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Tragedy Has Stalked Oral Roberts Life Even Though He Says God Is A Good God And Is Bigger Than The Devil?
Maybe Because Oral Roberts Was And Is A Classical Money Changer?
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Evelyn Roberts, the wife of evangelist Oral Roberts, died Wednesday in a California hospital after suffering a head injury during a fall. She was 88. Evelyn Roberts died a day after she fell in the parking lot of a dentist's office, striking her head on the pavement and causing massive internal bleeding, said Jeremy Burton, a spokesman for Tulsa-based Oral Roberts University. She fell into a coma a short time later. May 4, 2005
PS 78:49 He cast on them the fierceness of His anger, Wrath, indignation, and trouble, By sending angels of destruction among them.
PS 91:11 For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.
Psalm 91 is a favorite of Word of Faith people as well as Oral Roberts - So I was surprised at how Evelyn Roberts died.
Oral Roberts elder son, Ronald D. Roberts, 37, also died a violent death but at a young age
Oral Roberts' Son Found Dead In Car
By Mike Kimbrell
6/10/1982
Ronald D. Roberts, elder son of Oral and Evelyn Roberts, was found dead Wednesday, the victim of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Roberts, 37, died from a single .25-caliber gunshot wound to the heart, Osage County Sheriff George Wayman said.
A passer-by found the Tulsa evangelist's son slumped in his car, parked on an Osage County road about 15 miles northwest of Tulsa.
Wayman said the bullet wound that killed Roberts appeared to be self-inflicted. He said no note or letter was discovered with the body, but "tow or three" notes were found in Roberts' apartment at 4309 S. Owasso Ave.
Wayman declined to discuss in detail the contents of the notes. But he said although none of the notes mentioned suicide, they left the impression Roberts intended to take his own life.
Wayman said the victim's identity was confirmed by fingerprints Wednesday morning, but confirmation of Roberts' death was withheld for several hours because investigators couldn't reach his parents.
A spokesman at Oral Roberts University said Oral and Evelyn Roberts were in the Tulsa area Wednesday, but were out of reach of a telephone most of the day.
Ronald Roberts was arrested in September after police accused him of obtaining a controlled drug with forged prescriptions. Three felony charges filed against him accused him of obtaining 500 tablets of Tussionex, a cough suppressant, over a three-week period with forged prescriptions.
He later pleaded guilty to one charge and received a one-year deferred sentence on the condition he undergo counseling at a Tulsa drug treatment center, and submit to medical tests to prove he no longer was taking Tussionex.
Roberts, who largely divorced himself from his father's evangelical work, was best-known in Tulsa as an antique dealer. He specialized in Chinese porcelain.
A spokesman for the family said funeral services have been set for 10:30 a.m. Thursday in Christ's Chapel at ORU, the Rev. Robert DeWeese officiation. Burial will be in Memorial Park Cemetery, officials said.
Moore's Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
Roberts was married to Carol Lou Croskery in 1966 but the couple reportedly was separated. He had taken her name and was listed in the telephone directory as Ron Croskery-Roberts. The couple had two children, Rachel, 11 and Damon, 7.
He had a bachelor's degree in French and a master's degree in linguistics. He completed work for his doctorate in linguistics at the University of Southern California and spoke five languages.
Oral Roberts' younger son, Richard, is active in the evangelist's religious organization.
Oral Roberts has one other daughter, Mrs. Roberta Potts, of Denver, Colo.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleid=20080326_222_63032
What Were The Details Of Richard And Patti Roberts Divorce?
In: Celebrity Relationships
Basically Patti saw that the ministry was consuming Richard and he was being a clone of Oral. She say the error of seed faith and questioned many of their fund raising practices. while Richard wanted the divorce as much as Patti, the ministry forced her into the position of filing. Just a sad end to a marriage
Patti Roberts,Richard’s First Wife Exposes Heresy of Richard and Oral.
Before Richard married Lindsey,he was married to Patti.He and Patti had two daughters.After Richard divorced Patti,with Oral’s approval,Patti wrote a book,”Ashes to Gold.”In this book,Patti Roberts compares the “seed faith”tactic of former father-in-law Oral Roberts to Johann Tetzel’s practice of selling indulgences.She points out that she had a “very difficult time distinguishing between the selling of indulgences and the concept of seed-faith inflated to the degree to which we had inflated it.
