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In this June 2003 file photo, TV evangelists, from left: Billy Joe Daugherty; Gloria Copeland; Kenneth Copeland; Charles Green; Richard Roberts; and Lindsay Roberts lay hands on Oral Roberts, 85, during the International Charismatic Bible Ministries conference in the Mabee Center at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla. Evangelist Oral Roberts, who rose from tent revivals to found a multimillion-dollar organization and an Oklahoma university bearing his name, died today. He was 91. (AP Photo/Tulsa World, Kelly Kerr, file)
Question: What will be evangelist Oral Roberts’ legacy?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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Phaedrus on December 15 at 2:10 p.m.
Hucksters one and all!
thebobbob on December 15 at 2:14 p.m.
The evil that this man spawned in the name of The Lord! The modern Evangelical is as un-American as the Taliban. Shame!
Fishwife on December 15 at 2:24 p.m.
Scandal brewing at Oral Roberts University
TULSA (AP) — 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 non-academic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cellphones to people described in the lawsuit as “underage males.”
moscow_minidoka on December 15 at 2:26 p.m.
Con artist. Nothing holy about him.
Charlie on December 15 at 2:28 p.m.
Wasn’t it a few years ago that Oral Roberts told his congregation that the Lord would call him home if they didn’t raise millions for ORU.
Smacky on December 15 at 2:37 p.m.
Legacy? The diminishment of the Christian faith.
spokelooneh on December 15 at 2:51 p.m.
“The family requests that memorial donations be made to the Oral Roberts Ministry Healing Missions Fund, Oral Roberts Ministries, P.O. 2187, Tulsa, Okla. 74102, or online at www.OralRoberts.com.”
Still at it.
Sisyphus on December 15 at 2:53 p.m.
Oral discusses sex. A classic. Not for the squeamish, children or work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKM2p8NLv1w&feature=related
So glad he cleared that up. I can’t imagine the venue for this sermon but I do appreciate him taking the bull by the horns, so to speak.
Fixer on December 15 at 2:56 p.m.
I thought there was a 500-foot Jesus telling him to raise money or get “called home.” Or am I thinking of some other schmuck?
moscow_minidoka on December 15 at 3:08 p.m.
Well, I’ll be sending my memorial donation to the foundation started by his lesser-known brother, the Anal Roberts Ministry for the Advancement of Kinky Sexual Practices.
ejs on December 15 at 4:08 p.m.
Criminal
hmoffsuite on December 15 at 4:08 p.m.
Legacy? Didn’t Oral Roberts U make it into the ncaa bb tourney last year?
notright on December 15 at 4:31 p.m.
Knowing poor people who donated to his ‘cause’, I was stunned to see (some 40 years ago) that his holdings were outright ostentatious which confirmed that he and his ilk were/are golden fleecers committed to taking the cream and leaving the brimstone for the ‘unworthy’.
Cabbage Boy on December 15 at 4:39 p.m.
Man if this thread were about Teddy Kennedy, Michael Jackson or some other popstar, there would be outrage at the comments.
RIP Roberts, hope you made peace with your Father.
Just as with the others, I don’t think he was an honorable man. But I wasn’t at his last confession and can’t know his heart. So I will pray for his soul.
Charles_Dixon on December 15 at 4:53 p.m.
Good point, CB. Oral Roberts had as much legitimatcy to those who believed in him and what he did as Ted Kennedy did.
Arpie on December 15 at 7:18 p.m.
In my circle he’ll be remembered as the punchline to the joke, “What do you call two gay guys named Bob?”
spokelooneh on December 15 at 8:01 p.m.
He fleeced mostly good, kind-hearted believers in Christ, by preying on their guilt and good faith while using these peoples’ money to vastly enrich himself and his family, including building enormous monuments and buildings painted with gold flecked paint. Christ is indeed all loving and forgiving, but given this huckster’s evil behavior very much in the public eye, we, the public, need not grant any sort of forgiveness for this “preacher’s” vast number of sins, especially absent any apology and sign of remorse.
Would that all that money he scammed had stayed in our local churches and communities, helping out our poor, hungry, and downtrodden.
wheels on December 16 at 9:38 a.m.
Elmer Gantry comes to mind.
Smacky on December 16 at 9:49 a.m.
CB and Charles, can you look at any possible issue without making it a political argument? …making my a@@ tired…
IdoDave on December 16 at 12:17 p.m.
Oral Roberts and his kind have done more damage to the reputation of organized religion than the Spanish Inquisition. They are the reason that Christianity is viewed worldwide as intolerant, ignorant and bigoted. RIP Oral. I hope you got yor facts straight now.