♪ i know i've been changed my parents had the devil in them. all my sisters and brothers had the devil in them. my neighbor was full of the devil. >> he was a wildly charismatic, successful, fire-and-brimstone preacher who warned about hell. >> you had to get them jumping and screaming and clapping and saying amen and crying to get them to come to altar and get them to get saved. >> he knew exactly how to inspire, how to work up a crowd. >> but if you don't perform in that pulpit, you're a dead man. >> how good are you at that? >> i'm good. i'm one of the best of them. >> but he lost it all. and it wasn't because he drank

or cheated or broke the law. it was because of what happened inside when he heard a new idea. an idea, he says, from god. >> there is no hell as we have been taught. >> he was declared to be a heretic. >> if they don't accept jesus christ as their savior, they are going to hell. >> a preacher who wrestled with hell on earth in this hour, "to hell and back." this is a story about hell. it's about the dark warning right here in the central text of american christianity -- the bible. about matthews' gospel with its fiery furnace where unbelievers weep and gnash their teeth. it's about mark who threatens the worm that does not die and revelation with its eternal lake of fire. is any of it real? does it wait for you and me? or is it all the invention of some cruel, pre-modern imagination? >> my god, i'm just getting started.

i'm just now starting to kick the devil out of my life and out of my home and out of my family. >> you're about to meet a man who came face-to-face with hell. was singed by that fire. did you have any idea before you began to speak what events you were going to set in motion? >> didn't have a clue. >> his name is carlton pearson and he lives still to tell his tale. but, as you will shortly see, he may have lost everything. here is where our story unfolds, sunday morning in the christian churches of america, for carlton pearson's is a uniquely christian story. though it's great central question is one with which all people must struggle some day, maybe later, maybe sooner. what happens after? is it certain, ominous, real? >> are you picking up to tell the world there is no hell? >> all murderers, all liars are

on their way, shall be cast into the lake of fire. >> or a myth bathed in uncertainty? >> not everything is clear and that's why we need the spirit. >> my parent the devil in them. all of my sisters and brothers the devil in them. my neighbor was full of the devil. the devil was in that dog next door. the devil's in that cat. >> carlton pearson learned about hell a long time ago. and he learned the lesson well. >> i'm the fourth generation classical pentecostal preacher. i was raised in denomination church of god in christ. >> he was just a little boy when the bug bit him or as he puts it -- >> i started with a little trash can turned over. my two little sisters sitting out in front of me. i was 5 years old. on the back porch of our home, preaching to them. didn't read hardly. church was our life. it's all i've ever known. >> from the beginning he was eager to please not only his parents but also the members of the church. they were known as the saints. >> i was afraid of their disfavor.

but they did say, the hand of the lord's on you, the lord's blessing you. boy, you've got something on you. i heard that all of my life. you will be something son. >> the church of god in christ is the largest black pentacostal denomination in the world. their services were exuberant. they wave their arms. they swayed, they sang. they spoke in tongues and their ministers lacked fancy credentials, they made up for it in a wealth of spirit. do the sophisticates look down on the pentecostals? >> and we said, those holy rollers, yeah. and we said those unspiritual, smug, people, they don't know god. they're going to hell. they need us. >> they were too poor to be fancy. >> we were so poor, the poor folks called us poor. >> and too enthusiastic not to try to look grand. they taped sheets of plastic to their meager windows pretending they were stained glass. >> it was popular in the ghetto.

