OT: The Death of Oral Roberts and the Dimming of American Pentecostalism
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http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/16/the-death-of-oral-roberts-and-the-future-pentecostalism/
The Death of Oral Roberts and the Dimming of American Pentecostalism
David Gibson Columnist
POSTED: 12/16/09
FILED UNDER:REPUBLICANS, RELIGION, DISPUTATIONS, CONSERVATIVES
Pentecostals have always been the red-headed stepchildren of American
Christianity -- holy rollers who were known for speaking in tongues or
laughing wildly and even barking like dogs while seized by religious
ecstasy, or producing miracle healings on command and handling venomous
snakes without fear.
All of that was made possible, of course, by calling on the Holy Spirit --
yet was too embarrassing for sober-sided mainline Protestants and even
hellfire Southern Baptists, and incomprehensible to the point of batty for
Roman Catholics and other high-church folks.
Or at least it was until Oral Roberts came along.
Roberts, who died Tuesday at 91, was a force in American religious history,
a pioneer in mass media evangelism and a mentor -- either directly or by his
influence -- to a generation of preachers and politicians who continue to
shape American culture and global Christianity. He was second only in
popularity and visibility to Billy Graham. But before there was Jerry
Falwell, before there was Pat Robertson, and certainly before there were
striplings like Rick Warren or Joel Osteen, Oral Roberts was holding forth
on television and bringing what had previously been seen as a backwoods
religiosity into the homes of America's fast-spreading suburbs.
"Oral Roberts helped bring the movement into the American mainstream," Kim
Lawton, managing editor of the PBS show "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly," told
me. "He attracted a huge following that included not only evangelicals, but
'spirit-filled' mainline Protestants and Catholics as well." Roberts began
broadcasting in 1954, and in the 1970s his program, "Oral Roberts and You,"
was the most popular religious program in the nation.
"I think he planted the seeds publicly of what became the charismatic
renewal after 1960 because the American public first saw Pentecostalism in
their living rooms through his televised tent crusades," Vinson Synan, a
historian of Pentecostalism at Pat Robertson's Regent University told
Charisma magazine. Jack Hayford, former president of the International
Church of the Foursquare Gospel, agreed: "If God had not, in His sovereign
will, raised up the ministry of Oral Roberts, the entire charismatic
movement might not have occurred."
At his death, however, Roberts also left behind significant questions about
the future of Pentecostalism and spirit-filled Christianity.
Even during the latter years of his turbulent career, Oral Roberts came to
be known for the kind of spiritual showmanship and financial brinkmanship
that gave Pentecostalism the reputation he'd once helped it overcome.
In an episode for which he many will certainly remember him, Roberts told a
television audience in January 1987 that unless he raised $8 million by
March, God would "call him home." He retreated to his prayer tower to wait.
The money came in, but by then Roberts had become the butt of jokes on the
talk shows -- like those of Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin -- where he'd
once been a sought-after guest. And the $250 million faith-healing medical
center he was trying to prop up with the money still collapsed.
Scandal also began to dog Roberts because of the failings of a generation of
prosperity preachers to whom he taught his popular but controversial "seed
faith" theology. "If people would donate money to his ministry, a 'seed'
offered to God, he'd say, then God would multiply it a hundredfold," as
Hanna Rosin explains it in an essay on the prosperity gospel in the current
issue of The Atlantic.
That sales pitch made Roberts, who was born dirt-poor in rural Oklahoma,
fabulously wealthy; in the mid-1980s his ministry was taking in more than
$100 million a year. And it naturally drew imitators, including Jim and
Tammy Faye Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, who fell from grace, as well as
others, like Randy and Paula White, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, and
Joyce Meyer, who have come under scrutiny, too, but remain influential
figures.
"I have seen how his heart yearned for people of all ages and backgrounds to
know Jesus Christ personally and how to enjoy the abundant life that is
available to all believers," the popular televangelist Benny Hinn told
Charisma. "What a legacy he leaves. Only heaven will reveal how many lives
have been revolutionized through his seed-faith teaching." Hinn calls
Roberts a spiritual father, even becoming his neighbor in California, where
Roberts lived out his final years in semi-retirement.
The siren song of the health-and-wealth gospel also lured Roberts' son,
Richard. (His daughter Rebecca died in a 1977 airplane crash, his oldest
son, Ronald, committed suicide in 1982, and his wife died in 2005.) In 1993,
Oral Roberts named Richard to succeed him as president of Oral Roberts
University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he'd launched his faith-healing
revivalism after surviving tuberculosis -- miraculously, he claimed -- and
other life-threatening ailments.
But if Oral Roberts was often criticized for his high-flying lifestyle, he
was never caught doing anything potentially criminal. Richard Roberts, on
the other hand, was forced to step down over Thanksgiving 2007 amid
accusations that he used university funds to support a luxe life, including
a $39,000 shopping tab at a single store for his wife (who was also accused
of spending nights with a 16-year-old boy).
To make matters worse, the university was already $50 million in debt --
God, or the flock, hadn't been answering Oral Roberts' prayers with the same
generosity as in previous years -- and there were fears it too would go
belly up. The university was saved only when a local billionaire, Oklahoma
City businessman Mart Green, donated $70 million and brought in new
management. In September, university officials announced that the school was
debt-free and enrollment was up.
Indeed, while Oral Roberts was known for his flamboyant televangelism and
claims to have personally healed some 1.5 million sick people (and even to
have raised a child from the dead), his enduring legacy may be the
university that bears his name.
The GOP's arch-conservative congresswoman from Minnesota, Michele Bachmann,
is an ORU alum, as is television personality Kathie Lee Gifford.
