Oral Roberts

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Oral Roberts
Born	January 24, 1918
Occupation	Evangelist
Spouse	Evelyn Roberts
Children	Richard Roberts, Rebecca Nash, Ronald Roberts, and Roberta Potts

This article is about Oral Roberts, the Christian televangelist. For the university bearing his name, see Oral Roberts University.

Granville Oral Roberts (born January 24, 1918) is an American neo-Pentecostal televangelist. He is also a leader in the charismatic movement and a former faith healer.

1 Early life
2 Later life
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Early life

God's Formula for Success and Prosperity by Oral Roberts, 1956. Roberts is pictured immediately below the title.

Roberts was born in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, as Granville "Oral" Roberts, the fifth and youngest child of the Rev. Ellis M. and Claudia Roberts. His mother was one-quarter Cherokee.

He left high school and his further education consists of about two years of college study in Bible schools in Oklahoma on a part-time basis. In 1938, he married a preacher's daughter, Evelyn Lutman Fahnestock.[1] Their marriage lasted 66 years until her death on May 4, 2005. During their life together, they expanded his ministry from preaching in tents to preaching on the radio. Roberts eventually made his way onto television and attracted a vast viewership. Further, he has written more than 120 books such as Miracle of Seed-Faith and his autobiography, Expect a Miracle.

[edit] Later life

The Praying Hands, on the ORU campus in Tulsa, OK.

In 1947 Roberts resigned his pastoral ministry with the Pentecostal Holiness Church to found Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association. He has conducted more than 300 evangelistic and healing crusades on six continents and has appeared as a guest speaker for hundreds of national and international meetings and conventions. He later founded Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1963, stating he was obeying a command from God. The University was chartered in 1963 and received its first students in 1965. Students were required to sign an honor code pledging not to drink, smoke, dance, party, or engage in premarital sex.

Another part of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association is the Abundant Life Prayer Group, which operates day and night. The group receives thousands of calls for prayer daily from around the world.

In 1980, Roberts said he had a vision of a 900-foot-tall Jesus who encouraged him to continue the construction of his City of Faith Medical and Research Center, which opened in 1981. At the time, it was the among largest health facilities of its kind in the world and sought to merge prayer and medicine in the healing process. The City of Faith was in operation for only eight years before closing in late 1989. The Orthopedic Hospital of Oklahoma still operates on its premises.

Roberts' eldest son, Ronald, committed suicide in June 1982 at the age of 37 after getting a court order to get counseling at a drug treatment center in February.^[1]

In 1987, during a fund raising drive, Roberts announced to a television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would "call him home" (a euphemism for death).^[2] Some were fearful that he was referring to suicide given the passionate pleas and tear that accompanied his statement. He raised $9.1 million.^{[citation needed]} Later that year, he announced that God had raised the dead through Roberts' ministry.^[3] TIME carried this article in their July 13, 1987 issue and included testimony by his son, Richard Roberts, who claimed that he had seen his father raise a child from the dead. That year, the Bloom County comic strip recast its character, Bill the Cat as a satirized televangelist, "Fundamentally Oral Bill".

In a 2004 television broadcast of Benny Hinn's This Is Your Day!, the elder Roberts claimed to have experienced a vision in which "A dark cloud surrounded New York," purportedly a "wake up call" to tell people that Christ's return is soon.^{[citation needed]}

On May 4, 2005 Roberts' wife, Evelyn, of 66 years died.^[4]

[edit] References

^ "Oral Roberts's Son, 37, Found Shot Dead in Car", New York Times, June 10, 1982. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
^ Randi, James (1989), The Faith Healers, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-369-2 and ISBN 0-87975-535-0 pages 186
^ Randi, James (1989), The Faith Healers, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-369-2 and ISBN 0-87975-535-0 pages 192
^ "Oral Roberts: Founder of ORU", Oral Roberts University, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-01-04.

[edit] External links

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