'GET THE HELL OUT OF MY BIBLE' - A sermon by Bishop Carlton D. Pearson

I'm good doing good now I'm doing good doing good ah no now shake somebody's hand and tell them no it's good shake somebody's hand and tell oh yeah [Music] give somebody a high five or more times I'm so glad to be with you on Memorial Day how're you doing what are we memorializing a lot of things sometimes our whole bodies seem to be like a haunted house that has all these ghosts in there and memories and ideas and ideologies and they go bump in the night and wake you up and in our memorializing we need to remember not to spook ourselves and not talking about veterans and people who have fallen for the freedoms of this country but I've been doing a lot of autopsies lately on things that died in my life you take if somebody says somebody died of cancer that's that's somewhat superficial because that's not really everybody dies because of a an immune system that it's failed it's a form of aids actually but I would say what caused the cancer or the heart failure or so to just give a blanket answer is not really always a complete answer you start finding why things are dis-ease or diseased and died what caused not just the death but the disease or malady that caused the end of something it could be a marriage it could be a job it could be a business it could be a relationship that was precious and pressured for you but if you don't do the autopsies the thing could repeat itself and you start losing so much because you didn't stop to see why did I lose that or why did that thing die even a vision a dream something that you had in your mind years ago and it's never been fulfilled you kind of just let it die it may not be dead it just may be sleep or you maybe sleep so at this age in my life at this stage of my life I'm doing a lot of sorting through some I'm I'm happy repeatedly that when I ask myself where am I now why am I here what am I doing with my life are you happy where you are you're happy what you you're doing are you filling or fulfilling any particular ideology or concept or idea or purpose that you associate your life with I probably have more years behind me than in front of me and that's fine 64 years old so that that's fine that makes me a little and only slightly anxious because I feel like the last half of my life does not necessarily have to be less dynamic than the first half well thank you for those bail a man's eye just touches me deeply I can hear y'all son are you old and through night I'm all in through I've just getting started we're so the subject for the month is is mercy so I'm dealing with that a lot in my life and today I'm going to talk a little bit edgy because I'm thinking edgy and the thing that sort of got me in trouble with deeper trouble than inclusion or universalism is the fact that I stopped believing in a literal eternal place of damnation were billions of people who aren't Christians and many who are and forgot to repent will spend eternity weeping wailing and gnashing of teeth has always been very bothersome to me as a human being and as a Christian because I lost so many I wasn't even thinking about the people in the world who went to hell the folks that I thought were that wasn't as a presumption but the folks that bothered me the most was my grandparents or cousins and members of my family that presumably were spending eternity in hell that bothered me worried me I found that concept to be a nuisance literally all my life and of course I've made some changes in the way I perceive things I'm a biblical literature English Bible major and on my mind it was theology and historical study so I've studied the Bible and read it for all my life I'm 37 years licensed 49 years licensed to preach in August I'll be 47 years ordained in ministry in August so this is pretty much all my life and practice doesn't only make purp perfect practice can also make permanent when you practice a certain mindset for so long it can permanent proven eyes itself in your in your consciousness and it's hard to detach from a certain mindset that you have practice all your life I'm very revolutionary not a revolutionist as much as revolutionary for myself i sat alone watching the first edit of the movie come Sunday in New York the other day and I was by myself the director was near but I just went into it and seen it all sewn together I'd see part of it fragments of it because I went down for the live filming but not very much now it's all together and it just brought up so much I just found myself pretty much weeping through every scene it's not a sad thing and I wasn't saddened by it I just have all these memories some of whom are ghosts and and that are trying to haunt my house I don't mean the one I live in the one I am the pains and the pathos and the separations and the detachment and the disappointment and that it's illusion meant I was going already through a different kind a certain kind of disenchantment with belief systems then I came into it to another disenchantment with the whole institution that I was wrestling with and so I'm still sorting through that and I don't have any veterans or antagonism I just have my next book is hell you're not in trouble you're in transition making managing and mastering change I'm still going through the change and I don't know what medication I'm supposed to take that goes with it so I titled a book a chapter in my book God is not a Christian get the hell out of my Bible I wouldn't say for you to get out of my Bible but I would say take the concept of Hell which is really less scriptural than we think if you've done the research if you've done the studying if you studied the languages if you go back into the history and historicity of the