Oral Roberts Creates Media Stir With Latest Revelation by Ken Samples

By
josephylee@aol.com

Oral Roberts Creates Media Stir With Latest Revelation
DR170
Ken Samples

Oral Roberts's latest alleged revelation from God has caused a
great deal of controversy both in and out of the Christian church.
On his program "Expect a Miracle" of January 4, Roberts claimed
that unless he received $4.5 million for scholarships at Oral
Roberts University Medical School, God would take him home by
March.

According to Roberts, the money will be used to provide full
scholarships for medical missionaries who will later be sent to
Third World nations. Roberts said that in March of 1986 God
ordered him to raise $8 million for scholarships, and if he
failed in his mission "God would take him home in one year."
The televangelist said that $3.5 million has already been raised,
but urged his supporters to extend his life by providing the
remaining $4.5 million before March.

This dramatic fund raising technique is just the latest of many
peculiar revelations that have proceeded from the mouth of Oral
Roberts, including a vision of a 900-foot Jesus standing next to
his 60-story medical complex, the revelation that the Lord would
not give us a cure for cancer unless each one of us sends Oral
$240, and his statement to a group of local businessmen in Tulsa
that he was in danger of losing his soul if he did not finish his
$250 million City of Faith Medical and Research Center located
in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Roberts, 68, has been a television evangelist for more than thirty
years, and his present weekly program is carried on more than 200
stations across the country.

Following the controversial do-or-die statements by Roberts, ten
of the stations that carry the program threatened to edit any
additional comments about giving money in order to preserve
Roberts' life. The vice-president for programming of KHJ-TV Los
Angeles stated: "If he repeats his claim, it will be edited out."
The director of broadcast operations for WUSA-TV in Washington,
D.C., affirmed that they would not carry the broadcast because
it was "nothing but 30 minutes of fund raising."

In the midst of controversy concerning his claim and the dramatic
plea for funds, Roberts withdrew the television program that
started the controversy. A spokesperson for Oral Roberts
Ministries said that the televangelist literally believed he
would die if the money was not raised by March of this year. The
Oral Roberts organization also revealed that they received about
$1.6 million in donations and pledges in the two weeks following
his plea for funds.

Roberts has been unavailable for comments concerning his claim
on national television, but his son and fellow evangelist, Richard
Roberts, has appeared on several television shows in defense of
his father’s claim. In response to a criticism of his father,
Richard Roberts said, "These people think we're out of our minds.
Well, we are out of our minds—and into our spirits."

Individuals who attended a morning chapel service in April of
1986 stated that Roberts informed those in attendance that God
told him he would die if he did not succeed in sending out
missionaries by the end of 1986.

In the midst of controversy concerning his claim and the variation
in dates, Roberts recently stated that the devil appeared in his
home and began choking him, and that he was rescued only when his
wife entered the room and rebuked the devil. Christian criticisms
of Roberts's revelation were succinctly summarized in a Tulsa
Tribune editorial which stated that Roberts's depiction of a
"petty, vengeful or idiotic God" is "close to sacrilege."
— Ken Samples

www.equip.org
Christian Research Institute
USA