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January 26, 2000
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Evangelist uses gospel to forge racial harmony
> D M KIBl 1 >1) M UtO
t o n rH t. P o H I I A S U O H s m S EH
Evangelist’s third “ Live At Azusa”
album brings bigger message than
the music.
Since his early days as an Oral Roberts
University World Action Singer, the
evangelist BishopCarlton Pearson's
m ission has been to eradicate racism
from Christianity. His annual Azusa
conference has become an interracial
m agnet for thousands o f pastors and
church leaders to obtain spiritual
rejuvenation. As a result, Pearson
has becom e a pastor to pastors.
Someone they can talk to when they
need counsel, in fact, Pearson is the
p re sid in g bishop to o v er 600
churches throughout the U.S.
For years, Pearson has quietly
nurtured budding ministries. Among
the scores o f leaders Pearson has
counseled is Bishop T.D. Jakes.
When he was an unknown preacher
from West Virginia, Pearson had Jakes
speak at the Azusa conference. His
“ B ehind Closed D oors” sermon
riveted the crowd. Pearson aired
J a k e s ’ se rm o n on h is T rin ity
Broadcasting Network (TBN) TV
show and Jakes started to get offers
to speak around the country. “We
encouraged him to go on television
and we helped edit his first television
programs,” he recalls. “When I went
o ff TBN the very spot I had at 3:00
p.m., T.D. Jakes bought my time and
he took off.”
O f course, every shepherd’s advice
is not heeded. He politely warned
PTL founder Jim Bakerto“liveclean”
a year before the 1986 PTL scandal,
but Baker ignored his premonition.
“The FBI and the IRS are monitoring
big ministries that have not been
sc ru p u lo u s in th e ir fin a n c ia l
dealings," he say s.T v e been warning
the brethren to dot every I and cross
every T and to live clean because
when it hits, it hits. “Most others
solicit and heed Person’s advice.
Charisma magazine publisher Stev en
Strang sought Pearson’s advice on
his starting a black Christian lifestyle
magazine. Person’s advice was to
in teg rate blacks into C harism a
instead o f segregating them to their
won m agazine. “ He did w hat I
suggested and I recently wrote him a
L.
Bishop Carlton Pearson
thank you note because there’s not
an issue o f Charisma that doesn’t
have some black story in it, “he says.
“My stance all along has been to
expose the body o f Christ to itself.”
Returning to the subject o f Azusa,
Pearson reflect. “I started mixing the
speaker line-up at Azusa to further
expose people to men and women o f
God they w ould not ordinarily
gravitate to. We pulled in a James
Robinson oranR .W . Shamback,and
paired them with a Richard Henton or
an Ernestine Cleveland Reems. For
the music, we had Michael English
and CeCe Winans trying to integrate
the body o f Christ.”
P earson’s successful “Live at
A zusa” album s grew out o f the
co nference w orship experience.
Atlantic Records just released the
current Live at Azusa 3: Reminding
the Saints o f the Hope which features
guest appearances by Fred Hammond
on “Jesus Be A Fence,” Marvin
Winans on “Just A Closer Walk With
Thee” and Beverly Crawford on “He
Lives” among several others. “On
the last album the songs that went
over were old church songs lik e' Bye
and Bye’ that I opened with the
Mother Sherman story.
I didn’t think the label was going to
leave that story in. I just told it to
introduce the song. And that was the
song that went over, not the studio-
crafted songs.
The inspired songs were the ones
that I loved for years. A large portion
o f our church is non-black and never
hears those songs, but there would
always be an awesome sentimental
anointing on those songs when ever
I’d tear into them. People were crying,
1 would start crying. These old songs
are the ones that really seemed to
touch people the most and they
helped te a r dow n those racial
divisions that often separate us. They
also remind us o f the hope. I felt those
old songs gave us a sense o f stability
and a sense o f security and safe
keeping because that’s what kept us
through the Jim Crow lines, civil rights
riots and the assassinations o f Dr.
King and President Kennedy in the
sixties.”
P earso n ’s advocacy o f racial
reconciliation grows out o f the social
urgency he heard in those old songs
when he was growing up. He’s not
just about singing, but using the
music to bridge communities. When
President Clinton and the Reverend
Billy Graham went to Oklahoma to
comfort the community where the
bombing took place, Bishop Pearson
was right there with them. He knew
the bombing was fueled by hatred o f
some sort and as one o f the leading
pastors in the state, he was there to
lend a shoulder. As a black man,
Pearson has also taken positions that
have put him at odds with some black
leadershipliketheNation oflslam. He
was adamantly opposed to the Million
Man march because he felt it polarized
black and white men. When tele
evangelists recently called the murder
rampage that killed several people at
a Baptist church in Ft. Worth Texas
the latest in a rising tide o f “anti-
C h ristia n ” vigilantism , Pearson
su g g e ste d th at F u n d a m e n ta list
churches have alienated themselves
from the community with their self-
righteousness. “This is a time to reach
out, not kick out” Pearson says o f
F u n d a m e n ta lis ts ’
o stra c ism
philosophy.
Pearson trumpets the hom o f racial
h arm o n y b e c a u se th e B ible
commands him to, but also because
he feels the church should be an
active participant in making lives a
little happier. “The one thing the
church has emphasized is saving o f
souls,” he says, “but w e’ve neglected
saving o f lives, we want to get
everybody into heaven and let them
live in hell on earth. I want to change
that.”
The three ingredients
to understanding life
Truly understanding the world around you is fundamental to achieving
real happiness and a sense o f well being. The idea o f understanding is
endlessly written about, spoken about, insisted upon, yet it seems that
nowhere in all the discussion is understanding itself defined in such a
way as to enable us to exercise and apply it with any consistency or real
effectiveness.
A genuine understanding o f personal relationships in the workplace,
for example, will make ones job a pleasure. Absence o f understanding,
on the other hand, often leads only to turmoil, rebuke and public
embarrassment, to say nothing o f the loss o f one’s job and career.
An understanding o f children (and parents) will make the difference
between a successful and a failed family relationship.
Have you ever tried to talk with an angry man? O r a child throwing a
tantrum? What do you do when you are forced to work with someone
you simply don’t like? How do you deal with a situation in which the other
person just doesn’t see what to you is a very obvious solution to
handling a problem?
Knowing the basic ingredients or elements o f understanding will
greatly assist interpersonal relationships.
What are these ingredients?
The first is Affinity - the degree o f liking or affection for someone or
something or the lack o f it.
The second is Reality - which, fundamentally, is agreement.
The third, and most important, is Communication - the interchange, o f
ideas between two people.
These elements - Affinity, Reality and Communication -com prise what
is called the ARC triangle and add up to understanding.
They are interdependent, one upon the other, and if one falls away the
other two do so as well. Conversely, when one element rises, the other
two rise with it.
Discovered by famed author L. Ron Hubbard, the ARC Triangle has
many indispensable applications in improving one’s condition in life. It
answers the universal question o f how to talk effectively to someone
else: by applying the techniques of the triangle to identify a subject on
which you and the other person can agree (Reality), affinity (liking) will
increase and Communication (interchange) will improve as well.
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