Oral Roberts

Oral Roberts (1918—2009)

Country of Origin

United States

Countries/Regions of Ministry

United States
Global

Traditions

Pentecostal
Charismatic

Ministries

Healing evangelist
University founder

Oral Roberts is one of the most important religious figures in twentieth-century American history and one of the most globally recognized Spirit-empowered ministers. During the 1950s, Roberts became a household name through his large-scale tent crusades, innovative television programs, and dynamic preaching ministry. In the 1960s, he became instrumental in shaping the Charismatic Renewal in mainline denominations. He also founded the first Charismatic university, which continues to bear his name and lead within Spirit-empowered higher education.

Granville Oral Roberts was born near Ada, Oklahoma, on January 24, 1918. His parents, Ellis and Claudius Roberts, were saved in brush arbor Pentecostal meetings in Southeastern Oklahoma and became evangelists in the Pentecostal Holiness Church. With his father struggling to earn a living in ministry, Oral experienced poverty and difficulty from an early age.

At the age of sixteen, Oral Roberts contracted tuberculosis. After several months on his deathbed, his family took him to a tent meeting outside Ada, in 1935, and he was miraculously healed. Shortly after, Roberts joined his father in evangelistic meetings. He received his license as a Pentecostal Holiness minister at the age of eighteen and began his own evangelistic ministry.

On December 25, 1938, Oral and Evelyn Roberts were married. They had four children: Rebecca (Nash), Ronald, Richard, and Roberta (Potts). Over the next decade, Roberts had an effective evangelistic and pastoral ministry around the US. But few knew about him outside the Pentecostal Holiness denomination.

In 1946, Roberts became the pastor of the Pentecostal Holiness Church in Enid, Oklahoma. A decade of struggling as a minister left him unhappy, however, because he was not seeing the kinds of miracles described in the Bible and that he experienced as a teenager. During a sociology class at Phillips University, in Enid, he heard God speak: “Son, don’t be like other men. Don’t be like any denomination. Be like Jesus and heal like he did.” From that moment, Roberts was determined to take God’s message of healing to his generation. He moved his family to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and began to hold meetings across the US.

From 1947 to 1962, Oral Roberts’ large-scale evangelistic tent crusades changed the religious landscape of American evangelicalism. Millions of people came to his tent meetings to hear his dynamic preaching and to witness the power of God as he prayed for people in healing lines. In 1955, due to this success, he appeared on prime-time television. His healing ministry was subsequently seen by millions more. This not only exposed many people to Pentecostal spirituality for the first time, but introduced a whole generation to the idea that God was willing and able to heal the suffering and afflicted. Oral Roberts soon became a household name, and broadening recognition led to a base of support that made the next phase of his ministry possible.

In the 1960s, Roberts transitioned from professional evangelism to higher education. Though he never completed his college degree, Roberts loved learning and believed in education. Early on, he heard God tell him to “build a university on My authority and on the Holy Spirit.” Roberts believed that by doing so, he could replicate his healing and evangelistic ministry through students who would go far beyond what he could accomplish as one man. The vision included a full liberal arts university and a theological seminary with Spirit-filled faculty recruited from the nation’s best schools.

When Oral Roberts University (ORU) was officially dedicated in 1967, Roberts invited Billy Graham to be the keynote speaker. Roberts' value of “whole person” education emphasized spirit-mind-body and was unique at the time, as was his vision for technology in learning. When it opened, the campus learning center featured a state-of-the-art “Dial Access Retrieval System” that allowed students to access lectures and media from anywhere on campus. By the 1970s, ORU had become the premier Charismatic university. It was diverse in faculty and one of the few conservative Christian universities in the 1960s and 1970s where racial integration was intentional. Roberts had previously integrated his healing meetings and wanted more from his university than just good Christian men and women: he envisioned equal opportunity, regardless of color or background.