book we call the Bible and the word Bible simply means book it's considered sacred or holy writ but of course mohammedans have theirs which would be the Quran and that's about two billion people and Christians have about two billion and then there's the bhagavad-gita and there's the Talmud of the Old Testament in in Judaism and there's all these other sacred writings that people basically idolize and worship the writings our Christian Bible says the letter meaning the literal so we get the word a letter from or literal from the letter or literal kills spirit gives life if you take the Bible literally it will kill you because there's a lot of death in it there's a lot of conflict in it there's a lot of disconnections and and contrast in it you have to see it spiritually really metaphysically and metaphorically to make an allegory for it to make any sense otherwise you're going to be very very angry and the first book the sixth chapter of the first book of the 66 books says God calls God to say I repent that I made you I regret this earth pot project is is it ain't I don't like it now that's only the sixth chapter he's basically saying I don't like the deal it's not working because man is evil from birth that's they're actually quoting the creator in that piece of literature saying that God who created us hates what he created is going to wash the earth of it with the flood and and then he said after the flood was finished I don't like the way that turned out maybe too many floating bloating bodies and in 128 from 220 days before the water receded and and anything added the next time that that's the last time I'm going to lose use water the next time I'm going to use fire in other words they're going to screw up again and I'ma kill them again but the next time i'ma burn the hell out oh so that's the mentality that's my interpretation the Lord gave it to me in prayer you have to pray a lot to get them kind of Revelation so I wrote in reference to today's lecture mercy is not just allowing escape from hell authentic mercy would be completely extricated the concept of eternal damnation from our belief system and articles of faith the English word hell does not appear anywhere in the original biblical narrative and Jesus never used that term to use the term a word Gehenna Hebrew word Jesus book mostly Aramaic and he uses a lot of Hebrew words and there there are an amalgam of the same language used the word Gehenna and gate meaning in Hebrew Gorge or gully or Valley of Hinnom that particular place existed at least 500 years before Jesus ever walked the earth because Jeremiah refers to it it was the town dump the city dump on the southeast side of Jerusalem it was a literal place where the fire never went out that's why Jesus said the fire goes not out the worm die it's not the maggot there were maggots and fires for four centuries but today if you go to Jerusalem the fire is out and the worm is dead and there are park benches and palm trees and streets at the very place geographically that Jesus was referring to metaphorically and metaphysically so he didn't use the word hell it was mistranslated in the King James Version is hell is a hell less Christianity possible or is a hell that system possible can you be Christ conscious beyond the obscenity of a customized torture chamber from which Escape is infinitely impossible the very concept is vulgar that somebody you love or somebody who's never lived in this century never heard of a laptop or televangelist or who couldn't read there were no satellites and no television no radio evangelist lived a hundred years of live ten years or two or thirteen but died because they never heard the gospel but you never had a chance to receive it the long rejected there in hell by the billions the concept makes you internally interiorly subconsciously distrust the system you distrust the plan and you become suspicious of the one you presume created it which would be God I was a bible-toting scripture quote and tongue talk and devil something T jumping so when I questioned all my life I mean I knew the way to God I still know my way to that God in sometimes felt I would that guy anyway so somebody thought what the hell you doing in here i'ma talk about Hell today okay so I'm gonna use that word what hell you doing at a Unitarian Church because I'm a Unitarian and I'm a Universalist I believe in the oneness of all things and the ultimate inextricable connection to all that is I believe a universalism one you you know uno one verse version or versification of the whole that's kind of my concept I like and feel that you are a verse or version or versification of me and I am a verse in your life or version of you or versification of you but we all inevitably ultimately come from the same source and they return to the same source somehow we are one so I practice a certain thing billions have and it seems arrogant of me to say the kinds of things I'm saying about something that seems to be so precious to believers the hell concept is so it's a sacred cow it's so it people are so devoted to hell and the devil who supervises hell and and the whole concept of eternal damnation now the scripture says he that believeth and is baptized death believe it and is baptized shall be saved that's mark 6 mark 16 he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved he that believeth not shall be damned that's the King James Version or doomed or condemned by God which basically says and in the earliest most reliable manuscripts verse nine through the end of the chapter was not existed so somebody added these verses after the earliest manuscripts that's why they call them the most reliable we don't have any original copies of the Bible none we can't find