone that are at one minute what is this the collective human consciousness around this ideology has produced and reproduced some of the most hideous and heinous earthly expressions and experiences of our species I've never been freer than I am right now I really feared God faster two days a week set aside three days a month four years all the way to college sometimes the fast would go 14 days or 21 days or 30 days or 40 days trying to keep my body in check and trying to make sure I didn't follow loss and trying to make sure I was holy and that God would like me and was Cynthia anointing I always knew God loved me I believe that but I never thought God loved me liked me because I just couldn't measure up with all of my attempts to do so and I love the church this whole thing of Hell twisted me up I couldn't I couldn't rationalize the moral character of God and eternal hell now if hell was just remedial or purgative or corrective and you kind of went through a little phase and you then you ultimately came out or you could live in some peaceful bliss that would make more sense there's a lot of people I had a whole list of just deacons I wanted in health wonder but just growing up in the church fast and I asked them I pastored beacon you know you you have trustees that I call them Rusty's old rustic mean folks in charge all the money tell me what to do and you know that was difficult Church and pastoring was held to remember my first revivals as a teenager every church I went into when I went into the pastor's restroom just if I just happened to notice that everybody had Rolaids or what's that the after pepto-bismol and the first it didn't bother me the second I fell boy he must have an also too then the next one of these guys their stomachs are eating them up and they're all in the ministry and if they didn't have anesthetic they were had we had they had to have some some they some-some libation biblical from the Book of Daniel Jack Daniel wasn't been in it in that car they were trying to deaden their senses and get through whatever haze they were going through you know people who strongly believe in Hell tend to create aspects of it for themselves and for others including those within the closet proximity closest proximity to them beginning with family beginning with and extending to even complete strangers you're going to hell one of the happiest things I get to do right now is go to public spaces and places all over the world and I don't judge anybody anymore I used to judge and presume all these folks is going to hell then I had the guild you should pass out a tract or have a conversation with them how dare you enjoy this vacation how dare you enjoy this yacht this cruise this dinner when all these folks are going to hell look how many of them are already wined that's before I ordered wine yesterday was actually the first day I ever went to a public place I'm bought a bottle of wine look at the devil encouraging me to do it again it took a lot I mean I pulled over I got out of my car walked in there and I'm I told you remember uh sure said to me one time in Vegas had bishop do you believe in drinking oh he said do you drink wine I said well I have communion on the first Sunday and Jes he said how do you handle the scripture that says Jesus multiplied turn the water into wine I said well Paul said to Timothy drink a little wine a little wine for your stomach's sake in your often he says that on the Bible I say yeah yeah Paul actually tells Timothy to drink some wine he said would you write that scripture out in calligraphy and sign your name bishop Carlton Pierce and I said why he said I own a restaurant in Atlanta and and the folks ain't drinking enough booze I don't make money off food I need I need some wine in it so he said put it put it in there that's what I can't do that dude wait a minute how much you gonna pay me now that was a hang-up for me it's not that I'm gonna do that all the time but it took something for me to take the risk of doing something because I've always believed in scriptures seem to to embrace communion if you wanted in a more reasonable figurative and even practical sense hell is an experience or feeling of unusually sustained loss confusion disorientation and the illusion of isolation from God or your divine or your better rather than your bitter self that's hell too everybody goes through it nobody necessarily goes to it ultimately less Christ is a failure I see no redemptive value or virtue in that and it seems entirely unreasonable and would only be enacted by a deity who is essentially sociopathic and sadistic a sociopath is is is defined as a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience another way of describing it is a personality disorder as a characterized by persistent antisocial behavior impaired empathy and room behave and bold disinherited and egotistical that sounds like Washington to me this this attitude I don't care about anything only the law I don't care whose family I break up whose little children I leave screaming for their parents how old the father is who sent home who was the primary breadwinner in the home and leaves his wives and children in a another country do it now arrest them not only at the border but anywhere doesn't matter what it costs them doesn't matter how it destroys or hurts send them out by the thousands get him out of here that is not the Spirit of Christ that I was exposed to it is the spirit of an angry god and the reason so many Christians worship Jesus rather than God is because Jesus subconsciously protects them from God from God's Hell in Genesis he says I'm going to ground them all even the animals the earth project doesn't satisfy me and I'm God I don't like this stuff I want a divorce from humanity my spirit is not going to strive with him always drowning all except for eight or really Noah and those he selects and no sooner than the flood has receded and the smelly remains of drowned animals and humans the stench is still in the earth then God says let's don't use water again it's messy that's in your Bible that some of y'all don't wear don't read it don't believe it I can understand it takes a lot of guts for me to say the God of the Bible is made up as a sociopathic sadistic angry manic-depressive and maybe even even maybe maybe even psychologically meant to demented because he's so angry he has deep anger manage problems I have to give this as a four because this God invented he does the flood and I says okay next time we'll use fire that's in the Bible so now we're waiting for the fire waiting for Hell now yes we preach the good news jesus loves you oh if you were the only a person on the planet iNDOT he would take you straight into us jesus loves you do you love cheese do you believe me Jesus love and the first time I'm not really not in the religion wait wait wait excuse me I just you don't believe in Jesus and God that they love you so I want to be offensive you know I'm just I have my own beliefs I'm not into that religion and stuff well now wait just a minute get a little more intense are you telling me you don't love God and you don't believe God loves you and sent his son when I wait just a minute you know what that means you matter and matter Mecca just are getting personal offend you learn the hell that's what's happened to you to hell with you I've seen that happen and I was always twisted and contorted about this approach it didn't work it hasn't worked and part of my mission now is to help people rethink God one that they can trust not one handed down through years and traditions years of tradition and and and myth that's frightening and intimidating