in the inner city store-front churches. it was so much for us to buy this plastic, this really ugly -- if you compare it to this. we glued it on the windows. see what this is? we never thought we would ever get close to it but we -- we mimicked it. it was like a status symbol. if somebody had ugly stuff up on their window, that's so precious to me. the mentality. we were so proud of that. >> and something else. they were very serious about an issue some mainstream denominations often soft-pedal or avoid altogether -- the question of hell. but in carlton's church it was central. it was the sermon every sunday. the awful fate awaiting unbelievers. >> we were told not to laugh. stop gesturing and joking. stop that. we heard all of that stuff. god going to get you. the devil going to get you. i thought both of them were after me. there was a quiet riot going on

inside of us whether or not we would make it to heaven. we loved god but we feared him. fear counterbalanced every emotion. so we had all of that mentality be good, be godly, be right, be holy. >> or else what? >> or else you go to hell. >> in fact, for carlton it was deeply personal. his own grandparents, they'd been preachers once but then they fell away, backslid, as carlton puts it. his grandfather started it first. >> he started chasing women and got involved in adultery repeatedly. >> and then carlton watched horrified as his own grandmother, her heart very likely broken, fell into sin herself. >> i heard her curse and she drank. i smelled it in her house and she smoked. she played secular music and danced. people danced in her living room. i saw it in my own eyes.

> and they died and they went to hell so far as we were concerned. you may have never had to say that, keith. my grandmother's in hell. >> it hurt. it was devastating. it made him angry. the point of your life was to keep people from hell. >> absolutely. it wasn't -- we didn't come here just to worship god. we came here to avoid his hell. >> and so, wounded now by the loss of his beloved grandparents, carlton, barely in his teens, bent to the task of saving souls from hell. >> everybody rushed to the altar to get saved or resaved or whatever it took. >> he was a kid who sparkled with promise. he was preaching at 15, ordained at 18 and then went to college. but not just any college. oral roberts university offered him a scholarship. by the time carlton came to oral roberts, that great evangelist had claimed to heal believers by the thousands. >> come up and they are coming out. >> if you knew him at his prime, he was just one step under the holy ghost for me.

when i shook his hand, this man could clear his throat and i'd get chills. >> so imagine what it was like when oral roberts himself recognized the promise of greatness in carlton and took him under his wing. >> it's the big, giant human celebrity preacher. he was my mentor. and he told us to save the world. >> it was an exciting time. but always deep inside was that secret place where shame and anger simmered. shame about his grandparents' failure, anger about their descent into hell. the question as you will soon see is this -- will they pull him down, too? coming up, carlton pearson was headed for super stardom in the pentecostal world. how could he know the crisis that was coming right at him? >> and now i'm a tool of the devil. sist the snooze button this weekend.

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carlton pearson had burst into the big league. who could have imagined the kid from the san diego ghetto who at 5 years old mounted a trash can in his backyard with the burning desire to be a great preacher now had a real chance to be one? he'd been offered a scholarship at tulsa, oklahoma's oral roberts university. and, more amazing, he'd caught the great man's eye. >> this is the guy who made goiters disappear and cancers fall out of people's body and blind people's eyes open. he was the closest thing to jesus we could ever be close to. >> roberts said carlton began to treat him almost like a son, clearly had special hopes for him. carlton also developed his considerable talent as a singer.

he traveled to europe, sang on tv. he was good. but, as a preacher, he had the magic. >> you want to say hallelujah! >> the grades were not particularly good, mind you. he didn't even graduate from college. he was so anxious to get out and preach full time. >> i was on the board of regents. >> the board of regents from the university but you had no degree from the university. >> that's right. >> it was 1981 when he started his own little church in jenks, oklahoma. >> we packed that house out, that little room out, in a month. jammed. had traffic jams within six months. >> proceeded into your life and be born again. >> not long before he was preaching in tulsa. his church growing so fast, he couldn't help but know how good he was. >> you had to get the people happy. you had to sweat and shout and spit and get emotional. a zeal to tear devils apart. you got to deliver.

