Cooldaddy, Broken Arrow (11/14/2008 4:54:52 PM)

Richard Roberts and his wife are both crooks!

Bluebird of HOPE, Osage County (11/14/2008 4:59:32 PM)

Maybe ORU can BAIL OUT the Auto Industry as well!!

Popeye, Tulsa (11/14/2008 5:21:07 PM)

What goes around does come around! Of course, if this scumbag got everything he deserved he'd be in a box downtown... Somewhere near Skyhawk!

woodyguthrie, (11/14/2008 5:22:12 PM)

This should be no problem for Richard. If he can really faith heal like he claims, there is plenty of demand for his services. We have lots of soldiers coming back from Iraq missing limbs, eyes and other body parts -- lets see him heal of few of them. I'm sure once he does that, the money will come pouring in. I'd pay good money to just watch.

Unless, of course, he is a fraud......

zrs, Tulsa, Claremore (11/14/2008 5:46:34 PM)

Yeah, woody.

Had a friend who went to ORU, said in one of her classes with Roberts he told everyone in the class that they were healed of all of their ailments, and she firmly believed she was healed of her diabetes. Well, she started eating sugar again, and began having some pretty bad symptoms. Turns out, she wasn't healed. What do you know?

Charley, (11/14/2008 5:50:18 PM)

I'll be glad when they change the name of the place. Any connection to Oral Roberts should be removed ASAP.

If they ever erect a sign, apologizing for bilking the fools around the nation, the father & the son might get some forgiveness & they might not.

Their legacy will be tarnished heavily, maybe if ol' Richard got out there in the Prayer Tower & begged for some more money, he could get enough to buy some forgiveness, but I doubt it.

gp, (11/14/2008 6:07:01 PM)

Great. Another bailout. Why do we continue to reward people for bad behavior? I know a lot of people who could use that 400 grand to buy groceries. Such a disappointment.

my view, America (11/14/2008 6:09:36 PM)

Well maybe he can find is Dads old revival tent and go on the road. You know back to his family roots.

Popeye, Tulsa (11/14/2008 6:17:38 PM)

What a scumbag, his old man too!

cobweb, (11/14/2008 7:19:51 PM)

Every time I feel the need to get religious, I watch a couple of minutes of this goofy huckster and realize this can't be right.

ADD, (11/14/2008 7:40:15 PM)

He's a huckster, just like all the others, including Billy James Hargis, Jimmy Swaggert, and many other televangelists "exposed"... But, unlike Marjoe, he has no style. Unlike Falwell, he has no smarts. What's he going to do now? Sell used cars?

Rosco, (11/14/2008 7:45:59 PM)

"Every time I feel the need to get religious, I watch a couple of minutes of this goofy huckster and realize this can't be right."
Cobweb, I will pray for your sould tonight. You cannot critick Gods anointed vessal. Richard was chosen by God to lead the masses as was his daddy. Oral raised dozens and dozens from the dead. This has been documented by many people who witnessed the great miricles Oral performed. Richard has also performed the same miricles in front of thousands of people. God said "thou shalt not judge less ye be judged". You must head and obay Gods word to prosper.

Skeptic, Tulsa (11/14/2008 7:46:05 PM)

When I was a student at ORU, Richard was still married to Patti, his real wife. I was working in the Prayer Tower's Visitor Center where Oral's (ghost written) books were given out to the visitors. Immediately after the divorce was announced in chapel service, all the books were pulled and destroyed. Not only at ORU but OREA as well. Oral's PR person (I won't give out her name) decided that Patti should be written out of all ministry books. She was "disappeared" from any records that went to the partners of the ministry. Divorce isn't "Christian" or at least it impedes the flow of free money, apparently. Of course, the Roberts' also "disappeared" their gay son Ronald after his suicide in Osage county.
If someone wants to call him/hereself a christian, they should follow Christ, not these charlatons.

marlin, (11/14/2008 8:06:32 PM)

I watched Richards show this week, him and his wife looked like warmed over death. She's ballooned to a whopping 200 pounder, she's wider than she is tall. She drank from a coffee cup the entire show and it was obvious it wasn't coffee she was drinking.

They also had the bottom of the barrel on there as guests. It was two reformed con artist that wanted you to send them your money.

my view, America (11/14/2008 8:17:05 PM)

Rosco,

you are either joking, or you are a complete nut.

30kdm, Tulsa (11/14/2008 8:22:56 PM)

Oh man, now where are these hands going to get their dollars from?