and you're uncomfortable with him and we really do need Jesus to protect us from that one because if the devil accuses us to him he'll believe the devil and unless Jesus stands up for us so let's worship Jesus I can sing songs the way of saying beautiful songs to Jesus and worshiping and he never suggested anybody should worship Him I don't think he ever even expected anybody to worship him that one time said one one person said good master how can I what do I need to do to have eternal life he's a wait a minute first of all what are you calling me good for there's only one who's good it's more important what Jesus says about God then what the church sometimes says about Jesus can you trust God hell is what those families are going through who are being divided in this country hell is what gay people go through when they are discriminated against whether it's marriage or buying something in a grocery store hell is what people feel when they hate someone else when they go through divorce and nobody can hurt you or hate you like somebody you love or loves you when they go through great loss and sickness and with no cure can't pay the bills when they go through racism in their communities or out of it or when they have hammer family breakdowns hell is what you go through when you believe in it when it becomes your article of faith when you presume that the God you love and who loves you is torturing your favorite uncle because he was an alcoholic and my favorite uncles were alcoholics because I could get money out of him drunk if they were sober they were gonna giving that too but if they were drunk what you need so on get what you want so I loved them I kept getting money from a discipline tickle and nickel could go a long way back in the 50s and 60s and but I loved them and then they told me uncle so-and-so deinonychus also died and he went to hell he died drunk they found him with cirrhosis of the liver they found him laying on his bed or under the bed or out in the car uncle so-and-so died uncle sauce and I went to all my uncle's we're dying all of them had Holy Ghost filled daddies and moms and they all grew up in church but they were dying so I had to stop and say something is not working here let's rework what we're doing in sign said define insanity as doing the same thing over the same way all the time and expecting different results wrap your arms around yourself and I want to remind you that you are divinely created by creation and possibly create or that we don't know we know we're here we know we have feelings and emotions commotions and devotions we all go through hell somebody said when you're going through hell just keep on going don't stop it gets better you're looking at a man that knows what hell is what you see in comes Sundy is only a fraction of the pathos I know what rejection is I know what humiliation is I know what hate feels like when it's turned against is one thing when people turn away and walk away from you it's another thing when they turn around and come after you I hope you never have the experience of several thousand walking away they didn't hate Carlton Pearson they couldn't stand the pressure of the traditions we had all embraced and we had help accentuate and decorate those traditions and perform them masterfully in the pulpits of the world and write the songs to sing the songs and earned the awards and write the books and move the crowds I know what all of that is I still believe in aspects of it but I just changed the message to another positive way where I don't put all that burden on you you blaming God or blaming the devil of any hungry people of fed we're the ones who feed them if any people are really healed and I've been in healing ministries all my life and all of my healing friends supernatural miracle friends including Oral Roberts also believe that the greater works is in a hospital jesus said greater works than these shall you do so he people came to him for 40 years for Hospital prevention and then toward the end of his life they couldn't handle it with hospital inventions so it failed but oral believed in it he knew there were other sources he knew he couldn't lay hands on he couldn't do all the miracles science and spirituality are going to unite in a harmonious way that we've never experienced it in our lifetime that's gonna be the new spiritual protocol we're gonna bridge our divinity to our humanity and our humanity to our divinity and we won't have to worry about some of these things anymore I'm kind of like dr. King said I've been to the mountaintop I've seen the promised land he said I might not make it there with i'ma make it there with you we're going over we're going over that next dimension that next place they crucified Jesus I don't let him crucify me come on holiday all the dung they threw on me I turned into fertilizer and grew grew look at your neighbor and say shift happens [Music] spell it so they don't think it big so Shi ft happens now tell them get your shift together and get ready to go to heaven on earth then make heaven on earth to create heaven on earth this belongs to us let's make the best of it and in the weekend too hair what hell one last announcement my my daughter is is is contesting as a contestant for the the show the four P Diddy's new show and she's one of the contestants that there were many so we don't know much else but I just want you to watch this coming Wednesday at 7 o'clock on the Fox Network and tell all your friends to watch to see what happens some incredible talent there and she's one of the cadet they are auditioned her it flew her out so we want to see what happens but I want everybody here if you don't watch it may God smite thee with blindness all right [Applause] [Music] come Sunday is the movie come Monday is the movement Sunday is named after the Sun Monday is named after the moon I call the moon the natural night night you don't have clear vision at night you have a little light in the sky that helps you find your place during the dark moments we want to help you deal with the day after the Sun when Monday hits and you got to go back to work and get back into the saddle where the rubber really meets the roll and we want to teach you how to just relax and chill remove the anxieties the stress stretch without stressing these are these are technologies that we offer you in this movement to advance and expand yourself and your soul to get past the depression to the anxiety that is often in our lives to have less depression and to know how to deal with lessening the pressure in life and everything again is consciousness how to advocate yourself or fear or how to manage fear and manage pain we don't know how to completely eradicate it but we can manage it and we have to gain focus what we see and what we think about we bring about how we envision you change the way you look at things as Wayne Dyer says the things you look at change all these are technologies human and emotional and devotional to help you be the best you to experience the best you because what you want wants you because what you want really is you sign up come Monday org and become a part of this amazing expansive movement that is happening all over the planet be one of the first of your friend I invite you you're on your way to enlightenment I want to meet you there in consciousness [Music]

Channel: Carlton D Pearson

Views: 92,806

Rating: 3.8066759 out of 5

Keywords: Carlton Pearson, All Souls Church, Hell, Hell Consciousness, Heretic, The Gospel of Inclusion, ComeMonday.org

Id: RIOHBu5zl2o

Length: 37min 40sec (2260 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 04 2018