and, in my tradition, it wasn't just a good sermon, you had to get them jumping and screaming and clapping and saying amen and crying. but, if you don't perform at that pulpit, you're a dead man. >> how good are you at that? >> i'm good. i'm one of the best of them. >> he bought land in a tulsa suburb, opened up a new big building, staffed it with a slew of junior assistants, young men and women drawn to his charismatic power. the crowds got bigger. there were thousands now every week. plans got bigger, too. >> all this together is 30 acres. and we added that 41,000 square foot building to the other side of this wall called the destiny center. we added the cost to that. $1.6 million, just that. >> wow. >> i know we had 5,000 or 6,000 people come through there every week. and every seat will be filled. >> collection income was up to $60,000 a week. >> this was heaven and you feel like you're helping people and guiding people and giving to

people and they give back to you in their presence and their smiles and their vocal response and we pulled a lot of rabbits out of hats. >> this was not just showmanship. he had a mission. >> because i presumed that most people would go there, i had a responsibility if i'm benevolent to get as many of them out of hell. >> which that's the point of your services. >> of all services. of all -- >> the point of your life was to keep people from hell. >> absolutely. it wasn't -- we didn't come here just to worship god. we came here to avoid his hell. >> but, even then, the trouble had already wormed its way into his brain, though he hardly knew it. he'd been studying the bible in the original greek and hebrew peppering his sermons with translations. and he couldn't help but notice some strange discrepancies. >> very often the king james version translation was different from the hebrew or the

greek. >> so it opened your eyes a bit? >> absolutely. it made me question the term that the bible is inerrant and infallible. something i would never question. >> sort of dangerous territory, isn't it? >> to say that the bible is not the word of god but is the word of man about god, as best as man has perceived god, is troubling. even for me to say it. i like to say, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. >> but if carlton was troubled, no sunday churchgoer would have known. he kept it to himself. even as his ministry, his fame, his power continued to grow. every spring in the '90s, carlton put on huge revival meetings in the oral roberts navy center. he called them azusa conferences. that's the name of the original pentecostal revival a hundred years ago. at carlton's azusa great preachers and singers would compete for the chance to thrill

as many as 40,000 people who packed the bleachers for a week and sold out all of the hotels in the city. >> it was like a big revival of all these pentecostal baptists. black people came who were open to the spirit. >> he brought in the big names, including his old mentor, oral roberts, who predicted carlton would be the next great leader. >> and the next great revival would be initiated by black people and that he was going to have a leading part in it. >> and he helped create some new evangelical stars. the azusa conference is where tv pastor t.j. jakes came to national attention. everything carlton did seemed blessed. he married a beautiful woman named gina. oral roberts baptized one of his children. in 1997 they made him a bishop. his influence spread to politics. in 2000 he campaigned for george w. bush. he was invited to the white house.

>> pretty big-time. >> you're there at the invitation of the president of the united states. >> this is more than just making it. >> yeah, that was pretty big stuff. but i never saw it as a personal thing. i saw it as, the hand of the lord is on you. this is the destiny of god. keep yourself humbled. >> and yet, even as all of that success smiled down on carlton, one secret cauldron of trouble brewed away down in his soul. it would not go away. it was that topic so central to his own preaching. the idea of hell. >> i was angry that people go to hell. i was angry that people were stupid enough, faithless enough to do the things when they know that they're going to hell. >> he kept thinking about his backsliding, hell-bound grandparents. >> i was resentful of god. if you fear god the way we're taught to fear him, you'll serve him, you'll believe in him,

you'll worship him but you probably never will really love him. >> and then one day it happened. carlton pearson was sitting in the living room of his big house in tulsa. he was having his dinner. in front of the giant tv set. there was a news story on about a refugee crisis in africa. coming up, one moment, one single moment, and something very strange happened to carlton pearson. >> and i heard -- i believe it was the spirit of god was saying is that what you think we're doing? >> you heard this voice? >> yes, sir. ♪ track it all through the air, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ clearing customs like that ♪ hurry up no time flat that's logistics. ♪ ♪ all new technology ups brings to me, ♪ ♪ that's logistics. ♪ congratulations.