them all we have our copies of copies of copies so everything that's speculative it's exploratory its science its faith its theology God logic God thought and God talk and philosophy we're just battering things around but you've been told that we have for at least 2,000 years in Christendom and 4,000 if you are six hours if you consider Judaism so the whole idea of of a God who can be picked off turned off angered who has emotions and opinions and you can't see him or it but he can see you not only what you do but knows what you want to do and haven't done but figured about doing in which you could and might and judge you because of your thoughts and ultimately put you in hell because your thoughts are never as pure as you think the Bible demands they should be now there is a psychosis behind all of that so most of the people you hang out with are mentally ill they in fact scientist I colleges say about every one out of six people you meet anywhere are mentally ill so count six down in both direction that six one is graded and that maybe you I know I'm the sixth on one of those counts so I'm rethinking what I believe why I believe it and when you are practicing something that calls both perfection and permanence you can actually practice hell practice hurt practice hate practice anger practice right wrath practice hopelessness consciousness and it becomes a permanent reality when you believe so firmly that the same God who loves you could turn on you and hate you hell would not just be punishment hell if it's eternal event unending we've been wearing and nationally that's not just punishment books that's hatred that's terrorism that's violence that's extreme terrorism it's worse than anything you've ever heard of including Hitler because the folks Hitler aburn based on his understanding of Scripture and God's attitude toward what he thought Jews were the Jesus killers Hitler called Jesus is Lord but the people 10 to 12 million that he burned and tortured not to mention the millions beyond and extended to those families at least they in the furnaces died and stopped hurting but God according to way most people billions believe scripture is not just going to burn you till the fire goes out but you're going to burn in that furnace customized for you ordained by him forever I asked my dad one time years ago what his definition of hell was he's their son that's where you're going to be cooking but your ego never get done and I thought brilliant that's what I'll use now that's that's a nice simple way to explain and it was kind of pleasant in humans but it's really up it's it's it's absurd atop skew it's painful it's bitterness that I would tell you you that that God loves you and God has mercy on you and you better believe that or he will burn you forever God loves you send it Son Jesus to die for you and you better believe that because if you don't you going word inhale that's the same spirit that you're using in witnessing I remember there were times I was witnessing doing door-to-door never did like it but we had to do it as part of our culture and some people were kind specially when I was a looking kid and where the thing there would be nice okay listen I'll take them the brochure and that's so now well god bless your soul not for you to who's your mama named you so nice to come over here cousin guys cheering but every once in LA somebody to get the hell get I ain't it just get out of here or what it's not interested and it would hurt my feelings and hurt the others with me feelings our nostrils will flare we say are you sure you don't want to accept Jesus are you sure you're going to be how can you reject oh my god you know what you go into hell and I hope you do you you I took it personally I'm gonna pray for you now you're crazy cursed family we don't pray for all y'all cuz you going to hell and I didn't realize it at the time but as I would leave the place I think on a hook they just aren't robust they'd go today I was angry because I believe that my god to be angered if you believe God to be angered and God hates gays or Catholics or Jews or blacks or whites or even slave owners of slave drivers and he hates them enough to put them in an eternal torture chamber you won't have any trouble hating a Jew or Catholic or somebody who's gay if you're committed to the God who will not only punish them but send them to eternal pain you don't mind encouraging or helping it by dropping a bomb on them or blowing them up or destroying them or seeing them as the enemy I don't know how we've gotten so long with nobody bringing this up shouting it loud I'm free I'm proud how can we let this continue to proliferate from generation to generation to generation and we keep creating the hell we believe in both for ourselves and for others and I'm talking out of my own experience one part of me never wanted anybody to go to hell another part of me believed that they deserved it because they rejected Jesus let me tell you my prayer on the city of the gospel the Bible says we love God because God first loved us the gospel is not about you accepting Christ the good news is that God accepts you because of course if you believe the gospel way if you render blood sacrifices and you believe in a God that didn't demands that and atonement all that kinds of the way to look at it scripturally is to say the whole thing - supposedly initiated by God and that the whole idea of redemption or atonement is about God wanting us loving us in fact the word wrath is a Greek word or gay for which we giving this word orgy it means and extending or reaching out Allah only after almost like loss but warning humanity so desperately that it appears as wrath or anger it's really amazing desire but we interpret