Bishop Carlton Pearson: Pentecostalism, Radical Inclusion, Black Theology, and the Study of Religion

The late Bishop Carlton Pearson was an extraordinary religious figure by almost any measure.This roundtable will consider how Bishop Pearson as a sonic and visual performative figure transgressed racial boundaries; how Pearson’s embrace of universal salvation might be situated within the Black radical tradition, and perform a type of Black radical constructive theology and liberative praxis more readily associated with Black, Womanist and Queer theologies; how Pearson’s Pentecostal consideration of Black suffering sparked the largest and most widespread theological rebuke of his ministry via the Joint College of African American Pentecostal Bishops suggesting Pentecostalism’s reliance on Black suffering for forms of order, theological normativity, and respectability; and finally, how Pearson mastered media performances of piety, even in death.