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able to get to the woman because the man wasn't there. >> bishop carlton pearson had climbed an everest of success. every week thousands came to hear him preach. he'd hired on a whole team of junior ministers. the fame of his azusa revivals had spread nationwide. so much money for it that he launched an ambitious new building project.

a home for seniors. a stadium-size church. he drove a big black mercedes, lived in a beautiful house in a gated community. and then came that night. he was having dinner in front of the tv set. his little girl was on his lap. he was watching the news. >> you saw these african people, mostly women and children, walking slowly back trying to come home. there was no light or life in their eyes. it was a horrible thing for me to see. swollen bellies and skeletal ripped bodies and emaciated and the babies looking at the mama and the mama looking out in space and the baby pulling at the mama's breast for milk. it was sad. and i'm sitting there with my little fat-cheeked baby with my plate full of food, watching my big screen tv, a man of god, preacher of the gospel, an evangelist, and i'm looking at those people, assuming they're probably muslim and going to hell because god wouldn't do that to christians, i'm thinking. >> they deserved hell? >> they deserved hell. >> it was right then, right at that moment, that carlton

pearson had a revelation. >> and i said, god, god i don't know how you can call yourself a loving god and allow these people to suffer so much and then just suck them into hell. and i heard -- i believe it was the spirit of god saying, is that what you think we're doing? >> you heard this voice? >> yes, sir. and i said, that's what i've been taught. >> he broke down, he says. he cried. he talked back at that voice in his head. >> god, i can't save this whole world and that's when i heard that voice say, precisely. that's what we did. and if you tell them that they are redeemed, you wouldn't create those kinds of problems. can't you see they're already in hell? >> clear as a bell, says carlton, he heard god telling him to preach this new message that hell is a place in life and that after death everybody is redeemed, everybody. >> i immediately started

thinking about my grandparents where maybe they're not in hell. maybe if they're already saved, if the cross and christ and all of that stuff really happened and is really spiritual, which i believe it is, then if he came to save the world, then the world is saved unless he's a failure. >> carlton began to question everything, including the bedrock belief of his own church. that is, if people did not accept jesus as their savior, they were bound to spend eternity in hell. >> if we don't come here and bow at those altars and light these candles and do what people do to appease the presumed angry god, you go to hell. that's the only alternative. >> carlton went back to his bible. he pored again over those greek and hebrew texts. >> the bible is like an idol. it's like an -- it's certainly an icon, but that's the greek word for idol. we swear on it. we keep it in our cars. lay it under our pillow when we are afraid. >> eventually, he said, he would come to only one conclusion. >> i respect the bible. i take it very seriously. i just don't take it literally.

>> but wait one minute. what carlton was thinking, at least according to millions of christian americans, was heresy. but by now he felt convinced that the church's teaching about reward and punishment was simply wrong. and he began to get his head around some ideas he never would have contemplated before that remarkable night in front of his tv set. if jesus had come to save everybody, born again or not, it meant that heaven was accommodating some pretty strange bedfellows. you mean hitler's in heaven? >> yes. do you think hitler's more powerful than the blood of jesus? i mean, i got a hell to put a lot of people in.

i would send hitler and a few people in my church if you want to know the truth. but i'm not god. he's the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not our sins only, but the sins of the whole world. >> privately, he told his father what he'd believed he'd learn. that his grandparents that had died in sin weren't in hell after all. >> when i was able to convince my father that his parents were not in hell, he lit up. i literally saw my father just change. i think he forgave god that day. if you can do such a thing. and i think i have forgiven him because he was killing too many of my people and sending them to hell. >> he knew that if he dared preach what he decided to call the gospel of inclusion, it would raise a lot of eyebrows among evangelical christians. after all, who was he to claim that centuries of christian dogma was simply wrong? that there is no after death place that is called hell. >> that everybody is going to heaven and nobody would go to hell. >> remember, christians of all stripes have come up with widely

