Oral Roberts

Life

Roberts was born in 1918 near Ada, Oklahoma, the youngest of five children of a Pentecostal Holiness Church preacher. In 1935, at the age of seventeen, he was suffering from tuberculosis and a stutter. He testified that he was healed that year at a tent revival meeting. The following year he experienced baptism in the Holy Spirit, and in 1936 he became a minister of the Pentecostal Holiness Church and began itinerant evangelism alongside his father.

In 1947 he left the church he was pastoring in Enid and founded the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, an independent ministry centered on divine healing. In 1968 he joined a Methodist church in Tulsa, thereby transferring his affiliation to the United Methodist Church. This relationship ended in 1987. He died in 2009 at the age of ninety-one from complications of pneumonia.

Ministry and Achievements

• Healing crusades and broadcasting: After World War II he led large tent meetings in the United States. Beginning in 1948 he broadcast his meetings on television, making him one of the earliest television evangelists. In the 1970s his program Oral Roberts and You became one of the leading religious broadcasts in the United States.
• Seed-Faith: He taught "Seed-Faith," the idea that what is given in faith returns as a greater blessing, like a seed that has been planted.
• Education and medicine: In 1963 he founded Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, which admitted its first students in 1965. In 1981 he opened the City of Faith, a hospital and medical research center. The facility eventually closed because of financial difficulties.
• Writings: He published more than 130 books, including his autobiography Expect a Miracle.

Influence on the Korean Church

The principal figure linking Roberts with the Korean church is Pastor David Yonggi Cho, founder of Yoido Full Gospel Church. The Kukmin Ilbo described the two men as "comrades in faith" who labored together for world evangelization. Cho's wife, Kim Sung-hae, president of Hansei University, received her doctorate from Oral Roberts University. Cho also wrote a foreword for the Korean edition of Roberts's autobiography.

Researchers such as Professor Park Myung-soo hold that Roberts had a major influence on Cho's theology. As examples they cite the "threefold blessing," based on 3 John 1:2, and the understanding that divine healing is grounded in Christ's atonement. Oral Roberts University engaged with Korean pastors through its Doctor of Ministry program. Some studies suggest that through this connection the theology of divine healing spread across denominational lines into Methodism and other denominations.

Assessment

Supporters regard Roberts as a pioneer of the charismatic movement who brought Pentecostalism's emphasis on divine healing and the gifts of the Holy Spirit to mainstream American churches. Jack Hayford, former president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, said that without Roberts's ministry the charismatic movement might never have arisen. Roberts himself stressed that "only God heals."

Critics see him as a forerunner of prosperity theology, arguing that Seed-Faith turns offerings into a payment in exchange for blessings. Christian apologist Hank Hanegraaff criticized seed-planting as practically no different from sending money. In 1987 Roberts raised funds by declaring that God would take him home if $8 million were not raised by a set deadline. This episode caused major controversy. His move to Methodism also drew opposition from some Pentecostal supporters. In 2007 his son, Richard Roberts, resigned as president of the university amid allegations that he had misused university funds. The lawsuit related to these allegations was dismissed the following year.