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Oral Roberts leaves a complex legacy

Catz Part Deux

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Evangelist Oral Roberts leaves a complex legacy

Oral Roberts University was the fulfillment of one of Roberts' greatest ambitions, founded in 1963 at a time when Pentecostals "were considered to be ignorant hillbillies," Synan said. The school boasted a world-class faculty, mandatory chapel attendance, body-fat measurements and citations for public displays of affection. Students still sign an honor code pledging not to lie, steal, curse, drink or smoke.

The campus is a landmark, with its spaceship-like steel and glass prayer tower and 60-foot bronze sculpture of praying hands, modeled on Roberts' own. Alumni include prosperity preacher Kenneth Copeland, Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and fallen evangelical leader Ted Haggard.

Roberts' career also was marked by failures and embarrassments.

He said he felt called to an enormous hospital complex that was to marry prayer and medicine, anchored by a 60-story tower. The project collapsed in the late 1980s and left the school with staggering debt.

Then there was Roberts' widely ridiculed proclamation that God would "call me home" if he failed to meet a fundraising goal of $8 million.

The school is recovering from a more recent setback — the 2007 resignation of Roberts' son, Richard, as ORU president after he was accused of using university money on spending sprees and other luxuries.

More on Roberts...

Roberts' fundraising was controversial. In January 1987, during a fundraising drive, Roberts announced to a television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would "call him home."[13][14] Some were fearful that he was referring to suicide, given the impassioned pleas and tears that accompanied his statement. He raised $9.1 million.[15] Later that year, he announced that God had raised the dead through Roberts' ministry.[16] Some of Roberts' fundraising letters were written by Gene Ewing, who heads a business writing donation letters for other evangelicals such as Don Stewart and Robert Tilton.[17]


He stirred up controversy when Time reported in 1987 that his son Richard Roberts claimed that he had seen his father raise a child from the dead.[18] That year, the Bloom County comic strip recast its character Bill the Cat as a satirized televangelist, "Fundamentally Oral Bill." In 1987 Time stated that he was "re-emphasizing faith healing and [is] reaching for his old-time constituency."[18] However, his income continued to decrease (from $88 million in 1980 to $55 million in 1986, according to the Tulsa Tribune) and his largely vacant City of Faith Medical Center continued to lose money.[18]
Harry McNevin said that in 1988 the ORU Board of Regents "rubber-stamped" the "use of millions in endowment money to buy a Beverly Hills property so that Oral Roberts could have a West Coast office and house."[19] In addition, he said a country club membership was purchased for the Robertses' home. The lavish expenses led to McNevin's resignation from the Board.

Richard Roberts resigned from the presidency of ORU on November 23, 2007 after being named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging improper use of university funds for political and personal purposes, and improper use of university resources.[20][21] The university was given a donation of $8 million by entrepreneur Mart Green, and although the lawsuit is still in process, the school has submitted to an outside audit, and with a good report will be given an additional $62 million by Green. [22] Oral Roberts announced he would return to once again help fulfill his administrative role along with Billy Joe Daugherty, who was named as the executive regent to assume administrative responsibilities of the Office of the President by the ORU Board of Regents.[23]

Roberts' daughter Rebecca Nash died in an airplane crash on February 11, 1977 with her husband, businessman Marshall Nash.[24] Roberts' eldest son Ronald committed suicide in June 1982, five months after receiving a court order to undergo counseling at a drug treatment center.[25] The other two Roberts children are still living: son Richard, a well-known evangelist and former president of Oral Roberts University (ORU), and daughter Roberta Potts, an attorney.

The guy was an asshole who preyed on the weak-minded to raise millions of dollars. If there is a hell, he's in it.
 
I'll never forget that appeal to raise the money for his university. It made him a laughing stock. He may have been sincere, but I think he was a mass manipulator. A rabid anti-Catholic too, I hear.

NPR had a good interview of Pat Robertson yesterday about the passing of Oral Roberts. He indicated that Roberts regreted that ridiculous appeal. Here's a link to the transcript of the interview which you can also listen too.

Pat Robertson Remembers Evangelist Oral Roberts : NPR
 
Some of my opinions about Oral:

Thief. Liar. Manipulator. Spreader of Hate. Con-man. Sheister. Scum.

I believe there was surely some rejoicing when that took place when Kennedy died and there will be even more when Byrd and especially Obama go, but I don't believe it is something normal civilized people should be doing.

Oral Roberts became a joke and his failings were many as are the failings of every man and the party of hate would do well to respect the dead no matter how much the hated him for believing in God.

