Field guide to Religion

health blessings from God. He founded Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which opened in 1965. The Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association currently produces the daily Something Good Tonight—Hour of Healing TV program which is hosted by Roberts' son Richard Roberts. Oral Roberts has been an active part of the Healing Ministries Movement and Word Faith Movement for many years. And he endorses and participates in activities that promote the Toronto Blessing and the Holy Laughter movements.

A 1985 book review of a biography of Roberts, investigating the history of his ministry and evaluating some of his claims, is available at: http://cnview.com/on_line_resources/the_life_and_ministry_of_ oral_roberts.htm Some interesting quotes from Roberts are available at: http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/quotes.html#Roberts Patti Roberts, first wife of Oral Roberts' son Richard, wrote a 1983 book, Ashes to Gold, about her experiences in the Roberts' clan before her divorce from Richard. In it she shared her perspective on the seed faith doctrine as taught by Oral: The seed-faith theology that Oral had developed bothered me a great deal because I saw that, when taken to its natural extremes, it reduced God to a sugar daddy. If you wanted His blessings and His love, you paid Him off. Over and over again we heard Oral say, 'Give out of your need.' I began to question the motivation that kind of giving implied. Were we giving to God out of our love and gratitude to Him or were we bartering with Him? (p.

63) The distinction may appear to be too subtle and I know Oral thought I was splitting hairs, but it seemed supremely important to me. If we give to God because we think that by giving we have somehow placed Him in our debt and He is now required to come through for us and meet our needs, we have, I believe, perverted the heart of the gospel. Our only motive for giving should be love. When we encourage people to give in order to have their needs met or so that they will receive “a hundred fold return” I believe we are appealing to their sense of greed or desperation, neither of which seemed admirable to me. It was a wonderful fund-raising tool, but I believe it gave people a very unbalanced view of a very important biblical principle. At the time I was taking a humanities course from the university and my professor was discussing Martin Luther and the Reformation.

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