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Becker Bible Studies LibraryOral RobertsAn American Pentecostal Christian televangelist |
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Denomination History, Practices and Beliefs IntroductionOral Roberts is an American Pentecostal Christian televangelist and is considered to be part of the Charismatic movement. There were many throughout the world who considered Oral Roberts to be a prophet of God in spite of the fact that the ministry of Oral Roberts has been controversial and stormy. Oral Roberts is probably best known of his religious healing ministry who became one of the leaders of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. Oral Roberts and his family came from the Holiness Movement out of Oklahoma. He was a product that came from the Latter Rain Pentecostal movement of the late 1940’s, and was a well known faith healer. Oral Roberts resigned his pastoral ministry and founded the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association in 1947. He has conducted evangelistic and healing crusades on six continents and appeared as a guest speaker for many international meetings and conventions. Oral Roberts claimed many different communications and visions from God. He started the Hour of Healing, and by 1955 ,he was carried on over 250 different radio stations and beginning to use television in his ministry. He founded the Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1963. Roberts claimed Jesus told him to construct the City of Faith Medical and Research Center in 1980. He has wanted to merge prayer and medicine in the healing process. Roberts claimed God would call him home if he didn’t raise eight million dollars to keep the Medical Research Center going in 1987. It closed in 1989, and Roberts is still alive on earth today. History Oral Roberts was born in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, January 24, 1918. His given name was Granville “Oral” Roberts. He was the youngest of five children born to Reverend Ellis M. Roberts. The Roberts family was part of the Holiness Movement that swept through Oklahoma. Oral Roberts attended Bible schools in Oklahoma on a part time basis for two years, after leaving high school. He was married to Evelyn Lutman Fahnestock, who was a daughter of a Pentecostal preacher in 1933. They met while both played guitars and sang at a camp meeting. Evelyn was a school teacher. They both set their goals to escape poverty and they both resented poverty. Oral Roberts was a product of the Latter Rain Pentecostal Movement in the 1940’s. He conducted his Pentecostal revivals from a huge circus tent in the 1940’s emphasizing having faith in Jesus through performing miracles and gifts of healing, discernment of spirits and speaking in tongues. Oral Roberts claimed he had talked with God, he had raised people from the dead, and had visions of Jesus. He claimed people could be healed by touching their injured body part to the television. Roberts claimed his healing powers came directly from God. He claimed he could feel the power of God surging through his right arm and that was the reason he used his right arm to heal. Oral Roberts claims his “awakening” came in 1947 because of lack of enthusiasm from the congregation he was leading in Enid, Oklahoma. Oral Roberts prayed and believed God answered his prayer by directing him to 3 John 2. He believed the revelation God gave him was that he must prosper and be in health. Roberts believes the proof came because he bought a new car, a Buick, which to the Roberts, was a symbol what a man could do if he believed in God. The second revelation from God to Oral Roberts came about a month after the first. This time he claimed to have heard the voice of God. Oral Roberts was praying for direction to his ministry in his church study when the voice told him to get into his car and drive home and concentrate his ministry on healing. Roberts claimed the voice told him that he would have the power to pray for the sick and cast out devils. The first healing service in his church was on a Sunday afternoon in April 1947 and he healed a woman whose hand was crippled for many years. Oral Roberts resigned his pastoral ministry to establish the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association in June of 1947. His fame grew and by 1949 Oral Roberts started a series of radio programs. He started his prayer cloth mailings at the same time. The prayer cloths had an imprinted message stating that Roberts prayed over these pieces of cloths for God to deliver the healing. The advertised use of the cloth was that person receiving the cloth could use it more than once and on even more than one person for healing. The cloth was to be used as a point of contact for the body. Oral Roberts praised such faith healers as Jack Coe, calling him a man of faith just before Jack Coe was exposed as a phony. Oral Roberts was traveling the country with huge tent revivals spreading his healing ministry and his Evangelistic Association in 1950. His ministry gained legitimacy and respectability with the endorsement of Billy Graham. Billy Graham had asked Oral Roberts to join him on his ministry platform. When Oral Roberts opened his Oral Roberts University in 1965 Billy Graham sent a letter of congratulations to Roberts as well as an invitation to Roberts to be at the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin. Billy Graham had wanted Roberts