The Vine News

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Oral Roberts, the evangelist who rose from humble tent revivals to found a multimillion-dollar ministry and a university bearing his name, died Dec. 15. He was 91.

Roberts died of complications from pneumonia in Newport Beach, Calif., according to his spokesman, A. Larry Ross. The evangelist was hospitalized after a fall on Saturday. He had survived two heart attacks in the 1990s and a broken hip in 2006.

Born into rural poverty in a log cabin near Ada, OK, south-east of Oklahoma City, Granville Oral Roberts nearly died of tuberculosis when he was 17. His family had joined the Pentecostal Holiness church, and he credited God with his recovery after attending a revival meeting.

That healing launched his religious career.
At 18, he began preaching for the Pentecostal Holiness church, and two years later married Evelyn, who died in May 2005, at age 88. The couple had two sons and two daughters: Ronald, who committed suicide in 1982; Rebecca, who along with her husband Marshall Nash died in an air crash in 1977; Richard and Roberta.

Roberts was a pioneer on two fronts — he helped bring spirit-filled charismatic Christianity into the mainstream and took his trademark revivals to television, a new frontier for religion in the United States. His ministry is also credited as the father of prosperity gospel in the US.

He gave up a local pastorate in Enid in 1947 to enter an evangelistic ministry in Tulsa to pray for the healing of the whole person — the body, mind and spirit.

By the 1960s and '70s, Roberts was reaching millions around the world through radio, television, publications and personal appearances. He remained on TV into the new century, co-hosting the program, "Miracles Now," with son Richard. He published dozens of books and conducted hundreds of crusades, all the while calling for more and more donations.

At the height of his ministry, Roberts presided over the renown Oral Roberts University , a Tulsa, OK landmark with its with its space-age buildings laden with gold paint, 200-foot prayer tower and 60-foot bronze statue of praying hands; a $250 million City of Faith Medical Center which later folded, and a $120 million business employing 2300 people.

He made headlines in 1987 when he declared on television that “God will call me home” if he did not raise $4.2 million in a few weeks to build the hospital.

Roberts turned leadership of the university to his son Richard Roberts, until the latter faced allegations in 2007 of spending university money on shopping sprees and other luxuries at a time the institution was more than $50 million in debt.

He is survived by son Richard, and daughter Roberta.