Get Thee Behind Me, Poverty

Then, because his high living has always caused some of the attention focused on him, especially after his most recent threat to die, he chose to outline to the conference delegates the logic behind his luxurious habits. He really knows how to live in style, and he’s not shy about it. A frequent honored guest of several presidents at the White House, Roberts enjoys an existence that amply reflects his view that poverty is one of mankind’s greatest enemies, second only to Satan himself. I will quote this explanation here exactly as he himself gave it, with the strange syntax, incomplete thoughts, and grammatical chaos. After briefly mentioning the home, cars, clothes, and wealth about which the critics had tut-tutted, he said:What is our desire? [Saint] Paul says, “But I desire that fruit may abound in your account.” Now, what is fruit? Something that grew from a seed. Fruit is called what? Produce! Is it not? When you went in to go to the market, you go to get produce! Fresh produce, if you can buy it! It came from seed! What do I desire? I desire that you might plant seed into my ministry, in my life to Christ, that you might get a harvest. Produce! Get it multiplied back, that you may have an account with God. When you write a check, and you don’t have any account in a bank, the check will bounce. Right here is where there’s big trouble! There’s big trouble among God’s people, sending up a demand of God and we’ve not planted seed! We’ve not given to his men and women who are taking the Gospel. When I give to my church. Alright? Let’s just talk about that. Fine! Why don’t you investigate what’s happening to your money?

(Perhaps you can understand his logic. I cannot. Those at the conference went wild with enthusiasm over these words, so it appears they are better able than I to follow the thought that the Reverend Roberts presented to them.) At that point in his “explanation,” Roberts avoided discussion of what was happening to the money that was sent to him and spoke instead of another preacher who had joined the Roberts staff because he was not satisfied with the way his own funds were being handled. Then Roberts launched into a definition of why his ministry was a true representation of God’s teachings and was worthy of donations. But he avoided the mystery of just what happened to all that money.

The Canvas Cathedral

Roberts claims that he entered the ministry and began speaking to God after he was divinely healed of tuberculosis at age 17, but the miracle dims somewhat when we discover that he has not produced any medical records except to establish that after his purported healing he had “clear lungs.” Also, he was undergoing orthodox medical treatment at the time, and it took him months of such treatment before he was well enough to claim a cure. At one time his tent show, which predated his TV show, accommodated 12,000 chairs, plus an additional 60 for the “anointed” and special visitors on stage. It boasted a 200,000-watt lighting and public-address system. According to his former managers, some 200 people would be taken by ambulance to each of these tent revivals. Former evangelist Marjoe Gortner said in his documentary, Marjoe, that Roberts at that stage was spending $300,000 a month on postage—an enormous sum in 1971. Devotees can come up with the most incredibly naive reasoning to explain Roberts’s successes and to ignore his failures. Two of his ardent fans, Tom and Beth Poole, quoted in the Tulsa Tribune in an extensive and excellent article on the ministry, gave their opinion that “Oral Roberts is a man of God. A country boy couldn’t have done this if it hadn’t been God’s plan.” The Pooles are apparently unaware that Harry Truman, Thomas Edison, and hundreds of other “country boys”—and girls—have been far more successful than Roberts, and without using contrived gimmicks to sell their abilities. They also lived up to their failures.