ORU appealed to Spirit-filled believers from a variety of theological traditions, including those who were part of the Charismatic Renewal taking place in mainline churches in the 1960s. Roberts was a regular speaker in the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International, which introduced the Spirit-filled life to many outside Pentecostalism. He also held his own Holy Spirit conferences throughout the early 1960s, gathering many of the most notable names in the Renewal. In 1968, Roberts left the Pentecostal Holiness denomination and joined the Methodist Church in order to expand the ecumenical reach of his ministry. Although the move was ultimately detrimental to his Pentecostal support base, Roberts believed at the time that it fulfilled God’s call to bring healing power to his generation.

In the 1970s, Roberts appeared on a new series of prime-time specials. Millions turned in to hear his World Action Singers and see some of the biggest celebrity guests and musical artists. As Roberts’ level of fame rose through this national exposure, he was courted by politicians, including Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, and Carter. By 1975, Roberts was one of the best-known religious figures in American culture, second only to Billy Graham.

During the 1980’s, some controversial elements of the Word of Faith movement brought him into the public spotlight again. Roberts' teachings on giving had influenced an entire stream of Word of Faith teachers including Kenneth E. Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, and Fredrick K. C. Price. His fundraising efforts to launch several graduate schools at ORU during the 1970s were primarily fueled by a concept of giving he called “seed faith.” Roberts preached that God was a good God and would bless those who supported kingdom work. It was seed faith that helped him raise millions of dollars for building campaigns, the most of notable of which was a medical school for City of Faith Hospital and Medical Research Center. Roberts' intent was to bring the best of science and the best of Christian spirituality together to heal people from disease. However, his campaign to build the hospital debt-free with fully funded scholarships for medical students became a point of national criticism. His constant appeals for finances earned him the label of "prosperity preacher," which led to loss of support.

At the same time, Roberts became a friend and mentor to many global leaders of the Spirit-empowered movement. During the 1980s and 1990s, Roberts’ teachings influenced Pentecostal leaders such as David Yonggi Cho in Seoul, Korea, and Bishop Benson Idahosa in Nigeria. Concepts like the goodness of God, the abundant life, signs and wonders, and the power of the Holy Spirit resonated with global believers and greatly expanded the spread of the Pentecostal movements in Asian and African contexts. His relationships with notable leaders around the world led Roberts to found a ministry network of independent Charismatic and Word of Faith ministers called the International Charismatic Bible Ministers.

In 1991, Roberts passed the presidency of ORU to his son, Richard Roberts, and retired with Evelyn to their home in California. On May 4, 2005, Evelyn passed away. Four years later, December 15, 2009, Roberts passed away at the age of 91. Three major contributions can be offered in regards to his legacy: First, Roberts was responsible for bringing the concept of divine healing from the margins of the Pentecostal tradition into mainstream American Christianity. While his tent meetings reached thousands, his innovation to broadcast his crusades exposed millions of Americans to divine healing. Many were also introduced to Pentecostalism, which aided the Charismatic Renewal among mainline denominations in the 1950s-1960s.

Robert’s second contribution was being the first Pentecostal to advocate for the integration of healing and medicine. Roberts was not only a healing evangelist, but his whole-person perspective of healing led him to make forays into medicine through founding a medical school, hospital, and medical research center on the campus of ORU in the 1970s and 1980s.

Finally, Roberts was effective at communicating his message and theology through media. In addition to televised gatherings, he connected with supporters through direct mail and 24-hour prayer lines that helped make his ministry and university possible. Roberts wrote over 300 books on healing, the Holy Spirit, and seed faith. These concepts impacted millions of believers and pastors, including globally, who brought his charismatic theology into their churches. As Spirit-empowered Christianity continues to grow, traces of Roberts’ impact can be found in many places around the world. His name continues to be synonymous with healing evangelism and religious innovation, having defined and shaped Pentecostal and Charismatic ministry in the twentieth century.

Daniel Isgrigg

Oral Roberts University

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