I sat and listened to an interview with the Late Oral Roberts who was a very prominent healing evangelist in the 1950s-1970s. He was one of the healing evangelists who had a large tent which he used until 1968.
During his ministry, there were many lies in the media about him, and many church pastors opposed him. Roberts was accused of being a "money-man" and a fake, having rehearsals and audience plants.
Here are some interesting facts about him;
1. All the money collected was put into the hands of the person in charge of the finances, and Roberts was paid a set salary ($15,000 a year), no more than any CEO of any major company. Every dollar collected through the ministry was audited and accounts presented to the Inland Revenue Service each year. Roberts never became a millionaire as some falsely held. When he died, all he left was a modest condo, and a few thousand dollars in the bank.
2. The administration and oversight of his ministry was in the hands of a Board of Directors who ensured that maintenance, transport, staff salaries, and equipment expenses were met.
3. When he started his television ministry (1954), he was required by the television administration that, in order to ensure that nothing fraudulent was taking place, that Roberts signed a statutory declaration in front of a federal judge, and that either a federal judge or a local circuit judge was present beside him to read the prayer cards, which had the names, postal address, and the medical condition written on them. Then, if it appeared that anyone was healed, and Roberts applied fairly stringent testing to ensure that a healing had actually taken place, the judge was there to ensure that the healing was authentic. Also, people who felt they were healed were encouraged to return to their doctor to verify it, and medical records were made available to the judge. After a year or two, the judges who monitored the ministry informed the television people that they affirmed that Roberts' ministry was absolutely authentic and the healings were real and not false. This caused the television people to withdraw the requirement for having a judge present at the healing lines.
4. Oral Roberts freely said that not all people who came for prayer were healed at the healing line. But he did say that many who did not seem to exhibit instant results testified that their healing happened when they got home. He said that more healings happened away from the public arena than took place in the healing lines.
5. He said that during the healing part of his meetings, he prayed for as many people as he could before becoming too tired to continue. Often he prayed for over 2000 people in one night.
6. His sermons took around 10 to 15 minutes and were entirely based on the Scripture that he used. He would read the whole chapter of the Scripture and then explain it.
7. The order of ministry was (1) the message, (2) altar call for those seeking salvation (3) healing ministry. He believed that salvation always came before healing.
8. He refused to accept segregation between white and black, and although receiving threats from some white supremacist groups, he allowed blacks to sit where they pleased in his services, and none of the threats ever came to fruition.
Perhaps out of all the healing ministries of his time, Oral Roberts was the most authentic, with total integrity, and experienced no proven scandals, financial or otherwise. He remained married to the same wife for the whole of his life.
It is significant that after view a number of videos of his tent meetings, I saw no unusual manifestations, except people getting genuinely healed, and the meetings appeared to always be run decently and in order.
So I believe that anyone who says that Oral Roberts was a charlatan and false is making statements without a true knowledge of what the man and his ministry was all about.
