Oral Roberts University: December 2007 Archives

Blogger Sterling Camden of Chip's Quips fesses up to being an ORU grad and although he's proud of the education he received, he's not proud of calling himself an ORU alumnus, and he reacts to the decision by Richard Roberts to resign as president:

No, what has embarrassed me about ORU ever since I was a sophomore is its hollow, camera-facing facade: the image portrayed to television viewers across the nation of a highly homogenous, straight-laced but happy population of brothers and sisters in Christ who all think that the Oral Roberts ministry is the best thing since the original Pentecost.

Despite his showmanship, I've always believed that Oral was basically sincere. I really do think he believes that what he preaches is the truth. I don't feel the same way about his son, Richard. Even back when he and his first wife, Patti, led the World Action Singers (we liked to call them the "Worldly Action Swingers") on stage, he has always impressed me as the central incarnation of the insincerity and hypocrisy that infected the Oral Roberts ministry and spread into the university. He was the spoiled child of a great father. Before he divorced his first wife, the official policy of the University and the Oral Roberts Evangelical Association was to terminate anyone who got divorced. Any guesses as to when that policy was modified?

UPDATE: Added the link to the entry, which I had inadvertently omitted.