the word wrath as the anger of God and God is jealous and vengeance is mine saith the Lord I will repay all the stuff we're not supposed to do God does and he holds several thousand year old grudges and he's gonna get you one of these days I heard that all my life God gonna get you boy God's gonna get you God will get these people God won't get them and at the same time God loves you God wants you and at the same time the devil gonna get you the devil going that the devil will get you so both up was after me God was gonna get me the devil was gonna get me and I wasn't sure the difference between them and I ran to Jesus to protect me from both of them talk to me somebody do we need Jesus to protect us from God and his devil he knows the male gender his devil God had to create this place y'all call Hell and give the superintendent or the supervisor a name called the devil and can't kill the devil can't stop the devil just let the devil take billions for years and you and this is a God who is omnipotent who knows everything he knew Hitler was going to do what Hitler did if you believe that a personal God created a personal Hitler and assigned him to kill Jews and gays and blacks and and finals and people who seemed in any way different from the pure germ from Germany that's part of the essence of that need why do we believe this stuff and why do we continue to believe it when it doesn't even make sense or you believe it by faith so I should believe as much in a devil who can't be defeated by a God until Jesus comes on a white horse with a sword in the sky and kills him for about a thousand years then he comes back again if you think Jesus is coming back on a white horse with a sword to kill the devil that his blood by already bound and you couldn't kill him if there Jesus got to come himself in the meantime it's a literal conflict between Jesus on a white horse because in the days that that was written in revelation there was no such thing as jetson and nuclear bombs and you know that kind of stuff so we thought he's going to come ride on a horse many people today still believe that Jesus is coming back on a white horse and that's okay I don't mind as long as you think he's coming back that's cool the idea that the heaven he has a nemesis that is going to get most of the world now let me tell you another thing that's behind the frustration I have considered myself an evangelist since I was about 18 years old about 16 years old when I started running what they call running revivals wasn't so winning only it was going into a church that's dead and stirring it up as a young man young people would come I would preach and pray and sing and take groups of musicians I'd get them saved and and then they'd go get their friends and that was a revival that was an evangelist that's the way we won lost people and so my frustration was I never got enough saved at 16 I felt that at 18 itself that at 30 I would be going to crusade when I finished college with my team and counting or noticing the cars going the opposite direction from the church and I just come off for 21-day fast or 14-day fast or three days and seven days and I'm going to to the crusade and there are more people going away from the church that toward the church then when I get there the little church will be full the tunnel might have had two thousand people but I didn't feel like I was winning the loss of winning the world and it looked like and I sat in a conversation I said to use it this before with Danny Graham at the Oklahoma bombing almost 20 years ago we had the whole morning together because Frank Keating who was at that time the governor asked me to come and look after Billy Graham because suddenly this thing got bigger CNN was coming the Clintons were coming the cabinet the White House were coming and he had to go in entertain them or host them and I was with Dylan Graham all day from the time he into the governor's mansion about 10 o'clock that morning so we sat together and that's an intimate conversation about why we were there we talked about oru and his friends Roberts we talked about his home that was owned prior to that by Jim Baker on heritage USA I had seen it and I Billy Jim Baker had just spoken it azusa on that Wednesday night same day the bombing took place fresh out of prison I shared that with Billy Graham he said I'm the one who met his plane when he came out of prison and my wife who was sitting next to him Ruth said cooked him his first home-cooked meal and I visited him three times when he was in prison but I did it under the radar I said are you kidding me dr. grim he said no I was there I didn't want any attention drawn to it I kissed him I said you were really a man of God lament of compassion he said I never thought that I would come to Oklahoma to preach a memorial service for nearly 200 people killed from the worst natural disaster on American soil or act of terrorism in American history he says I've been preaching for 50 years and it seems like the world is worse that's what he said to me with his own mouth he said you young preachers have it easy you get on supersonic jets and fly anywhere in the world is that I had to get on ships if I was going to India we got on ships and it took days for us to get that we couldn't stay for two days or two weeks we stayed sometimes six weeks and travel the whole continent I was away from my wife and children Franklin was there sitting behind his kids mother Ruth he said him but I look at it it's just it's frustrating to me and he was shaking with Parkinson's disease he said it hurts to even hold a pen I could see the disenchantment a measure of discouragement disillusionment he had given his life he's now old face creasing wrinkled hair white