One distinction Patti did observe was that Oral was more subtle than Tetzel.Rather than offering salvation in exchange for money,Oral appealed to such basic instincts as fear and greed.
Hank Hanegraaff in his book,”Christianity in Crisis”exposes the manipulative techniques of Richard Roberts.When Oral told the world that unless he raised millions of dollars God was going to call him home,Richard took pen in hand to warn of his father’s impending doom.Without “the additional $4,500,000,”explains Richard,”God will not extend Dad’s life.”He then pleads,”Partner,we cannot let this man of God die. There is no reason for him to die.”And this is no idle threat,Richard claims.As he puts it,”When he (Oral) says God speaks to him,he’s not bluffing.”And just in case someone should doubt or suspect his motives,Richard offers this stirring assurance:”I feel totally called by God to do this….I’m writing to you as an anointed servant of God-doing what God has called me to do.”
After several pages Richard finally gets to the seed-faith solution.Take the enclosed birthday card,slip in a seed-faith gift “check,”and then RUSH IT TO ME TODAY.”
By the end of the letter,Richard Roberts had done virtually everything to assure his partners that this was a deal they couldn’t afford to pass up.Send your seed-faith gift and Richard will be proud of you.Oral will pray for you,and God will prosper you.
“Without the additional four and one half million dollars,explains Richard,God will not extend Dad’s life.”He then pleads,”Partner,we cannot let this man of God die.There is no reason for him to die.” ROBERTS' PERSONAL FINANCES
Harrell writes:
"Roberts' two California homes, partly for security reasons, were not much discussed by the ministry. Oral also remained sensitive about press criticism of his lifestyle. His house in Palm Springs, purchased for $285,000 and financed by a Tulsa bank, was his only privately owned home. In 1982 ORU endowment funds were used to purchase a $2,400,000 house in a high-security development in Beverly Hills. Considered a potentially profitable investment, the house served as Oral's West Coast office and residence." (p. 355)
"Oral's homes in California inevitably kept alive the old questions about his personal wealth and lifestyle. While probably not as probing as the press had been fifteen years earlier, reporters still took a keen interest in Oral's financial affairs. In 1981, the Associated Press published Roberts' personal income figures for the preceding five years--ranging from $70,000 in 1976 to $178,000 in 1978.
"In addition to his healthy income, derived mostly from book royalties, Oral continued to enjoy generous expense accounts: `The Robertses wear expensive clothes and jewelry and travel in a company-owned eight-passenger fanjet.'
Patti Roberts' book [following her divorce from Oral's son, Robert] and an earlier expose written by Jerry Sholes, renewed curiosity about the family's financial affairs, although Patti confessed that her own `extravagance' while she was Richard's wife had `blunted' her protest.
