Oral Roberts

Granville Oral Roberts was born on January 24, 1918, in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, the youngest of five children. His father, Ellis Melvin Roberts, and mother, Claudius Priscilla Roberts, raised him in poverty. On *Larry King Live*, he said his mother had Cherokee ancestry, and he also claimed Choctaw heritage. At 17, he nearly died from tuberculosis. After high school, he studied for two years each at Oklahoma Baptist University and Phillips University. In 1938, he married Evelyn Lutman Fahnestock, a preacher’s daughter.

Roberts left college without a degree and became a traveling faith healer. A 1972 *TIME* profile noted he first gained attention with a large mobile tent that seated 3,000 on metal folding chairs. In 1945, he resigned his pastorate in Shawnee, Oklahoma, to hold revivals and attend Oklahoma Baptist. That summer, while preaching at a North Carolina camp meeting, Robert E. "Daddy" Lee of Toccoa, Georgia, asked him to pastor his small, eighty-member church. Roberts accepted, but by year’s end he resigned and moved back to Shawnee, as the Georgia conference of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church disapproved of an outside minister. The brief Toccoa stay had lasting effects: his five-year-old daughter Rebecca met her future husband, Marshall, and Roberts recalled two healings there as his first realization "that I was approaching 'my hour'."

Until 1947, Roberts struggled as a part-time preacher in Oklahoma. At age 29, he said his Bible fell open to 3 John 2: "I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." The next day, he claimed, he bought a Buick and God appeared, directing him to heal the sick. He resigned his pastoral ministry with the Pentecostal Holiness Church to found the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association (OREA). He conducted evangelistic and faith healing drives across the U.S. and worldwide, claiming he could raise the dead. In November 1947, he launched *Healing Waters*, a monthly magazine to promote his meetings. Thousands of sick people lined up for his prayers. Over his career, he held more than 300 crusades on six continents and personally laid hands on over 2 million people.

In January 1955, Roberts held a salvation and healing campaign in Johannesburg, South Africa, during apartheid. The *Sunday Express* criticized the hysteria and traffic jams of 20,000 people at Wembley stadium, while other papers reported healings and 25,000 people saved. He left a residual campaign fund of $37,000 (after expenses) hoping "his campaign will save 100,000 during the coming year." The campaign committee, entirely white Afrikaner missionaries and ministers—including H.R. Carter, D.D. Freeman, A.J. Schoeman of the Apostolic Faith Mission, and W.F. Mullan of the Assemblies of God—planned to use the fund for revivals targeting both Afrikaners and black Africans. They sponsored U.S. evangelist Emanuele Cannistraci, paying for his revivals in Johannesburg and Durban, including a mixed-race congregation. Cannistraci’s photos and claims of healing two deaf and dumb brothers appeared in Roberts’ *America’s Healing Magazine*.

Roberts ran direct mail campaigns promoting seed-faith, appealing especially to poor Americans and ethnic minorities. At its peak in the early 1980s, his organization generated $120 million a year and employed 2,300 people, including a university, medical school, and hospital. He was ordained in the International Pentecostal Holiness Church from 1936 until 1968, when he transferred to the United Methodist church—a controversial relationship that ended in 1987 when his credentials were revoked. A forerunner of the Charismatic movement, he was one of the most recognized preachers in the U.S. at his career’s height. His ministries reached millions of followers over six decades, and he founded both the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and Oral Roberts University. His preaching emphasized seed-faith, and his healing ministry helped bring the American Charismatic movement into the mainstream. He also pioneered televangelism and laid the foundations for prosperity gospel and abundant life teachings. The breadth and style of his ministry, including widely publicized funding appeals, made him a consistent subject of contention among critics and supporters.