Carlton Pearson is an independent spiritual leader and successful gospel recording artist. He was once an heir apparent to Oral Roberts and a bishop in the Pentecostal Church, presiding over 600 churches. This was his first book since he left that religion. (See also his second book, 440.)

I was given Carlton Pearson’s book 440 (God Is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu . . . God Dwells with Us, in Us, Around Us, as Us) by a former fundamentalist Christian who had read both books (440 and 445) and asked me to review book 440. After having done so, I decided to buy and review Pearson’s book 445 – The Gospel of Inclusion – for two reasons. First, it was Pearson’s first book about his revelation and the extreme negative effects his preaching it had on himself and his family. Second, he referred quite often to The Gospel of Inclusion in book 440, so that I was eager to read about his departure from the evils he perceived in his former, highly distorted, worldview of fundamentalism. I’m very glad I did, for his ejection by the Pentecostal leaders, and rejection by nearly all of his former Pentecostal family and friends, was quite revealing. His new preaching was, to their world, a horrible heresy, especially as it was a very public thing for fundamentalists. But being a despised outcast resonated very well with the stories I’ve heard from others who have fled the distorted, fearful, and exclusive world of fundamentalists, who have been taught that inclusion is not just intolerable, but evil – the work of the devil.

The back cover of the paperback I bought has this summary: “Fourth-generation fundamentalist and Pentecostal televangelist with a new understanding of what it means to be a Christian, Bishop Carlton Pearson takes a courageous and controversial stand on religion: there is no hell.

“In The Gospel of Inclusion, popular spiritual leader Bishop Carlton Pearson examines the exclusionary doctrines in mainstream [that is, mainstream fundamentalist] religion and concludes that, according to the evidence of the Bible and irrefutable logic, they cannot be true. He argues that we should turn our backs on proselytizing and holy wars and focus on the real ‘good news’: that we are all bound for glory, everybody is saved, and if we believe God loves all mankind, then we have no choice but to love all mankind too.

“Pearson watched the success he had built, as heir apparent to Oral Roberts, crumble in scandal after he first preached his revelation from God nine years ago – that no loving God would condemn most of the human race to hell because they are not Christian. Instead, God belongs to no religion. The Gospel of Inclusion explores that brave and exciting new truth and tells the inspirational story of Bishop Pearson’s quest – against all odds – to spread it.”

There is much you can read online at this book’s Amazon website:

http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Inclusion-Reaching-Religious-Fundamentalism...

A lot is available by using the option Click to LOOK INSIDE. I recommend you do so in particular for the Contents, where everything underlined in blue can be read online (that is, a sampling of each topic underlined).

There are two parts available online that I especially recommend: first, the Introduction, where pp 1-6 and page 13 are available by clicking on Introduction in the Contents page; second the Afterword (Exile – A Price Worth Paying). In these two parts, Carlton Pearson tells about how he was treated by the Pentecostal leaders very soon after he began to preach about his revelation. As such, these two parts show how these leaders, fearful of anyone who dares to depart from their dogma and doctrine of fear and obedience, and thereby are a threat to their control of their church members, thus are quick to attack and reject anyone, especially one of their own, who obtains a spiritual maturity that they lack.

Something rare is given at this website, just before the Reviews section: the first six pages of Ch. 1 – What Is Inclusion? This is more than you can get by clicking on Ch. 1 on the Contents page, and I highly recommend this as well as the above.

Overall, the message of this book overlaps quite a bit with that of book 440, although book 440 shows a somewhat more polished presentation of the gospel of inclusion. But book 445 does a better job of describing the vicious response of the Pentecostal leaders to Carlton Pearson’s new found truth that being a follower of Christ is very different from being a fundamentalist Christian. Thus I also give book 445 the very high rating of five stars.