ROBERTS, ORAL 1918-

EVANGELIST, FOUNDER OF ORAL ROBERTS
UNIVERSITY

Early Career

Oral Roberts began his evangelistic career in 1947, after a brief ministry with the Pentecostal Holiness Church. At the beginning his primary emphasis was on healing services, and he attracted huge crowds in the 1950s with his tent revivals. His largest tent could seat 12,500. He soon recognized the usefulness of radio, eventually having over three hundred radio stations in the United States carrying his messages and shortwave radio beaming his program to the rest of the world. Most Americans outside Pentecostal circles grew familiar with him through the television programs he began in the mid 1950s, edited from his tent revivals. Many jeered at the healing lines he still used and scoffed at the "prayer cloths," pieces of cloth two and a half inches by five inches that he said he personally prayed over. He did not charge for these prayer cloths but maintained a list of supporters who were asked for regular contributions.

Moving to the Center

Roberts became more respectable in the 1960s, moving toward the center of the religious community without abandoning his Pentecostal roots. In his services he decreased the emphasis on healing and concentrated on simple evangelism. In 1966 he was invited to the World Evangelistic Congress on Evangelism in Berlin and there established relations with some of the leading conservative Protestants, including Billy Graham. In 1968 he startled his followers by joining the United Methodist Church. His new television programs, run in prime evening time, mixed his message with religious entertainment, and his audience grew.

Building the University

His primary work during the decade was the construction of Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This charismatic but nondenominational university opened in 1965 and was dedicated by Graham in 1967.