varied interpretations of worship, theology and the bible. >> are you picking up the tales to tell the world there is no hell? >> from the kind of evangelical certainty, carlton had always believed before. to some christian churches that seemed prone to 1,000 doubts even as they celebrated the ancient ceremonies, all of them christians. so now carlton had come to his own radical conclusion about hell and decided he was going to preach it. that he had to. >> how dare we attach that horrendous creation of a customized torture chamber to the loving, merciful god whose mercy endured forever? >> and what happened? oh, my. coming up, carlton pearson was about to pay the price for his new convictions. >> i didn't think it would be anything like it was. [ male announcer ] meet rachel and annie.

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hey there, i'm alex witt. newt gingrich got another boost this morning, he's gotten an

endorsement from the "new hampshire union leader." and occupy protestors in los angeles have received written orders to leave their encampment by midnight tonight. police say those who do not will be arrested. i'm alex witt. see you in an hour. carlton pearson, the pentecostal bishop, would become a mega-preacher, a star, who had been invited to the center of influence, had staked it all, everything, on a change of heart. he'd stopped believing in hell. and so he stood up in that big church of his, in front of his thousands of worshipers, and let it all out. >> and for the first time in all of my life as being a christian, i really not only love god, i started liking god. >> he called it the gospel of inclusion because it included everybody, not just christians or evangelicals or

fundamentalists. there would be conflicts of course, but surely, he, of all people, could convince his congregation and maybe the evangelical community to welcome his new idea, that everyone is saved, that hell as a place after death does not exist. >> so is it really authentically biblical to believe in the hell we've been taught? >> but you don't always get what you wish for. >> my wife and i heard it on television. >> just outside tulsa, carlton's home turf, is a fiery old-time pastor named bill timms. timms had once been a mentor and friend to carlton. and now? well, this was a shock. >> he says they're all saved. and, if they're all saved, what's he preaching for? that ought to be the end of it. if jesus made the way for everybody and they're all safe and happy, what's he preaching for? >> worse, said timms, carlton's preaching about hell was

downright dangerous, was putting people at risk to say the least. >> we have to look at fact the bible says the blind leaders of the blind shall they not both fall into the ditch? the bottom line is, he preached an erroneous message. are we going to believe what jesus says? jesus spoke 12 times more about hell than he did heaven. >> it did not take very long for the message to get around. carlton's hero, his father figure, oral roberts, was by all accounts crushed. it was more in sorrow than anger that the old evangelist sent his favorite student a long letter of rebuttal. this doctrine is as dangerous as any i have come in contact with in 66 years of ministry. i implore you, my dear one, please give it up. i feel this so deeply, i weep, i pray, i beseech, i plead. and then, in due course, the letter was followed by a decision to remove carlton from the board of regents at oral

roberts university. >> are we going to say he's right and the rest of us is all wrong? >> but for carlton, it was oral roberts' censure that cut so deep. >> he loved me like a son and he still might. >> did you love him back? >> absolutely. absolutely. >> do you miss him? >> i miss -- i miss -- i'm bothered by the fact that he doesn't understand what i'm saying and i'm a disappointment to him. i love him. >> oral tried to get him to change his position, and many others have tried to get him to change his position on this subject. >> even an old oral roberts schoolmate, ted haggard, came out against carlton. >> hell is a real place. jesus talked about it a lot. the bible talks about it an awful lot. >> haggard has since this tape was recorded, quite famously,

entered a sort of living hell himself after he first denied -- >> have you had a relationship with -- >> i have not. >> -- any kind of -- >> i've never had a gay relationship with anybody and i -- i'm steady with my wife. i'm faithful to my wife. >> and then confessed to consorting with a male prostitute and buying illegal drugs. >> i was buying it for me, but i never used it. >> have you ever used meth before? >> no, i have not. and i did not ever use it with him. >> he was banned from preaching after that. lost his huge church in colorado springs. lost his influential position as head of the national association of evangelicals. pastor ted had filled his church with genuine charisma. his own very obvious personal charm and kindness and bible based teaching. back then before the fall, haggard made it crystal clear, carlton pearson's idea was not right at all. >> i think carlton's a good man. he's made a horrible mistake. a grievous mistake. >> does hell exist? you bet it does. >> oh, yeah, it's a place.

