Even after death, Oral Roberts’ guiding hand to be felt at university he founded

Even after death, Roberts’ hand to be felt at ORU

TULSA, Okla. — The hands evangelist Oral Roberts used to heal thousands of people will still help guide the university he founded nearly a half-century ago, even after his death, his followers believe.

Roberts passed away last week at 91, but the legacy of charismatic Christianity he brought to the religious community continues on the south Tulsa campus and beyond. A public memorial service is scheduled for Monday at the Mabee Center on the Oral Roberts University campus.

While students in the 1960s and 1970s flocked to the evangelical liberal arts school because of Roberts’ name, the next generation came because of the school’s unchanging mission: to train students to enter their chosen profession and succeed on the world’s terms, while giving God the glory.

As for future students, “they’ll come because of the mission, and the mission can’t be separated from the founder himself,” ORU President Mark Rutland told The Associated Press. “His mission and vision have thoroughly informed the DNA of this university.”

Claiming God told him to build the university to spread the Christian faith, Roberts chartered ORU in 1963 as a place where Pentecostals could live, study and pray together. The school became the first Pentecostal university in the world, taking the fiery brand of Christianity to the mainstream through radio and television.

While today’s student body has changed — it represents 40 Christian denominations, as well as nonbelievers — ORU students still adhere to the honor code the founder introduced that prohibits them from cursing, using drugs and alcohol, and having sex while enrolled. And students are still required to attend chapel service.

Only 6 percent of today’s students are preparing for the ministry — media studies and business administration are the most popular majors. Nevertheless, Roberts’ original goals for the school are still strongly present, even though he long ago scaled back his television appearances, stepped down as school president and retired to California.

Pictures of Roberts healing sick children at crusades hang on school walls, and the honor code pledge he created is still in effect. But perhaps the most visible thumbprints are the 60-foot tall bronze statue of praying hands — modeled after Roberts’— at the entrance to campus and the 200-foot-high prayer tower that rises above the school.

Roberts is also credited with helping put Tulsa on the map, building his university up from a pasture south of the city limits into a school that has tens of thousands of alumni. The campus, with its 1960s architecture, is a Tulsa landmark.

“He’ll still be very present,” says Tresa Johnson, who was enrolling at ORU during winter break and recalls watching Oral Roberts preach on her family’s black and white television. “Whether it’s in his videos, what’s written on the walls, the curriculum.

“They’re not going to be without knowing about Oral Roberts,” she said.

School officials have no intention of changing the name of the university — a concern that arose among some influential alumni after Roberts’ son, Richard, resigned as president in 2007 amid allegations his family used school money to live a life of luxury. He has denied all wrongdoing and continues to preach on television.

The school has recovered from the scandal, which found ORU more than $50 million in debt, and enrollment ticked up slightly this year.

Rutland, the school’s first president not named Roberts, has staunchly defended preserving the founder’s past accomplishments on campus, and says the name Oral Roberts still carries weight.

“I can tell you that there are high school students in small villages in Zimbabwe that can’t tell you where on an American map Oklahoma is, that have a life vision to attend ORU,” he said earlier this year. “I think it’s a brand that’s waiting for a little fresh polish, and I think it’s going to take off.”

Oral Roberts was not high on student Dexter Sullivan’s list of schools when he was deciding where to study, but he committed to ORU after visiting its campus, mainly because it is a place that emphasizes faith and spirituality.

“I know for a fact that very few people are Googling Oral Roberts the man and saying, ‘I want to go to his school,’” Sullivan said. “People are so skeptical of … TV evangelism.

“When you come to ORU, you experience the culture of the university, of the place,” he said.

Carol Holderness, a 1985 alumna of ORU who is now its women’s chaplain, recalls sitting on her dad’s knee when she was eight and declaring that she would one day be one of the singers for Oral Roberts’ shows. She became one, and did makeup for both Oral and son, Richard, for their programs.

“For us, we came because of the man,” she recalls. “My kids see the impact that Oral Roberts had, and his mission, and for them, it’s the mission, that we can be world-changers.”

Twenty-year-old music major Jordan Watkins, whose entire family attended the school, is too young to remember much about Roberts, and that most of what he knows of the man was told to him by his parents from when they attended ORU.

“No one’s met Oral Roberts in this generation,” Watkins said. “The school is his legacy. This is what he left the world.”