Roberts. RIP popcorn guy.
Oral Roberts, famed evangelist and university founder, dies from pneumonia at 91
God has called Oral Roberts home.
Roberts, an Oklahoma faith healer who built an enduring Pentacostal empire and became the first superstar televangelist and, died at his home in California.
He was 91.
His son, Richard Roberts, and evangelist and ex-president Oral Roberts University, paid tribute to his father as an "author, educator, evangelist, prophet, and innovator."
"He was the only man of his generation to build a worldwide ministry, an accredited university, and a medical school," he said.
His biographer, David Edwin Harrell, called him one of the most influential religious figures of the last century, though he qualified his praise with a stark description of Roberts' personality.
Though hugely charismatic, Harrell wrote, "he is not entirely likable. He is human, earthy, visceral, volcanic. He swings from Himalayan peaks to pitch-black deeps."
Roberts died at his home in Newport Beach, Calif., of complications from pneumonia, his family said. Born Granville Oral Roberts in Bebee, Okla., he stuttered as a child.
Taken ill with tuberculosis at 17, he was cured of both afflictions at a tent revival, his family said. He later said he heard God say, "Son, I am going to heal you, and you are to take my healing power to your generation.
You are to build me a university based on my authority and on the Holy Spirit." Roberts became a tent evangelist himself, traveling the countryside in the late 1940s, appearing at rallies and evangelical crusades as a minister of the Pentacostal Holiness Church.
He was a big hit, galvanizing crowds of thousands with his fiery delivery, pacing in shirtsleeves and wiping his brow in the summer heat.
Lines of people hoping to be cured of disease and disability gathered wherever he appeared.
Reporters at the time described Roberts "breast-stroking" his way down the line, trying to touch as many as he could to heal them or cast out demons.
"Braces and hearing aides were flung into the air, believers saw goiters vanish before their eyes of faith, cancers were pronounced healed," Harrell wrote.
Roberts estimated he laid hands on more than 2 million people. Roberts moved into radio and then television in the 1960s and 1970s, realizing he could reach many more millions that way.
His folksy, homespun style was a hit on TV, and his show, "Oral Roberts and You" took on the trappings of a variety show.
He became a celebrity in the 1970s, appearing on late night talk shows and having dinner with President Carter at the White House.
He founded Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., in 1963.
The university, which bans drinking, smoking and sex, has now produced two generations of Christian students.
In 1977, Roberts claimed a 900-foot-tall Jesus appeared to him and told him to build a 60-story hospital.
The medical center was plagued by financial problems and closed after eight years. A law school he founded also went under. The episode marked the begining of Roberts' decline.
He was mocked for claims that he brought a child back from the dead and for proclaming that God would "call me home" if he failed to meet a fundraising goal of $8 million.
In recent years, he has lived in mostly quiet retirement.
His wife of 66 years, Evelyn, died in 2005. Their daughter, Rebecca Nash, died in an airplane crash in 1977, and their eldest son, Ronald, had drug problems and killed himself in 1982.
A fourth child, Roberta Potts, is a lawyer in Tulsa.
"After I'm gone, others will have to judge how well I've obeyed God's command not to be an echo but to be a voice like Jesus," Roberts once wrote.
"I've tried to be that voice with every fiber of my being, regardless of the cost." The family will hold a private internment and is planning a public memorial service in Tulsa.
Oral Roberts, famed evangelist and university founder, dies from pneumonia at 91
God has called Oral Roberts home.
Roberts, an Oklahoma faith healer who built an enduring Pentacostal empire and became the first superstar televangelist and, died at his home in California.
He was 91.
His son, Richard Roberts, and evangelist and ex-president Oral Roberts University, paid tribute to his father as an "author, educator, evangelist, prophet, and innovator."
"He was the only man of his generation to build a worldwide ministry, an accredited university, and a medical school," he said.
His biographer, David Edwin Harrell, called him one of the most influential religious figures of the last century, though he qualified his praise with a stark description of Roberts' personality.
Though hugely charismatic, Harrell wrote, "he is not entirely likable. He is human, earthy, visceral, volcanic. He swings from Himalayan peaks to pitch-black deeps."
Roberts died at his home in Newport Beach, Calif., of complications from pneumonia, his family said. Born Granville Oral Roberts in Bebee, Okla., he stuttered as a child.
Taken ill with tuberculosis at 17, he was cured of both afflictions at a tent revival, his family said. He later said he heard God say, "Son, I am going to heal you, and you are to take my healing power to your generation.
You are to build me a university based on my authority and on the Holy Spirit." Roberts became a tent evangelist himself, traveling the countryside in the late 1940s, appearing at rallies and evangelical crusades as a minister of the Pentacostal Holiness Church.
He was a big hit, galvanizing crowds of thousands with his fiery delivery, pacing in shirtsleeves and wiping his brow in the summer heat.
Lines of people hoping to be cured of disease and disability gathered wherever he appeared.
Reporters at the time described Roberts "breast-stroking" his way down the line, trying to touch as many as he could to heal them or cast out demons.
"Braces and hearing aides were flung into the air, believers saw goiters vanish before their eyes of faith, cancers were pronounced healed," Harrell wrote.
Roberts estimated he laid hands on more than 2 million people. Roberts moved into radio and then television in the 1960s and 1970s, realizing he could reach many more millions that way.
His folksy, homespun style was a hit on TV, and his show, "Oral Roberts and You" took on the trappings of a variety show.
He became a celebrity in the 1970s, appearing on late night talk shows and having dinner with President Carter at the White House.
He founded Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., in 1963.
The university, which bans drinking, smoking and sex, has now produced two generations of Christian students.
In 1977, Roberts claimed a 900-foot-tall Jesus appeared to him and told him to build a 60-story hospital.
The medical center was plagued by financial problems and closed after eight years. A law school he founded also went under. The episode marked the begining of Roberts' decline.
He was mocked for claims that he brought a child back from the dead and for proclaming that God would "call me home" if he failed to meet a fundraising goal of $8 million.
In recent years, he has lived in mostly quiet retirement.
His wife of 66 years, Evelyn, died in 2005. Their daughter, Rebecca Nash, died in an airplane crash in 1977, and their eldest son, Ronald, had drug problems and killed himself in 1982.
A fourth child, Roberta Potts, is a lawyer in Tulsa.
"After I'm gone, others will have to judge how well I've obeyed God's command not to be an echo but to be a voice like Jesus," Roberts once wrote.
"I've tried to be that voice with every fiber of my being, regardless of the cost." The family will hold a private internment and is planning a public memorial service in Tulsa.
Isn't Orville Redenbacher the popcorn guy?
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