>> an actual, physical place? >> it's a physical place, yeah. it's not just a state of being. >> hell, says haggard, waits with absolute certainty for unbelievers everywhere. remember how carlton pearson told us even hitler would not be in hell? the question for haggard was about the famously peace loving and righteous non-christian gandhi. gandhi is in hell? >> if he -- there's only one -- >> gandhi knew about jesus, he didn't accept him as his savior, quite pointedly. >> yeah, then he's in hell. >> the scripture's perfectly clear about judgment. >> yes, sir, i relate to ted's hell. >> to carlton pearson, ted haggard's fall was a perfect illustration of his new message, that hell is a place on earth, not after death. >> well, i agree with him. he said hell is a physical place. hell is a physical place and he's in it. >> but you're on earth. >> here on earth.

>> but as brother timms and others were quick to point out human weaknesses, like ted's, can strike almost anyone. but leading people astray is serious business. to many people, what carlton had done was the fouler deed by far. >> they're both dangerous. i wouldn't want to be in either one of their shoes. >> where are they headed? >> they're headed for perdition. they're headed for hell as sure as there is a hell. >> but they can forgive ted because ted still believes you have to confess christ to be saved. >> he can be forgiven. >> yes. >> you can't? >> i cannot. no. >> it was for many who'd once admired carlton pearson simply unforgivable. and folks around tulsa got the word. >> if they don't accept jesus christ as their savior, they are going to hell. coming up -- who was right? carlton pearson or the leaders of his church? and who would pay the price? ads, always infinity is made with a revolutionary material, infinicel, that forms to your body and absorbs up to 60% more than kotex regular ultra thin. always infinity.

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whatever memory this brings back to your mind, i want you to cherish it. >> in 2001, after nearly 20 years of preaching, bishop carlton pearson, the preacher with the magic touch, was under attack. he'd abandoned one the central pillars of pentecostal theology and was now preaching his gospel of inclusion, turning the traditional view of hell on its head. >> now i've gone really off of my rocker and i'm actually saying there is no hell as we have been taught. >> before long saying some pretty heretical things about the church itself. >> i think religion itself is all about control, from the vatican to the pulpits, the high places in the church. it is a matter of authoritative

control. a form of religious tyranny. now i consider myself a freedom fighter, trying to get people free from the paranoia and the penalty of following these people who say it's our way or the highway. >> and his own religious leaders, his fellow churchmen, were, no surprise, dismayed. >> listen, i love him. he is not qualified to preach in my church. not by the book. not by the book. he's not qualified. >> they're afraid i'm going to lead people to hell. they're afraid that i'm going to lead people away from the tradition. they're afraid. everything's fear. >> that's exactly what bill timms says. you're leading people to hell. >> yeah. >> that you are a demon possessed. >> yes, yes. and i would have said that a few years ago myself. >> but remember up to 6,000 people a week had been faithfully attending carlton's services when he preached that

hell was real. >> it's no different than you running a show and people don't like it and people don't believe it and so they watch another show. it's the market. >> once his big church had taken in $60,000 a week. now week by week it slid, $50,000, $30,000, $10,000, then barely $6,000. he couldn't meet the payroll, not a quarter of the payroll. his staff of assistant ministers sent out resumes, found jobs in other churches. to stay with carlton now, many seemed to feel, would be both morally wrong and career suicide. though very few of them like children's pastor steve palmer and senior associate pastor jesse williams decided to stay. >> i'm a son and sons don't leave their fathers when they need them the most. >> but it brought some low points. what's the worst? >> i wouldn't want people to even know because it's too painful to even talk about. people that you thought were friends, people that you thought were close to you, you know,

