A Few Paradoxes and Second Thoughts

In 1984, son Richard began his own daily TV program, and serious efforts got under way to groom him for taking over the ailing TV operation. He has been appointed president of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, and his autobiography is available for purchase by the faithful. Another book, not as popular with Oral and Richard, is Ashes to Gold, written by Richard’s first wife, Patti. In that book, she recounts that on their departure for their honeymoon, she and Richard were called into Oral’s presence. Weeping, he warned them that, if either of them ever left the ministry, God would kill them in a plane crash. Ironically enough, when Patti left Richard and the ministry in 1977, Oral’s oldest daughter was killed—in a plane crash. Healer Roberts, in the days of his tent show, assured his success by calling only those holding certain selected prayer cards to come forward to be healed. Others, crippled or afflicted in such a way that they obviously could not even appear to be healed, were kept segregated from the main body of worshipers. As reported in a United Press International release about a Roberts crusade in Long Island in 1958: Ambulances pulled up to the doors to discharge children with grotesquely twisted arms and legs, hollow-eyed victims of palsy, of cancer, of rheumatic fever and polio. The saddest cases were brought into a ward-like special room safe from the eyes of others.

This procedure was reported many times by the media and was witnessed by countless observers. But the truth is what Roberts says it is. According to him:I never segregated my healing line.... You saw them healed or not healed. I took everybody.... [On the prayer line] all manner of diseases and all conditions were healed.

The truth is that only a small percentage of those who attend any faith-healer’s meeting will receive personal attention. Most are only touched in passing, if at all. Faced with the evident fact that some people will not be affected by his magical and theatrical laying on of hands and screeching for demons to let loose of a body, Roberts had to change his official opinion, though that opinion had been given to him by God. In 1957, he asked:Do you believe that everyone can be healed by faith in God? I’m going to get you out of your suspense. I’ll give you my answer. Yes!

But just ten years later, the reverend had changed his mind:I used to think that everyone I prayed for would be healed.... What I was not reckoning with was the free moral agency of the person I was praying for. Nor was I reckoning with the sovereignty of God, nor the degrees of power that I might feel. There were a lot of things I was not reckoning with, because no one had ever told me and it wasn’t in a book. You could only find it out by trial and error.

Roberts says he knows just where his magical power is centered, and in that we may find further evidence of the incredible reasoning applied to examinations of these claims. Viewing the performance of Roberts, Episcopalian writer W. E. Mann was perceptive enough to know just where Roberts’s magic originated. Mann said: “There is a power in his right hand.” Oral verifies that and agrees that he has “God-anointed hands”:When the Lord’s presence came in my hand, I was really concerned about myself, whether I was just thinking I felt it. And I talked to brethren about it, and they warned me. But the fact was it was there. [My hands are] an extension of the hands of Christ.

Amazingly enough, it seemed to make no difference whether anyone actually touched Oral’s hand or not. He found he could place his magical appendage—via film—on the TV camera or—via recording—on the radio microphone and have it work just as well. Oral Roberts has said to reporters: “Ask whatever you like. I’ll do my best to answer.” And consider his statement in a recent broadcast (this is an exact transcribing, again with Roberts’s own confusing syntax):The Word has to be confirmed with signs and wonders. You got no right to give your money anywhere unless the Word is confirmed with signs and wonders. You got no legal right by God! ... I’m up here talkin’ the way I talk, and I started the Word must be confirmed with signs and wonders—the healing of the sick, the casting out of devils, the raising of the dead—that’s what I said in ’47, that’s what I’m saying in ’87!

In response to this suggestion, garbled as it was, on February 16, 1987, I sent a registered letter to Oral Roberts, marked “Personal and Confidential.” Here is part of the text of that letterI note that you have mentioned1. healing of the sick,2. casting out of devils, and3. raising of the dead. You have frequently, in the past, laid claim to the performance of at least some of these “signs and wonders.” May I hear from you regarding your evidence for the performance of these miracles as a result of your ministry? I am aware that you believe God, not you personally, brings about these events. I am particularly interested in any claims of healing, which would require medical evidence both before and after the event. Thank you for your attention to this request for information.

I received a reply a month later, consisting of three books and a letter from the Reverend Roberts assuring me that the answers I sought were there. They were not. All I found were the usual scraps of anecdotal material, first names, initials, and foggy designations. I was naive to have sent such a letter. Only later, looking into previous attempts by others seeking to obtain such evidence, and finding that they, too, had been rebuffed, I came upon this statement from Roberts:I don’t try to prove [that] multiplied thousands [are being healed]. I just say, “There’s the person. Let him tell you.” [This is enough] to me and the person.... I can’t prove that any person who ever came to me was healed, that is I can’t prove it to the satisfaction of everyone.

That’s not what I have been looking for. A hungry man does not demand a gourmet eight-course meal. A hamburger will do. I have never required that Oral’s healings—or anyone’s healings—be proved “to the satisfaction of everyone.” Nor have I asked for evidence that “multiplied thousands” have been healed. That would be ridiculous. I have asked only that one case be proved for a small group of expert, impartial witnesses. Obviously, Oral Roberts has no intention of cooperating. His organization has abandoned any effort to provide evidence of healing. The earlier efforts, in an atmosphere which tolerated sloppy thinking, were disorganized and produced only personal opinions of the believers who thought they’d been healed of every conceivable variety of ailment—psychological, organic, and financial. As a result of such adamant refusal to produce evidence, I can only believe that Roberts cannot produce it. My challenge is only one of many made over the years to Oral Roberts. In 1955, a Church of Christ repeatedly offered Roberts the opportunity to collect $1,000 if a jury of competent physicians could find any evidence that miracles were occurring in his ministry. The Roberts organization did not respond to that offer, either, I think because he is aware that he has no need to respond and that he could not, in any case, succeed. A City of Faith spokesperson offered this clever explanation for Roberts’s failure to respond:Suppose, for instance, Brother Roberts should take the time to answer those who offer $1,000 rewards for proof that one miracle has been performed in his meeting. The testimonies of the people who were healed would not be accepted by those making the challenge. The testimony of competent, believing physicians would not be accepted. Then where could an effort to satisfy the challengers end? Perhaps in a civil court to be dragged out with weeks of litigation that would do nobody any good. Meantime, the person who has been healed is still healed. He doesn’t need proof.

Note that besides the implicit threat of a lawsuit against anyone who would dare to insist upon proof, this statement specifies the use of “believing physicians,” once again implying that only believers can judge and evaluate these matters. In reality, of course, the attitude of the investigator in a properly controlled and designed test can have nothing to do with the result. But believers cannot master this kind of logic, because they think in a magical manner—when they think at all. The official spokesperson, questioned by phone, would not even answer a simple query about whether or not the Roberts prayer plus medical-care combination was any better than simple medical attention. And he had no statistics to offer for examination.