ORU is in the news and not for good reasons. I used to live in the shadow of ORU. They had a bronze statue of praying hands that looked more like a bankers hands as one applies for a loan. You can imagine how popular a Catholic was in those parts. Not to mention a Yankee Catholic!
Back in 1963, when Oral Roberts built this false doctrine training camp on Tulsa's outskirts and put his name on it, he believed he was taking orders from God.
At the center of campus he built a 200-foot steel and glass prayer tower that looks like a spaceship and is topped with a flickering gas flame representing the Holy Spirit. (I think they have something similar in Vegas)
Roberts' vision was to brainwash the mind, body and spirit with mandatory chapel attendance, body-fat measurements and citations for public displays of affection. Times have changed. The prayer tower is showing rust and so is the lie that was passed off as God's idea. Roberts has a history of claiming God is behind his own desires. Back in1987 Oral Roberts said that God would "call me home" if he didn't raise $8 million in three months (he raised more than $9 million).
Oral Roberts, now 89, recently returned from semi retirement to try to quell a scandal that has shaken the flagship training camp for charismatics, but on Friday the scandal caused the downfall of his heir.
Roberts' son, Richard Roberts, resigned Friday as president of the school, facing accusations that he misspent school funds to support a lavish lifestyle and ordered an accountant to help hide improper and illegal financial wrongdoing.
To ORU's students, the events of recent weeks have brought an unexpected test, one that caused them to choose between questioning or defending the administration, worry about tainted diplomas and search for spiritual answers.
One student said, "To see something like this, it feels empty, like an elaborate masquerade party." Well that's because it is. Before Richard Roberts stepped down, tenured faculty gave him a no-confidence vote and his hand-picked provost said he would resign if Roberts were reinstated.
"There was a time when the wagons would circle and we'd protect our own," said the Rev. Carlton Pearson, a former member of the ORU board of regents who is now a United Church of Christ minister. "But we don't know what our own is anymore. People are asking questions and questioning answers, and we're not used to it."
By the looks of it, it may be time to get used to it. Oral Roberts' teachings is responsible for a whole new generation of "prosperity gospel" false preachers, six of whom are the target of a financial inquiry led by the ranking Republican on the Senate finance committee. Three of those under scrutiny - Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar - sit on the ORU board of regents.
Oral Roberts felt God used him as instrument to heal, and claimed Jesus had commissioned him to find a cure for cancer. If only that were true. Roberts also "felt" called to build the City of Faith, an enormous hospital complex that was to combine prayer and medicine. Despite this supoosed "call",the project collapsed in the late 1980's. The lasting legacy is ORU's $52.5 million in debt.
Requests for interviews were denied by an ORU spokesman.
2 comments:
You repeated a whole paragraph in there PB.
Well, it was important. It's been fixed.
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