Reflections on the Death of TV-Church’s Founder, Oral Roberts
By Christopher Patrick Nelson

Oral Roberts died this month of pneumonia complications. He was 91-years-old. His trinity of legacies remain the church-on-TV cultural phenomenon, the introduction of charisma-based Christianity and faith-healing into the mainstream of American thought, and the doctrine that success-with-God-equals-success-with-the-bank.

I’m Muslim, and from an Islamic point of view, the emphasis on overwhelming emotion in religion tends to blur the rational judgment necessary to distinguish between competing claims for an accurate description of reality. The Prophet Muhammad said, “Reason is the root of my faith,” peace be upon him. However, if one wishes to convey a belief system one honestly considers accurate, I can understand the use of television to do so. As far as miraculous healing goes, I can see that happening too, and I don’t think Muslims have a copyright on it, either. However, I have strong concerns when it comes to preachers who equate money with spirituality.

The Hebrew Old Testament of the Bible describes the Prophet Job, peace be upon him, as prosperous, with much livestock. But in the Scripture, when the Devil accuses him of being loyal to the living God only because of Heaven’s blessings, the God allows Satan to test him. The Holy Writ describes Job’s loss of possessions, the support of his wife, the very lives of his children, and adds that the Accuser strikes him with a disgusting disease. Although by the end of the story the Creator restores the Prophet Job to his former status, the idea of poverty as a Divine test of the righteous remains.

Oral Roberts, along with other TV preachers, hatched the Prosperity Doctrine, and pointed to their private jets as evidence of God’s favor. At one time the man even said that if his companies didn’t meet their fundraising goal, God was going to “call him home.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but the neo-conservative movement, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Enron disaster, Bush’s tax cuts only for the rich, and corporate bail-outs cannot exist without greed-for-God theology. I’ve heard the wealthy say that the struggling working-class earned their suffering. Contrast that with how the Gospel as we now have it says the Prophet Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, taught his followers, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,” and, “Blessed are the poor…” and describes him as homeless. The Church attributes most of the New Testament to Saint Paul, as well as the saying, “The love of money is the root of all sorts of injurious things.”

What’s wrong with being a person of means? In the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, wealth tempts people to allow this world a hold on their hearts instead of the next one and not show mercy to the poor. So, when a minister who declares himself spokesman for the Lord of All the Worlds talks like just another agent of the oppressor, it makes a lot of people wonder what his interpretation of Christianity has to do with the Prophet Jesus Christ, peace be upon him. So, Oral Roberts get my vote for Man of the Year. Things will never be the same.