Bud Green, (11/14/2008 8:23:39 PM)

Richard and Lindsay are selling false hope and fake healing. Oral G Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn, Jim Bakker et al are all phonies who preyed on the gullible, lonely, mentally unstable and other easily misled people.

They all capatalize and exploit because of the free pass that religions get concerning proof; religions have never, ever, proven their claims or beliefs that they refer to as "truth". Religions get free passes to spew any lies they can come up with.

KBR, (11/14/2008 8:32:55 PM)

Oral always said it was "God's university" so I wonder why he named it Oral Roberts University?

If you want some chuckles, turn down the volume and watch the weird faces Richard makes when he's speaking to a crowd.

tulsa native, Tulsa (11/14/2008 8:36:35 PM)

I would like for folks to remember that their relationship with God is between them and God. Don't let someone elses life negatively affect your decision to seek God and what he has for you.

paleface, Ponca City (11/14/2008 8:47:46 PM)

Hey ADD,
You forgot Jesse Jackson...
He is a huckser also...

Skeptic, Tulsa (11/14/2008 9:20:08 PM)

Thanks Joe-Allen for filling in some of the details about Ron Roberts. In 1982 I attended a church service in which a letter, supposedly, written by Ron Roberts was read to the congregation. The writer of the letter talked about being affiliated with the Oral Roberts Ministry and the difficulty of being the gay son or Oral and Evelyn. It was signed "the other Roberts son".

Patti was way too talented and too classy a woman for Richard. Her fall from grace came quick and efficiently. Of course the ministry continued on as if she never existed. Of course that's the way the university handled all "embarrassing" situations.

Thanks for clarifying some aspects of the saga.

Graychin, Eucha (11/14/2008 9:34:00 PM)

It's an axiom of the public relations business that you always dump your bad news - the stuff you'd rather not talk about - late on Friday afternoon, so it can disappear into the black hole of the weekend.

If Mr. Green thinks that it's worthwhile to spend $440,000 of his $70 million donation to make Richard Roberts go away for good, I'm willing to accept his judgment. I guess he thinks that Richard deserves a reward for the fine job that he had been doing as University president. Either that, or he's trying to buy off the possibility of still more bad publicity.

Lindsay will burn through that money in about six months. Then what?

I wish that someone knowledgeable would write a new history of the Roberts family and ORU from the tent-meeting days through the present. Wouldn't it make fascinating reading?

Can ORU ever overcome its long history of scandal, insider dealing, and hypocrisy? Is there really some way to cleanse it thoroughly? I doubt it. The past year's shakeup at the top is a noble step forward, but institutions and their cultures have long memories.

pm, (11/14/2008 9:39:50 PM)

No one is happy either way. Everyone is talking about divorce, that it is a crime. I am divorced also and remarried to a loving godly man. Unfortunately if I would not have gotten out of my first marriage I would be dead. My first husband beated and raped me over and over. The doctors said that if I did not get out that next time I would be dead. I did not want a divorce either because God is against it, but after he raped, beat me, had another woman on the side. I had to get out because if I did not I would be dead. Unfortunately after the divorce he did the same thing to the other woman and he ended up in prison. So all of you who are talking against divorce, I guess you all feel that I am also a bad person for not staying in a abusive marriage. God does forgive people who divorce there spouses, because I feel that God loves me no matter what. I have a saying that I tell my kids all of the time that no matter what they say and/or do no one will be happy because all people want is to get there way all of time.

VR BA, BA (11/14/2008 9:42:28 PM)

I have a lot of friends and family associated with ORU over the years and have tried (albeit with difficulty) to be sympathetic to them. However $440,000 is an awful lot of money for someone who knowingly violated the beliefs which the university was supposed to stand on. My daughter was in the dorm which was specially remodeled to fit and isolate the Roberts girls while the normal population lived in moldy and unsightly conditions. I have had some experiences with the elder Roberts and found him to be quite the gentleman though I do think he was off track in the latter years. I am sure Mr. Green studied this from all angles as he seems to be a sharp business man so this was likely the best way to rid the university of the Roberts association but it is a shame nonetheless. Hopefully this will put an end to the problems this otherwise good university has had and they can now move forward with a good facility and administration.

Skeptic, Tulsa (11/14/2008 9:59:40 PM)

PM - My comments about the Robert's divorce in 1979 was to illustrate a point and not intended in any way to pass judgment on someone's very personal choice. That the Robert's would dismiss Patti's part of the Robert's ministry so thoroughly is the tragedy that I was trying to convey.