From wrinkled bills to neatly creased $100 checks, donations poured into the Rev. Oral Roberts' sleek Tulsa headquarters last week. Cash and pledges have arrived in a steady stream over the past fortnight, at a rate of more than $160,000 each day. That was the good news. But there was also the bad news: a television channel in Washington dumped two January episodes of his 30-minute telecast. Seven other outlets, including stations in Tulsa and Dallas, are now monitoring each of the United Methodist preacher's syndicated shows to see if they fit the stations' standards. The Tulsa Tribune, a somewhat sympathetic observer of Roberts over the years, declared in an editorial headline, COME OFF IT, ORAL.
The source of all the fuss was a Jan. 4 Roberts program. Surrounded by white-coated students, the evangelist launched into an appeal for money so that graduates of the medical school of Oral Roberts University, his 22-year- old institution in Tulsa, can serve in overseas missions. Viewers were urged to send at least $100 apiece during the next three months to help reach a goal of $4.5 million. Then Roberts dropped a bombshell. If donations fell short, said the 68-year-old preacher, God would strike him down. "I'm asking you to help extend my life," he said. "We're at the point where God could call Oral Roberts home in March."
Colleagues denied that Roberts had any health problems, and he repeated the give-now-or-else plea on his show last week. It was reinforced by his evangelist son Richard, 38, in a mass mailing that contained an entreaty for cash. Wrote Richard: "Let's not let this be my dad's last BIRTHDAY!"
Oral Roberts has long aroused controversy, not only during his 21 years as a touring faith healer but in his subsequent career as university president and medical administrator. The death revelation, however, was certainly the oddest of the messages from on high that Roberts has reported since he launched his $250 million City of Faith Medical and Research Center in 1977. The first revelation was God's command to build the lavish complex, detailing such matters as a design with three towers of 20, 30 and 60 stories. In the next astonishing disclosure, Jesus appeared, standing "some 900 feet tall," and directed Roberts to persevere. As the need for money mounted, God ordered Roberts to require $240 from each supporter, promising "breakthroughs" on cancer in return. The visions produced about $10 million in gifts.
Aides to the evangelist denied that Roberts' sensational new appeal indicated financial problems in his spiritual empire. The ultramodern buildings of the 4,650-student university and adjacent medical complex are largely debt free, but obtaining enough income to keep the enterprises operating has proved difficult. The Tulsa Tribune reported last year that the voracious money demands of the hospital, clinic and research center were nearly twice Roberts' projections in the first year and continue to strip the university endowment and squeeze faculty income.
The steep costs have been worsened by the low daily average of 125 patients in the 294-bed hospital. A Roberts aide says the hospital (excluding the research center and clinic) operated in the black for the first time last month. To cut costs, 140 of the 1,000 medical-center staffers were laid off, the dental school was closed, and the law school was given to Evangelist Pat Robertson's CBN University.