to lead prayer before one of the plenary sessions of the Congress. Billy also spoke at the Oral Roberts University. It was with the help and friendship of Billy Graham that lessened the tension between the Charismatic movement and the Evangelicals. It helped to spread the Charismatic movement into the main stream churches that brought an acceptance to the Pentecostal experience of speaking in tongues. Oral Roberts founded the Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1963. The Oral Roberts University is a charismatic University that was founded in the fires of the evangelism and is founded on the unchanging precepts of the Bible. The University was founded because Roberts claims it was a mandate from God and the Holy Spirit. Roberts claims God told him to rise up students to hear the voice of God and to know the healing power of God. Oral Roberts University received its first students in 1965. Oral Roberts opened his City of Faith Medical and Research Center in 1981 after he claimed to have a vision of a 900 foot-tall Jesus telling him to construct it. It included three skyscrapers and is the second tallest building in Oklahoma. Roberts wanted to merge prayer and medicine in the healing process. The City of Faith closed in 1989. Taking the teaching from the Latter Rain about signs and wonders, Oral Roberts and Benny Hinn worked together to form the International Charismatic Bible Ministries in 1986. Their slogan has been “Love and Unity through Signs and Wonders” in June 2000. The International Charismatic Bible Ministries conducts leadership conferences of charismatic leaders. Oral Roberts announced in 1987 he was told by God he had to raise eight million dollars by March or God would call him home. It was the same year Roberts claimed God had raised the dead through his ministry. The Time Magazine carried the article in their July 13, 1987 issue. Oral Roberts shared a vision with Benny Hinn’s “This Is Your Day!” television broadcast claiming to have had a vision of a dark cloud surrounding New York in 2004 and claiming it was a wake up call to tell people about the prompt return of Christ. There were many tragedies that hit the Oral Roberts family. In 1977 his daughter Rebecca and her husband Marshall Nash were killed in an airplane crash. Oral Roberts had groomed his son Richard and his daughter-in-law Patti to take over the ministry, but they were divorced in 1979. His oldest son Ronnie committed suicide in 1982. His tenth grandchild died two days after birth in 1984. He was the son of Richard and his second wife Lindsay and they were going to name the baby after Oral. The baby was having difficulty breathing and the Roberts family held a prayer vigil over the baby praying for healing for over thirty hours. Richard Oral Roberts finally died on January 19, 1984. Because of the death of his grandson, Oral Roberts announced the addition of an obstetrics unite in the City of Faith Medical Center in memory of Richard Oral Roberts. Claims made by Oral Roberts There have been many claims made by Oral Roberts that have been controversial at best and down right false at worse. Here are a few that he has made and documented... The City of Faith was claimed by Oral Roberts to be a vision from God in 1977. The City of Faith opened in 1981. Oral Roberts claimed to have seen a 900 foot tall Jesus who told him that the vision of the hospital would soon be a success. The City of Faith closed in 1989. Roberts claimed Jesus had appeared to him in person to commission him to find a cure for cancer in 1983. July 1984 Oral Roberts announced that Jesus had again visited him and gave him an angel of the Lord to bring the poor, needy and the sick to the City of Faith. Roberts claims to have been instructed by Jesus to open the hospital to indigent patients. Roberts claimed God had told him He wanted to use the Oral Roberts University medical school to make His medical presence in earth. Roberts claimed God told him in 1986 that he was to get this ministry going in one year, and it would cost eight million dollars. He says God told him he was to believe he could raise the money, or God was going to call him home in March of 1987. The money was to be used to provide full scholarships for medical missionaries who would be sent to Third World countries. This was made January 4, 1987 on his television program “Expect a Miracle”. Roberts claimed he had raised 3.5 million dollars and he only needed 4.5 million more before March 1, 1987. On April 1, 1987 he made the announcement he had raised 9.1 millions. He claimed 1.3 millions came from a dog track owner. The problem is in November 1987, Oral Roberts announced that the City of Faith medical clinic would be closing in three months. The year 1988 wasn’t much better for Oral Roberts. In January, Roberts canceled the free medical tuition program at the University. The same program that he claimed God had told him to start on threat of death as a world outreach program two years prior. In March, the medical scholarship fund went bankrupt. The students were commanded to repay the scholarship funds at an 18 percent annual interest if they decided to transfer to another school instead of staying at Oral Roberts University Medical School. Those who stayed faced higher tuitions. This didn’t last long when in September 1989, Roberts closed the medical school and the City of Faith hospital to pay off debts. |
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