and thin stooped and shaking with Parkinson's I just write my memoirs and it hurts to do that why he shared that with me I didn't know at the time but it's helping me today I know that as he evolved if you if you study his words and go online and see some of the things he said he shifted his consciousness about converting everybody he just wants to convince everybody that they're loved by God that's pretty powerful for me to hear him say but I know the frustration and it's like God there's too many people we will never win them all we need more help they're going to hell the whole continents and countries they're billions out there and then the scripture narrow is the way that leads to eternal life few debris that find it broad is the way that leads to destruction many they're min adhabi who go that way I always hated that scripture because that said most of them are going to hell don't worry about the ones that are going to just work on the few who are Southern Baptists and then the especially the ones that are there the spirit-filled southern doctors that speak in tongues and try to be printed costal baptist or Episcopalians and i was a writer part of the big charismatic movement with charisma with spiritual baptism where spiritual methods there were spiritualist escalators and i was not yelling of it you don't have the real thing we got the real thing because we classical Pentecost just as judgmental and bigoted as anybody else it's taking me years to sort through all of my prejudices and reconsider what if there was no angry vindictive judgmental entity who created a world that he doesn't like and it's tolerating and it's going to take all you people all the billions on the planet for all the years we've been here and separate them some to hell some to heaven what is that can you be kind and the lead without that particular image of God now remember practice makes not only perfect but permanent so I don't expect everybody to understand it but just give it a thought just give it a chance just consider maybe that kind of God does not have to exist as your God and the tension and psychosis and angry anger and distrust and fear does not have to take up so much room in your consciousness would you love God or love people as God's or creations of God if that's what you can you do that without the penalty of Hell if you don't accept that choices and decisions are followed by consequences a sequence or sequel to every decision not eternal hell I don't think anybody necessary will go to hell but all of us going to go through it some of you submitted this moan that's needed this afternoon something vexing and tormenting you usually it's it's relationship oriented your families your jobs your neighbors the agony and the body the aging process things slowing down memory a little slower here a little girl face a little more wrinkled get up in the morning a little bit more sore wake up in the morning feel like you have to take that face and throw it back over you're here because it's ungrouped down all night a little pain here and the joint little back and you're concerned about death we're afraid of death most folks are afraid of death free and afraid of dying and wondering about wills and money and coffins and and or cremation or what's going to happen when I'm gone or anybody who doesn't feel loved basically doesn't feel loved the bowl if you think you're not loved you subconsciously think you're not lovable if you think God doesn't love you in fact most of you who believe believe God loves you but very few of you or us believe God likes us talk to me somebody most people are in relationships with family members from parents to siblings to spouses who love you you know they love you but don't none unlike you and you don't like nothing to alter easily the the constant ambition of each one of us is to to hope somebody likes us we dress so somebody will like us eat if it looks clumsy and and and you know you're big and out of shape the people who like that kind of holding you you don't care what I think a lot you care about what that group my children dress for their friends not for their parents and you can tell the way they dress they're dressing for their friends who did you dress for who are you trying to impress why is it important to are you do you really want to impress them or you just want them to like you I said yesterday at the wedding in Samantha and restaurant and I adore Dorothy's daughter I say that to a lot of people especially single people don't just marry somebody you think you love find somebody you really like because there's a lot of people you love you don't want to live with starting with your mama name or your siblings or the one you're married to and buried by your wrestling how do I like me I think this may be the first time in my life I started liking me whether you do or not that's heaven right there now it's not that I don't totally care I would like for you to like me but you will never really liked me until I like me I'll never perceive you like you becomes a lie like I no longer I'm interested so much that God would love me because I've never doubted that but I never believed God liked me ever I thought I was saved at five but I never said felt safe at 55 I just I'm rearranging my thinking it's not the good news is that the bad news is all wrong how can you call yourself an evangelical and have good news and all you preach it bad news see they believe it and is baptized shall be saved he doesn't even not shall be damned so god damned you forever that's where the term goddamn you comes from the Bible the word damned means condemned or doomed I don't believe God dams or dunes or condemns anybody we do that stuff starting with damming and dooming