i'll do anything for you, i got your back, we're in this together, we're in it for the long run, then just disappear. no explanation. ♪ i know i've been saved >> the azusa conference, his annual revival meeting, which once used to fill the largest indoor arena in tulsa, dwindled away, too. the big gospel singers who once clamored to perform on carlton's stage now shunned it. in 2004, the conference sputtered its last and died. suddenly carlton and his wife gina were dropped from lists of people who mattered in church society. >> i'd introduced her to all of these wonderful, stellar human beings who preached and commanded ministry in church. and i had convinced her that we were bosom covenant brothers and sisters. that these people really loved me and loved her.

and when they turned either away or against us so violently, it stunned her. and i was embarrassed. i was embarrassed because i had told her that my world was solid, my friends were solid. >> even those who stuck with carlton said they could hardly blame the parishioners who left. >> i know of people who were self-employed and whose business depended largely upon having good christian people patronize them. and when you align yourself with an unpopular doctrine or you align yourself with something that's heretical, in tulsa, oklahoma, you risk losing clients. >> an empty collection plate meant all those construction projects had to be canceled. and then the loans couldn't be paid. by christmas 2005, the options had come to an end. and, on the very last night of the old year, carlton led his final service at the church he'd worked so hard to build. his little family, his wife gina, the children majesty and julian, were there with him.

>> came home that night and julian was a little somber. i said, you okay, son? and he just crawled off of the bed, walked up to me, threw his arms around me and said, you did good, daddy. we just cried. we all cried. we didn't pray. we didn't quote any scriptures. and, all of a sudden, we knew it was over. >> the next day, he lost the building. >> i had to ask permission to go in there. >> it was like your home. >> and now i'm a stranger at my own house. i was a stranger to that genre now. i'm no longer welcomed there. i helped invent it for my generation. i helped create it. i helped refine it. that's where i was going to die. >> theologically, carlton pearson was simply disappeared, especially by one last act of the branch of the church which once named him bishop. he was now declared to be a heretic.

has come upon me. yes. it's just -- it's death. it's humiliating. >> it's hell. >> well, yes. and one i helped create. it's hell. >> and so he was done, finished, vanished. but, then, how could he blame an entire church for wanting to stick by its own cherished beliefs? still, he couldn't abandon his own either. and then one day when things looked very bleak indeed the defrocked bishop, the ex-mega-pastor, got a phone call from this woman. >> i watched them dismiss him like last week's garbage. coming up -- we never know, of course, what fate might bring. and carlton hadn't a clue what was in store for him. >> i thought to myself, what kind of man is this that would lose that much?

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carlton pearson was a bishop without a church, without a congregation, without a title or his influence or his income. he'd lost it all. >> he lost his crowd. he lost his church. you can't brag on that. >> why did that happen? >> because, the bottom line is, he preached an erroneous message. >> in fact, said many in the church, carlton had become the enemy. >> yeah, uh-huh. and i would have said that a few years ago myself. we don't realize that we almost believe as much in the devil or a devil as we do in god and we actually think that little old

me could lead millions away from the christ and the cross and from heaven into hell. they give me that much power. they must think i have incredible charisma, incredible leadership qualities that once was theirs and now i'm a tool of the devil. >> the handful of supporters who stuck with him, along with a couple of lonely assistants, didn't even have a place to meet. and then, when things were at their bleakest, there was a phone call, an invitation to be a guest speaker at a small church in san francisco. >> i made it my business. i said, i'm going to look him up, i'm going to find him. i'm going to sit and talk with him, and then i'm going to invite him to come and sit and talk with my people. >> this is the woman who called. her name is yvette flunder and she was originally ordained in the same church as carlton pearson. but her church today bears little similarity to anything

