Like father like son.
Twenty years ago Oral Roberts claimed God told him to raise $8 million or he would be “called home.” (It’s believed he didn’t, and wasn’t). Now his son, in charge of Oral Roberts University also has a hotline to the Big Guy who apparently advised him how to address allegations of serious financial wrongdoing with donations.
All I get from God is the occasional head-shake or giggle. Never have I received legal advice or death threats involving money. Go figure.
Scandal Brewing at Oral Roberts U.
Twenty years ago, televangelist Oral Roberts said he was reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise $8 million for Roberts’ university, or else he would be “called home.”
Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.
Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors’ expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter’s senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.
She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as “underage males.”
At a chapel service this week on the 5,300-student campus known for its 60-foot-tall bronze sculpture of praying hands, Roberts said God told him: “We live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit against another person whether they have a legitimate case or not. This lawsuit … is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion.”
While the allegations don’t involve having a wide-stance in the bathroom or trolling for men in a park restroom, they do include:
• A longtime maintenance employee was fired so that an underage male friend of Mrs. Roberts could have his position.
• Mrs. Roberts — who is a member of the board of regents and is referred to as ORU’s “first lady” on the university’s Web site — frequently had cell-phone bills of more than $800 per month, with hundreds of text messages sent between 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to “underage males who had been provided phones at university expense.”
• The university jet was used to take one daughter and several friends on a senior trip to Orlando, Fla., and the Bahamas. The $29,411 trip was billed to the ministry as an “evangelistic function of the president.”
• Mrs. Roberts spent more than $39,000 at one Chico’s clothing store alone in less than a year, and had other accounts in Texas and California. She also repeatedly said, “As long as I wear it once on TV, we can charge it off.” The document cites inconsistencies in clothing purchases and actual usage on TV.
• Mrs. Roberts was given a white Lexus SUV and a red Mercedes convertible by ministry donors.
• University and ministry employees are regularly summoned to the Roberts’ home to do the daughters’ homework.
• The university and ministry maintain a stable of horses for exclusive use by the Roberts’ children.
• The Roberts’ home has been remodeled 11 times in the past 14 years.
I think that Richard Roberts might be Democrat presidential material. After all – Hilly the Hun channels Eleanor Roosevelt and the MSM laps it up.
Hmmm…it makes me think that a vow of poverty, celibacy and obedience might’ve done this fellow some good.
I used to watch him on TV many Sundays [singing with his first wife Patti]:
“Something good is going to happen to you, happen to you, this very day. Something good is going to happen to you. Jesus of Nazareth is passing your way.”
[Yeah, Jesus, and a Mercedes and a new SUV!–ed.]
Big money makes BIG problems. Jim Jeffords (?) may get a cell mate.
Tammy, don’t forget about the elder Roberts’ seeing a 900 ft. tall Jesus in 1977, who told Roberts that his City of Faith Hospital would be successful. The fact that 10 years later the hospital closed, somehow wasn’t on the Lord’s radar.
Scandal and ORU are synonymous terms. Both Oral and son Richard are generally considered entertainers round here in Oklahoma.
Here is a website which says that indeed, Oral did raise his 8 million, and then some by March, 1987. And there, look down to the section “False Prophies and Outrageous Claims”. It’s a wonder, known only the the Almighty, how this bunch lives with themselves.
These people are unreal. The Roberts’ were really one of the pioneers in the commercialization of Christ – creating a more entertaining Jesus, I guess. The article really says it all and it has become a repetitive story in the lives of the celebrity televangelists.
What really angers me is that Roberts, Robertson, Swaggart, etc. have built fortunes for doing something Jesus and his disciples did for free – and frankly, I think Jesus’ word is much different than the aforementioned, but what do I know? Jesus didn’t charge admission to speak to people, and he encouraged the most desperate, sickly and down-trodden to come to Him whereas Roberts & co. would worry more about their status and getting dirty.
I don’t recall Jesus riding around in the coolest chariot or donning fancy threads in the Bible, either. He didn’t have a huge church from which to operate w/ state-of-the-art sound systems, plush pews, dancing & performing twenty-somethings, and all the fine trimmings from some bucks piling up in a Sunday tray and from public pleas. And Jesus didn’t go to the public saying his Father was going to allow Him to be nailed to a cross if He didn’t raise 8 million by midnight.
What Roberts’ & the others have done is contribute to the fracturing of the church and made a joke out of faith. Don’t get me wrong: I know there are good people in churches reaching out in very loving ways to others in need. But I also know much that goes on in churches has little to do with Christ. It becomes a haven for group-think, preaching to the converted and pettiness. Churches once took care of the sick and poor, ministered to the addict and prostitute, cared for orphans and provided shelter for the abused and forgotten. It would be interesting to know if many of the societal ills we face today would be greatly diminished or eliminated if churches were serving their true purpose.
And if Roberts was really doing the work of God, he would not have an empire from which his wife could have a selection of underage males to communicate with. Think of all the people in this country alone who could benefit from what Roberts has squandered. But then again, I’m sure God told Roberts to buy his wife those cars, fly his daughter around and to get 30 coats of many colors.
OK, is it wrong for me to post this? I think it’s funny and it’s an old joke that I heard probably 20 years ago, but it’s appropriate here… if you don’t like it or find it funny, please feel free to delete.
So, what do you call two gays named ‘Bob’?
Oral Roberts, of course…
I would like to think the majority of televangelists start out with good intentions…but the money and power overcome them. As a Christian myself, while I can understand that they are human and suffer from temptation, I am disappointed that they don’t have other leaders holding them more accountable. I myself rarely ever watch a televangelist and fear that they, and the “Fundies†that show up at the Gay Pride Parades, do much more harm then good.
Unfortunately, most people see them and think that is Christianity. There is a whole new movement that’s been going on for years (over 10 at least) that change what I knew about Christianity as a kid – back then it seemed to be about the “Fear†of the Lord – but we now know that Christ is about Love! All the Churches I’ve been going to in my last 8 years being back in the Christian fold talk now about the LOVE of God! Good Christians that finally understand the bible – love Gays and everyone else! It isn’t about money – or turning to God to save one’s self from the wrath – or even about not sinning (the “best†Christians are sinners like everyone else).
I’m afraid that the little I see of the televangelists does not really express that.