and condemning ourselves again the greatest salvation you'll ever experience is the one where you really like you because that'll make you really like others because the only way for you to really like you is to give yourself some slack it's a not be judgmental and critical in nitpicky it's hard to achieve that and you treat you achieve it incrementally and you keep it in section talk to leaves about it it goes and comes with with a day's work now I'll be finished just cuz I've always been intrigued with this passage of scripture and confused somewhat by the concept of a God who could both love and hate eternally one who could and would love you graciously and mercifully in heaven infinitely while at the same time hey you in and through hell and torment equally as long and simultaneously I never was comfortable with me and my mom and dad and one or two of my brothers and sisters going to heaven and one or two of them going to hell I never could perceive my something happy walking around heaven all day if my brother or sister or mother or friend wasn't in heaven all day I thought if I go to heaven or left going to heaven means you're totally desensitized with compassion or empathy or sympathy that doesn't exist in heaven you don't care about who's in hell because the Bible tells us sort of the rich man and Lazarus the rich man dies and goes to hell this is one of the stories G and from hell he lifted up his eyes so that means his eye sockets weren't burning out and he prayed not to God or to Jesus but to Abraham which mean to the Jew and he was into the religion he said Oh haver Abraham can you come down here and take just a list take the tip of your fingers get a little teeny bit of water and just put it on my tongue it's parched now you're in hell if you only asked for the water and you inhale burning why you want a little teeny java on your tongue if he had faith enough to believe Abraham to come and stick the tip of the finger in the water and put it on his tongue because they just give me some water a glass of water in fact ask God to put a stream down here and he said Oh God and then Abraham said well there's there's a big chasm between us and have we can't come to you you can't come to us so the same guy who's inhale looking up says we'll look can you go tell my brothers I'm in hell I'm burning but I still have compassion I still have love I'm an evangelist go tell them don't come here now this is a conversation of course it's metaphorical allegorical metaphysical the hell is the sense that you're separated from God and cannot reconnect and you feel abandoned and alone and a bastard child and an orphaned child and you want that's experience we have here to think that it's going to be there eternally and he says no if the if they don't well as they won't hear the gospel from the living they're not going to hear it from the dead I don't know if I if the dead person came to me tell me he could say I could save if somebody came from hell today or heaven or whatever and told me to change the gospel of inclusion and leave also I be gone if somebody told me that I've been preacher you know did some kind of supernatural anybody and I said well if that's what would say people God then send some angels and send his grandmother from her grave to tell that boy to quit smoking pot enjoy drugs or quit threw it around or whatever you think is sin since of my God if you don't want him to go to hell then why did you let him be born why didn't his mother miscarried twice since she lost the first one why didn't she aboard or why did the seed not germinate the egg why did you make her womb fertile or his seed fertile why are you allowing all these billions of people to come to the planet and you who are initiated all knowing all science and everywhere present I'm like present and everywhere potential all I'm nipa to all-powerful and you're letting everybody go to hell you've need some counseling where's dr. field units that you got an anger management problem you get angry and sin until tensions and storms and and in volcanoes and the tornadoes and some tsunamis and cancer and AIDS and how what's the matter with you you're too angry I'm scared of you and the only reason I'm going to worship you because I don't want you to put me in hell so here I go I'll even give you a tenth of my income of you don't put me in here I'll help my mean ugly neighbor out of you poor nobody you know it's a little game we play and we've been playing it for so long and we're really really good at it but it's messing us up if I'm Muslim and I feel that if I die I'm going to get 70 virgins so I don't mind wrapping myself up in bombs killing Christians or Sunnis if I'm Shiite Syrians or Lebanese if I'm going to get I don't know what the virgins going to get besides me 70 virgins I'm going to go to heaven my family's going to be taken care of by the people that have the money so bomb and say Allah Akbar god is great and I'm a Christian and say y'all pray for me going to Iraq or Iran I'm going to fight Isis pray for me and my troop and my army and god bless america and in god we trust' pray that my bullets hit their target and that our bombs hit their targets and that if we ever are shot with nuclear weapons that are nuclear anti-nuclear would hit them before or kill sun-young whatever his name is over God let me kill him I'll let the CIA go protect us you God even God let my team beat let my team win well we were too are you aware the Titan basketball team I expected us to win all the games because it was for Jesus that we would win we need to get our name out there our University I said the Titans that we even changed the name from Titans to the Eagles because Titans they found out was Greek mythology