Conservative talk show personality Michael Graham is a graduate, as is
Christian Reconstructionist David Barton, and a number of prominent
preachers. Evangelist Ted Haggard was one of ORU's star graduates until he
was brought down by a gay sex-and-drugs scandal in 2006, and another, Joel
Osteen, remains a huge force in American Christianity.
Other big-name evangelists who sought to move beyond the immediacy of tent
or television revivalism -- and to find some way to institutionalize the
spirituality that gave birth to the holiness movement -- were following
Roberts' example. Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell started Liberty
University in 1971, for example, and Christian Coalition founder Pat
Robertson started CBN University -- later re-baptized Regent University --
in 1977.
Despite the survival of Oral Roberts University, however, the bigger
challenge to the Roberts' legacy is that the center of gravity in
Pentecostalism has now shifted to the Southern Hemisphere -- to Latin
America, Africa and Asia, where the outpouring of the Spirit is greater and
more explosive than anything North America ever saw, if one goes by the
numbers. In fact, some estimates put the number of charismatic,
Pentecostal-style worshipers across the globe as high as 600 million -- with
perhaps just 20-30 million of them in America.
Moreover, Pentecostalism in America today is tame by comparison to the faith
in other countries, a domesticated version of the wild child of Christianity
that traced its lineage to the tongues of fire that touched the Apostles at
the first Pentecost 2,000 years ago, and sprang to life again at the Cane
Ridge revival in Kentucky in 1801 and a century later in the Azusa Street
revival in Los Angeles.
While the patrimony of those revivals can still be seen in storefront
churches and on cable television, charismatic Christianity in America is
likely found in its purest form among immigrants and working-class whites
and African-Americans. Indeed, back in the 1950s Oral Roberts was already
insisting that black and white worshipers sit together, a policy that
brought him death threats.
Such diversity was characteristic of Pentecostalism in many places -- and
much different from other churches back then, and even today, when
charismatic Christianity seems to have morphed into the religion-free
spirituality of self-selecting congregationalism that traffic in the
inward-looking philosophy of self-help books and positive thinking
practitioners.
The prosperity theology that may have been Oral Roberts' original
contribution to charismatic Christianity is also flourishing in the poorer
areas of the globe, but with effects that are arguably even more harmful
than in the U.S. because of the poverty of the people there -- and is even
more attractive to them for the same reason.
Roberts himself seemed to feel that controversy was simply part and parcel
of an inspired faith: "This conviction that God speaks to me, and that I
have no choice but to obey when He does, has led me into a life of
controversy," he wrote in his 1995 autobiography. "But had I not had this
conviction, I don't believe I could have ever scaled the mountain of my
calling."
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http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/16/the-death-of-oral-roberts-and-the-future-pentecostalism/
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Shun religion - Its a way of life!
computeruser
Some things never change:
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Saddleback Church members say 'Amen' to pastor's request
By ERIKA I. RITCHIE
2009-12-30 20:13:46
LAKE FOREST - Members of Saddleback Church say they expect the congregation
to respond with a big "Amen" and cash to Pastor Rick Warren's appeal for
$900,000 by New Year's Eve.
"This is a great opportunity for God to express himself," said Jim Walls,
from Trabuco Canyon, who received the news after coming home from a ski
trip. "It's a great opportunity for the church to honor God. It's a great
opportunity to raise the points of faith that our shepherd Rick Warren
lives."
Walls, 50, said he is not surprised by the request noting that in his Bible
group two members have lost homes in the last two years.
"People have lost their homes, their jobs - are they bitter, No," he said.
"Are they still full of joy - yes. Do they know God loves them - yes. They
have sacrificed their pride and given it to Jesus Christ. He knows the pride
is the greatest evil. That's how Satan tries to get us to be our own god."
The 22,000-member plus congregation was informed of the church's financial
status in an "urgent letter" written by Warren and posted today.
"I have thrilling news to share with you below but first some seriously bad
news: With 10% of our church family out of work due to the recession, our
expenses in caring for our community in 2009 rose dramatically while our
income stagnated. Still, with wise management, we've stayed close to our
budget all year. Then... this last weekend the bottom dropped out.
"On the last weekend of 2009, our total offerings were less than half of
what we normally receive - leaving us $900,000 in the red for the year,
unless you help make up the difference today and tomorrow."
Kim Offhaus said she and her husband will help and isn't surprised by
Warren's request.
"I know that many people are affected by job loss and that Saddleback church
is not immune," she said. I'm confident we'll support the church. It's there
to meet the needs of the people spiritually, physically and emotionally."
Offhaus added that she believes the congregation will come together and
raise the money just as they have during other crisis's like a Tsunami fund
a few years ago.
"When Pastor Rick asked for help then, we did it in one offering," she said.
"People at Saddleback are very generous."
Fourteen year church member Eric Bezko, from Newport Beach called Warren's
request timely and legitimate saying most churches count on big donations at
the end of the year.
"It's nice he's handled it like this," said the 51-year-old. "It's like
people can give a Christmas present to the church."
In Warren's letter, he provides an opportunity for people to help.
YOU CAN HELP SAVE THE DAY 3 WAYS BEFORE JAN 1.
1. Give as large an end-of-the-year gift as you can to help avert this
crisis. If we all do what God leads us to do, we'll all be a part of a
miracle.
2. Mail in your gift today. Gifts must be postmarked in 2009 to be posted as
2009 gifts for tax purposes. Mail to: 1 Saddleback Parkway, Lake Forest, CA
92630.
3. Drop your gift in the box at the front door of the Ministry Center at 1
Saddleback Parkway so you know for certain we get it TODAY or Thursday...
~~~
Shun religion - Its a way of life!
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