carlton had ever known. >> we have people who are in recovery from drugs and not recovering well in every situation. people who are homeless, imminently homeless, living with hiv. all worshiping together in the same place. >> even bishop flunder would be unwelcome in many churches. she's a lesbian. or, as she puts it, a same-gender loving person. >> the whole room was almost all gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual people. i mean, i had never been in a room full of almost 99% gay people, praising god and singing and dancing. >> carlton explained to them his new ideas about hell. his notion that heaven was waiting for everybody, even them. perhaps especially them. and when he was done, bishop flunder invited him to sit down and take off his shoes. >> we went and got a warm basin of water, and then we asked him to take off his socks and his shoes. >> did he have any idea what you were going to do?

>> no. he was absolutely clueless. no, he did not know. >> and she knelt. everybody i knew had thrown me away. and they were singing and weeping and washing my feet. talk about a holy moment. the room begin to spin and everybody in there suddenly became an angel. everybody was jesus. it was so powerful. these people had been so hurt and so broken and so rejected and so bruised, they just -- they healed me. they literally healed me. >> strange how fortune can change when things seem darkest. it was back in tulsa where a second invitation came along, this one from the episcopal church downtown called trinity.

sunday morning, said the minister, they celebrate a formal mass here, pipe organ, procession, the whole ceremony. but no one was using the sanctuary on sunday afternoons. would those few people who stuck with carlton want to worship here? well, yes, they did. at first, carlton's broken remnant filled just a few pews of this borrowed splendor. but, soon, the numbers began to grow. and now, on any given sunday afternoon, the old stained glass windows rattle with the kind of noise only a crowded church of pentecostals can make. ♪ blessed be the name assistant pastor jesse williams. >> by 1:00 in the afternoon on sunday, the place is already full to capacity including the balcony and the seats on the side. it's a wonderful feeling that maybe he's not through with us. maybe he's just changing the sentence. maybe god is still speaking and he wants to say something brand new. >> i think christianity has -- has distorted itself into a very

impure cult following of jesus. i think jesus would be appalled at what we have become. >> it's still hundreds now instead of the thousands who once filled his own big church every sunday. but now something else is happening. word has spread. he's frequently invited to speak all around the country. >> the letters i get from people who are what we call un-church, who don't go to church anymore, they make me cry. i mean, they bring tears to my eyes. these people have a relationship with the eternal, with the immortal conscience of god that religion prevents us from having. >> they may be breaking every rule in the book. >> jesus did. jesus broke the rules. turn to somebody and say, i am affected by my life's traumas, but i'm not infected by them. i'm not defected by them. and, in fact, ain't nothing wrong with me.

>> where you are going to with this now? >> to the world. i now hear from mormons, muslims, jews, gays, quakers, agnostics, atheists. a whole world that i'd never had any contact with. some of the greatest letters i have gotten about god are from atheists and from agnostics. the gates of hell, say that, the gates of hell -- >> the gates of hell. >> -- will not prevail. >> and the boy who was born to preach belts out a message about hell, which is, according to millions of bible-believing christians, dangerous and illegitimate. >> my emotion is, i love him. i feel sorry for him. i weep for him. i cry for him. >> it makes you sad. >> oh, yes, so sad. >> and to other christians, it's perfectly wonderful. ♪ tell me children ♪ you know i've been changed

>> it is a great thing to watch. it is a beautiful thing to behold. ♪ you've been changed ♪ yeah i've been changed >> but in this old sanctuary, its fine stained glass showering its sunday sun on the choir, it's also given a man who lost it all a reason to believe. >> there's a great shifting coming now. i feel it. there's a great anointing coming. it's like turning a big ship in the middle of the sea. you can't turn on a dime. it takes a little while but we're turning this thing around. oh, hallelujah. ♪ the angels sent heaven down ♪ beside my name >> first, they ignore you. then they laugh at you. then they fight you. then you win. ♪ beside my name ♪ hey yeah