the Lord didn't reveal that too a few years ago I was on the board for 16 years they're not something that hate same house with the founder I know his spirit Martin Sheen played him so well in that movie it was asked if he was embodying or channeling or the way his hair was fixed the way he said God the way he called my name Jill tells expression none of them were there and the guy told the story too as an atheist had never experienced Pentecost was born in Italy went to dead small tiny Catholic churches that he never liked born raised in London he said you know I told you I was an 80s I'm really just a diagnostic I've seen all this stuff I feel something when I watch his crazy stuff y'all do his watts hundreds of his loose and services hundreds of higher dimension services he's seen Pentecostalism he cries when I cry they they experience something in but they captured something so precious to me I said I said Marcus I've seen literally seeing orders disappeared people throw will care chairs canes and get about a wheelchairs and off stretchers in different parts of the world and but I've never seen a miracle as magnificent as the one that you could somehow in your non-believing mentality create an experience of my belief that is so valid so legitimate and so so touching and so you got it boy when this is over I'm going to ordain you and I'll be the 80s we laugh about that what is that emotion at that commotion of that devotion that pulls us together the scripture says how can light and dark be friends we just read that and I'm going to close with that just very second Corinthians now for a recompense that means to make amends somebody in the st. Paul's right be also enlarged he says expand your consciousness but you're not unequally yoked don't be unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what Fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness and stay with me and what communion hath light with darkness and what Concord hath Christ with Belial or be liar and what part hath he that believeth with an infidel now that's Paul writing to the church at Corinth about opposing entities being one and yet here's God could love you or hate you heaven or hell you his God who said not to eat from the tree of two loyalties good and evil God and evil or devil had actually eaten from that tree or was that tree that God has this sort of double plural plural mentality about loving and hating you that God can both hate you and love you hit you and help you look at me please and I tell you and maybe you know you're already there I'm talking to the court reconsider that image and let's encourage others to do it it has cost me a lot and I wouldn't do it if it wasn't him in the spirit I lost everything not willingly certainly not eagerly it was circumstantially I didn't know it would be this I did not know that I would lose our building in our grounds I told these people who stuck with me don't you know God's not going to let us lose this property and the hardest thing in all of that was losing our home and we were a homeless people a homeless church when y'all took us in and Trinity took us in downtown and a bunch of charismatic mostly african-american folk came here around this time of summer and not only did you let us use the building at one o'clock so many of you came at one o'clock Unitarians don't know nothing about the whole ago come up in here and enjoy the Lord we were not just some disjointed group that came in you started coming and we were thrilled like I said let's tone something down because we go around them away because we don't get any and HAFTER tones and then I thought well this let's try to let's try to work together and have a little bit for everybody in and if you want to lift your hands lift if you don't don't and if you want to be vocal and response do that but come as you are you're not only welcome you want to everybody because that's what y'all said to us and now we're saying it to the world talk to me somebody we're all saying it to the whole world we're not saying you have to believe a particular way to hang out with us I've always been intrigued with the fact that Ron Roberts orals oldest son found solace in this church and none other in town he wasn't openly gay but he was gay and he was it was abusing drugs to deaden his pain he didn't want to shame his daddy or his mother or the ministry and he could come here because he wanted to be ministered to or when I talked about that a lot and in my last conversation with him I was able I think to convince him that Ron probably so I get with him wasn't in hell because it was eating him alive here's a man that's laid his hands on physically on a million people and countless numbers more than that brought to Christ but based on the way we think and are taught if you commit suicide you go straight to hell if you're gay you're going to hell if you use drugs you you're going to hell if you're white I mean if you are I'm sorry I didn't mean that if a Unitarian you go to hell if you're a backslider you go to hell there's a lot of Pentecostals to believe you don't speak in tongues you go to hell and I'm saying to hell with all that stuff what what what a one of the most challenging and hit me all at once I was doing this big radio station I think will Stevie Wonder station in LA he was listening I didn't know that but the phones were ringing off the hook and everybody was you know I'm from there all my Pentecostal friends preachers at that time we're just screaming and almost customi out on the biggest most emotional response they'd ever gotten to the station and I said y'all are saying God loves you but God loves you but God loves you but and I said no God loves you but here here let's all stand and