Tax records indicate that Oral's partners donated in excess of $38,000,000 in the fiscal year 1977-78, "surpassing every other religious association in the nation." (p. 389)
In 1979 a book was published by Jerry Sholes, a former employee of Oral Robert ministries, which detailed deep deception and hypocrisy:
"Here is a portrait of the real Oral Roberts, the man not too many of his admirers know. He dresses in Brioni suits that cost $500 to $1000; walks in $100 shoes; lives in a $250,000 house in Tulsa and has a million dollar home in Palm Springs; wears diamond rings and solid gold bracelets employees `airbrush' out of his publicity photos; drives $25,000 automobiles which are replaced every 6 months; flies around the country in a $2 million fanjet falcon; has membership, as does his son Richard, in `the most prestigious and elite country club in Tulsa,' the Southern Hills (the membership fee alone was $18,000 for each, with $130 monthly dues) and in `the ultra-posh Thunderbird Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California' (both father and son joined when memberships were $20,000 each--they are now $25,000); and plays games of financial hanky-panky that have made him and his family members independently wealthy (millionaires) for life. (When his daughter and son-in-law were killed, they left a $10 million estate!)" (Evangelist R.L. Sumner's review of Give Me that Prime- time Religion by Jerry Sholes)
"By the mid-1980s, Oral Roberts had come to be the chief executive officer of an organization that employed about 2,300 people and did an annual business of about 110 million dollars, about 60 percent of which was raised through contributions." (p. 485)
ROBERTS AND THE FULL GOSPEL BUSINESS MEN INTERNATIONAL
Harrell says that: "The Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International proved to be an extraordinarily effective tool for spreading the Pentecostal message to the American middle class. By 1975 it had 1,650 chapters, in every state and in fifty-two foreign countries ... But the relationship between Oral Roberts and the FGBMFI remained constant--he was the organization's high priest and most coveted friend. The members of the fellowship were probably the most important reservoir of funds in the building of Oral Roberts University; Shakarian and Roberts never faltered in their belief that each was specially raised up to spread the baptism and the Holy Spirit to the wider world." (pp. 288,289)
The Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship also helped to finance the ultramodern Oral Roberts University in Tulsa in 1965 and sowed the seeds for the ‘prosperity gospel’ that emerged in 1970’s featuring some of the early ‘faith preachers’ such as Kenneth Hagain Sr. and Kenneth Copeland at its conventions.
BUT FOR ALL PURPOSES FULL GOSPEL BUSINESS MEN INTERNATIONAL IS A SHELL OF WHAT IT USED TO BE ESPECIALLY AFTER DEMOS SHAKARIAN WAS OUSTED AS PRESIDENT BY BROUGHT IN BY THE OLD GUARD IN 1980’S
TRAGEDY STALKS ROBERTS LIFE
The last two decades have been marked by tragedy in the Roberts family. His daughter Rebecca and her husband Marshall Nash were killed in an airplane crash in 1977. His son Richard and daughter-in-law Patti, who were being groomed to take over the ministry, were divorced in 1979. Three years later, his rebellious older son Ronnie committed suicide. And last year [1984], his 10th grandchild--the son of Richard and his second wife Lindsay and the only heir to be named after him--died two days after birth.
Harrell describes the death of the grandchild
"Within a few hours after his birth, doctors discovered the child was having difficulty breathing. The news, Evelyn recalled, `just tore Oral to pieces.' For over thirty hours, while doctors fought to save the baby, Oral, Richard, and others prayed. Lindsay was wheeled up to the baby's side to pray; Kenneth Hagin and his wife, and other ministers, came to pray for healing. When Richard Oral finally died, on January 19, it `devastated Oral.' He called it the worst tragedy of his scarred life. `I think' Evelyn reflected, `because he felt there was so much healing power in that room that they could have healed a thousand people ... But he said there was something in that baby and he got it as far as the head and it would not leave ... Some obstacle would not leave. It was stubborn.'
"The family once again faced misfortune bravely, searching for meaning in the death. They immediately announced the addition of an obstetrics suite in the City of Faith Medical Center in memory of Richard Oral Roberts." (p. 347, 348)
Richard Roberts Did It, So Tonight, Paula White's Doing It Too
November 26, 2007
Apparently, Larry King has become TV ministry's confessor of sorts. Shortly after allegations of alleged ORU financial mismanagement went public with Richard Roberts, he and wife Lindsay appeared on Larry King to speak up for their side of the story. Now, after a divorce from her husband Randy, Paula White is doing the same tonight. Is it because of Larry's history of throwing softballs?
According to the CNN website:
"Televangelist Paula White gets personal! How she’s coping with the divorce from her husband of 18 years. How did she go from a troubled past to a life of ministry?
Plus, Paula responds to accusations of taking the church’s money to spend on her own lavish lifestyle. She is among six well-known televangelists under investigation by the Senate for alleged financial wrongdoing."
Check it out tonight on Larry King Live.
ORU campus relieved about lawsuit settlement One of the lawsuits still pending is from a former accountant who claimed he was threatened with losing his job unless he agreed to false and illegal accounting practices.
ORU campus relieved about lawsuit settlement
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20081024_11_A1_Theatm846566
by: SHANNON MUCHMORE World Staff Writer
10/24/2008 12:00 AM
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