CBNNews.com – The son of prominent evangelist Oral Roberts has made his first statements since stepping down as head of ORU amidst a cloud of scandal.
Richard Roberts told CBN’s Pat Robertson that he did so in order to continue to follow God’s will.
“On Thanksgiving morning, sitting on my couch in our home praying, the Lord spoke to me, and said ‘I want you to resign, and do it immediately,’ Roberts recalled. Watch video
ORU leaders are “taking it one day at a time,” addressing pressing tasks and “working diligently to make sure the future is ensured,” he said. They are not in a hurry to choose a new president, following Richard Roberts’ resignation Nov. 23.
“We want to make absolutely sure that we take the necessary time that it takes to make sure it’s the right choice for ORU,” Pearsons said.
Regent University “stands ready” to help Oral Roberts University, but the struggling Oklahoma school can recover on its own, Regent President Pat Robertson said Wednesday.
Regent sent a team to ORU this week after a director there asked Robertson “if there was anything we at Regent University could do to assist them during this difficult time,” Robertson said in a written statement.
The team included several administrators and Regent’s former divinity school dean. Regent is based in Virginia Beach.
ORU is dealing with more than $50 million in debt and the resignation of its president, Richard Roberts, amid allegations of fiscal impropriety, according to media reports.
The Oral Roberts University board of regents is meeting to begin selection of a new school president, after Richard Roberts resigned from the top post.
Meanwhile, some faculty and students say they still have concerns.
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By Randy Sly
Concerns about the financial management by Roberts surfaced when, on October 2, three ORU professors filed a lawsuit against ORU charging wrongful dismissal and alleging inappropriate use of influence and university funds by President Roberts and his family. They alleged that he had used the university aircraft for personal trips and had spent school funds to buy horses for his children, according to John Swails, one of the plaintiffs.
By Hon. J.C. Watts
I’m proud to call Oklahoma home because my homefolks may just lead the nation in common sense. I give you the following letter to the editor written by Marguerite in Weatherford, Oklahoma, in one of the statewide newspapers.
Marguerite noted a story about a U.S. senator who “wants to check out all the ‘big’ televangelists to see if they’re spending donor money correctly. We (the public) donate to whomever we choose and if (the senator) wants to check out anything, it should be congressional spending habits! Our tax dollars are confiscated from us and he wants to make sure we’re getting our money’s worth from free donations? What a crock!
Heartland common sense. Kudos to Marguerite.
The arrogance of Congress never ceases to amaze me. I’ve yet to see a call for an investigation of Congress when a member of Congress falls, be it financially, morally or otherwise.
Not once have I heard of a call for every member of Congress to bring forth their financial statements or campaign statements in response to the actions of one bad apple.
I’m a little bit perplexed how Congress is so quick to stick its nose into different places. Televangelists driving expensive cars and living in fabulous homes may seem incompatible to some peoples’ interpretation of the scriptures.
But I suspect this is more about Uncle Sam not getting what he perceives is his fair share of the offering plate.
This is puzzling for several reasons. These ministries might be misusing parishioners’ tithes or offerings. But while we can all speculate on what is or isn’t going on in the faith world, we don’t need to speculate on what’s happening in financial world.
Congress is sticking its nose into speculation of some evangelists’ matters, while everyone in Congress has the facts lying before them regarding the financial shenanigans of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Read more…
“The sharks are circling, smelling blood in the evangelical waters and are ready to devour Christian-based educational institutions because they are, well, Christian. While not being a fan of Oral Roberts or his style of ‘blab-it-and-grab-it’ message, I would not at all rejoice in seeing ORU crumble as a result of a handful of bad apples. Oral Roberts, Richard Roberts, Robert Tilton, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Rod Parsley, Benny Hinn, Paul Crouch and the rest of the modern-day Johann Tetzels are at the bottom of the spiritual food chain as far as I’m concerned but it is tragic to see an Oklahoma university fail because of poor (spiritual, not financial) leadership.” Read more…
AP: Oral Roberts Provost to Resign if School’s President Stays
From The Parish:
KFOR, our local NBC affiliate, did a piece during the 10 o’clock news last night about the homes of high profile OKC pastors. This is a direct fallout from the ORU scandal, wherein people are finally becoming aware of how Oral, Richard, and Lindsay Roberts have been spending donor money for a long time. (Side note: this is no surprise to anyone familiar with the movement. A tell-all book was written right after Lindsay joined the family many years ago.)
Again, it’s funny to me how people outside the church are able to see through the bullshit to the heart of the matter. The high profile pastors lived in houses with values ranging from 95,000 (People’s Church, Assembly of God) to 987,000 dollars (Crossings Community Church, Church of God, Anderson). For those of you not living in Oklahoma, you need to know that property is cheap here. Here’s a rough example. My wife and I live in a 2100 sq. ft, 3-bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, 1-year old house on one acre for which we paid 235,000 dollars. The homes of these pastors, at least the ones above a half million dollars, ranged in size from 5000 to 8000 sq. ft. Do the math for Colorado and California to see what the local equivalent would be. I’m guessing we’re looking at 3-5 million easy. Read more…
Related:
KFOR Video Report: “The Divine Dollar”
Hat tip: Et Cetera: Publick and Privat Curiosities:
“Three former Oral Roberts University professors made public on Friday what their lawsuit against Oral Roberts University describes as “the exact packet of information” that they allege got two of them fired and resulted in one’s resignation. Previous versions of the lawsuit contained only a summary of the report, which was partially written by the sister-in-law of ORU’s President Richard Roberts.”
“The full, unsubstantiated report now attached to the professors’ lawsuit now contains new charges that Lindsay Roberts, Richard Roberts’ wife, spent the night in a university guest house with an underage male nine times, was photographed 29 times in her car with an underage male after midnight and after minors’ curfew, visited Victory Christian School with an underage male 81 times in 2004, smoked with an underage male at her house and repeatedly moved her “male 16-year-old friend” into her family’s house.” Read more…
Video: Larry King Live: Richard and Lindsay Roberts Defend Themselves (Pt. 1)
Related:
Hat tip: MedBlogged:
Not Even a Hand Slap?
As noted below, Toby Huyssen, the ORU student who was alleged to have written an e-mail calling on approximately 350 of his fellow students to come to the Government Department offices to sign up to volunteer in the Randi Miller for Mayor campaign, hasn’t seemed to have suffered too much from his admitted ethical lapse.
On the surface, the email appeared to have been written by government professor Tim Brooker [you can see a scanned version of the e-mail here]. However, when the proverbial item this the proverbial fan, and someone suggested the IRS might want to look into ORU in general and Dr. Brooker in particular, the explanation was given that young Toby actually wrote the e-mail, using Dr. Brooker’s university owned computer and neglecting to remove Dr. Brooker’s electronic signature from the bottom. Read more…
Oklahoma Political News Service 