I have precisely as much respect for Oral Roberts as I did for Ted Kennedy, which is to say, ZERO. Dead people are entitled to the respect they earned by their deeds. In the case of Oral Roberts, he made God a laughingstock and corrupted the faith into "send your money to me and God will heal you and make you rich." Screw that.
 
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The guy was an asshole who preyed on the weak-minded to raise millions of dollars. If there is a hell, he's in it.

Lots of people prey on the stupid. I think for the most part, people deserve it for being stupid. But it doesn't remove the fact that the guy is an asshole. I suppose he should be thanking his lucky stars that there is no afterlife. I'm sure hell would suck.
 
Senator Kennedy is not allowed in hell....he's too flammable.
 
Did he smite heathens at the speed of Jesus?
 
Some of my opinions about Oral:

Thief. Liar. Manipulator. Spreader of Hate. Con-man. Sheister. Scum.


Works for Michael Moore, most of Congress... Pelosi, Reid, Barney Frank... I'm looking forward to the thread just like this one when they buy the farm.
 
Oral Roberts died?

Thank god!
 
Oral Roberts died?

Thank god!

That's the opposite of what god said

God: "Oral Roberts died.....****! He's not coming here, is he?"
 
Evangelist Oral Roberts leaves a complex legacy



More on Roberts...



The guy was an asshole who preyed on the weak-minded to raise millions of dollars. If there is a hell, he's in it.

While I have no place or right to judge the man (this is God's place), he did prey on those who were gullible and stupid. What amazes me is his university is still running. Why would people go there?
 
I'll never forget that appeal to raise the money for his university. It made him a laughing stock. He may have been sincere, but I think he was a mass manipulator. A rabid anti-Catholic too, I hear.

NPR had a good interview of Pat Robertson yesterday about the passing of Oral Roberts. He indicated that Roberts regreted that ridiculous appeal. Here's a link to the transcript of the interview which you can also listen too.

Pat Robertson Remembers Evangelist Oral Roberts : NPR

You always make sure you keep your hand on your wallet when you're around a preacher.
 
Works for Michael Moore, most of Congress... Pelosi, Reid, Barney Frank... I'm looking forward to the thread just like this one when they buy the farm.

Can't come soon enough, either.
 
While it is probably pointless, I'd like to interject a Christian perspective here.

Many of us (myself and my pastor, to name two) long considered Oral Roberts to be a person who was, at best, theologically dubious and overly flamboyant... or at worst, a embarassing con-man masquerading as a man of God.

God will judge him, not me... but I would hope that reasonable people will not generalize and assume that Oral Roberts' more questionable antics were/are representative of Christianity as a whole, or even of Evangelicals as a whole.

There are many thousands of Christian ministers who live simple humble lives, often serving as a pastor of a small church while working a regular full-time job to make ends meet for their family, and never appear on TV or make the news. They are not flamboyant and colorful, but when one of their members is sick they visit them in the hospital. They aren't famous or wealthy, but they are always there to comfort a family who has lost a loved one. They may never say a word about politics but always have a word of comfort for someone who needs it.

I regret that the many who serve faithfully and quietly are largely overlooked in favor of the flamboyant and controversial.
 
Evangelist Oral Roberts leaves a complex legacy



More on Roberts...



The guy was an asshole who preyed on the weak-minded to raise millions of dollars. If there is a hell, he's in it.

I think these tv preachers are nothing more than con men they are just as worse as the scum who prey on the elderly. He basically told his congregation/tv viewers that God was going to kill him if he didn't raise 8 million dollars and those fools bought it and gave him 8 million dollars.Jesus didn't own a mule but for some reason Oral Roberts needed millions of dollars. He is like those circus clowns on TBN with that woman who looks like she took make-up and hair tips from Tammy Baker or a six year old.
 
One of my distant relatives was THE ONE that inducted Oral Roberts into the carnival preacher biz. My branch of the family leans strongly toward cynicism about those type of preachers.
 
All I have to say on this subject:


**** these tel-evangelists. Oral Roberts and all those who claim that I need to give them money, or give them support, or even notice they exist in order to reach my God can burn in Hell.
 
what a brilliant country you have, a university of Oral, we have one that was called the Central University of Newcastle upon Tyne or CUN.............:)

Ps Tuckers brother in law is a well known ex Cun...........:)
 
I hope his brother Anal Roberts croaks next. :lol:
 
While I have no place or right to judge the man (this is God's place), he did prey on those who were gullible and stupid. What amazes me is his university is still running. Why would people go there?

Having a friend who was forced to go their by his parents, I can tell you that very few students probably go there by personal choice.
 
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