go [Music] now there's a lot I've written about this and I at this stage I don't think y'all going to kick me out here I'm in a safe place and I think I'm not being angry and antagonistic I want people free when I convinced my dad at near near 90 that his there his mom and dad weren't in hell its freedom and I think if I can get other people to stop believing that kind of vicious violent terroristic entity in a worshipful way I think the complexion and the tenor the emotions of the energy on the planet would shift and we'd get along better this us-against-them thing has got to go I no longer dismiss Muslims to hell or Hindus to hell or agnostics or atheists to hell you'll find your hell here but to be tormented eternally doesn't even make sense it's absurd obscure up seeing if you will it's vulgar and I know those are harsh words but I'm trying to shock your consciousness and I remember God saying what I said was God say to me why are you telling people that stuff you really believe we're torturing everybody I thought fellows heard God talking to me God talk to me it's really me talking to me but I I said it with God my just illegal what are you telling people they said this doesn't make sense it's killing your parents it's killing your cousins and relatives I had so much so much drugs in an alcoholism of Pentecostal people they couldn't handle the guilt they were trying to deaden their senses they were afraid of God and they were almost ISM for as much afraid of the people we were killing each other just like dropping bombs in Syria Isis so he's a Shiite Spidy shake yourself come on let's shift the energy around I must finish say I can do better I can be better I got to change my thinking I'm ready to rethink repent let's do this let's let's be that the church that says you don't have to do anything just be yourself and it will find its accurate expression in the earth stop trying so hard to please somebody else come on get those hands up there once again the last thing we're all said when we finish that conversation is he stood up we've been there three and a half hours some of this in the movie not over it but he stands up he puts his hands in his back pocket his hair was all scraggly because they hadn't combed it what he had slept on them doing that he didn't care Evelyn was sitting right there he stood up I was three and a half hours I missed my flight flight out of LA and had to take one out of and put his hands in his back pocket he looked up he said a person very carefully everything you said and I was like what I hear now that was the closest to an affirmation I got it was enough for me I hug you Lee said pray for me son he always asked me to close the prayers he never tried to cast the devil out of me or pray me back into the old way regardless he said pray son Ellen said pray the media made it look like we were enemies we were never enemies we loved each other to death to his death and Marlon was sitting right with me and Sarah and John and my wife Gina when Randy came he wasn't even going to the funeral of his grandfather he said I'll meet you on the east entrance uncle I just want to hug your neck I said I'll meet you there and he was going to leave and go back to Dallas and I said no this is your grandfather's service boy it was much right to be and here's anybody else you're going to sit right with us with the same church that your uncle whom he didn't know much about he asked me about his uncle today the same pastor the pastor of the same church where Ron welcome you sit right here I was crime lord and he wasn't the bureau but he he said that we've stayed friends all I've known since it with a child he still calls me uncle but we want to affirm him and he felt affirmed and he felt loved and we want everybody to feel affirmed and loved and accepted and celebrated not just tolerated talk to me somebody it's powerful they even took potshots from the pulpit at us but we knew we were fine we're still okay Love Wins say it love win give somebody a high five and say love wins alright what the blessing of the Lord maketh rich in a death no sorrow we extend our hearts everybody open your palm upward like this and just receive the positive energy in the universe down through your hands and your heart in your head and allow yourself to be refreshed and renewed and revived we think some things slowly gradually allow the hell concept to be completely extricated from your system systemic thinking and let it be replaced with a heaven that we both which we create on this earth intentionally or wearing Li or unaware Lee let's do heaven we don't know what can happen after we're not sure what happened before we only have now yesterday's history tomorrow's mystery all we have is now remember that's why we call it the present it's a gift of now I speak healing and deliverance and freedom and liberty and peace and prosperity and soul satiation and the signature of your soul be written in your own significance and the sign that you are on the earth the kingdom of God is ruling in consciousness thank you Lord God and so it is amen thank you god bless you [Music] yay [Music] everything don't be all that everything [Music]

Channel: All Souls Unitarian

Views: 31,930

Rating: 4.2332015 out of 5

Keywords: All Souls, Unitarian, Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Universalists, Universalism, Sunday, service, sermon, minister, Mercy, change, transition, self-examination, Bible, hell, theology, sacred writings, religion, religious fundamentalism, prejudice, judgment, fear, fear-based, penalty, salvation, condemnation, Bishop Carlton D. Pearson, Contemporary

Id: tTiazqBdb6I

Length: 55min 45sec (3345 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 01 2017