Oral Roberts Dead

Oral Roberts, a dirt-poor, Oklahoma farm boy who popularized the idea of a "prosperity gospel" while becoming one of the world's most recognizable televangelists, died Tuesday. He was 91.

Mr. Roberts, founder of the 5,400-student university in Tulsa, Okla., that is named after him, died of complications of pneumonia at a Newport Beach, Calif., hospital, family spokeswoman Melany Ethridge said.

Mr. Roberts became one of the most famous preachers of the 20th century by pioneering the use of television and computerized databases to spread the gospel and raise hundreds of millions of dollars -- a formula followed by many other ministries.

Using sophisticated direct-mail campaigns, Mr. Roberts popularized the "prosperity gospel," which asserts that God generously rewards financial acts of faith.

"It gives people hope and expectation that seeds sown to God will be multiplied back in every area of life," Mr. Roberts wrote in his 1995 autobiography, "Expect a Miracle: My Life and Ministry."

Mr. Roberts brought Pentecostalism -- which promotes charismatic worship including faith healing and speaking in tongues -- to the mainstream, giving it a newfound sense of legitimacy among the middle class and within other Christian denominations.

"More than any other person, he should be credited with starting the charismatic movement in mainline religion," said Vinson Synan, dean emeritus of the divinity school at Regent University in Virginia and historian of the Pentecostal movement. "He brought (divine) healing into the American consciousness."

Worldwide, the charismatic branch of Christianity -- now found in mainstream denominations as well as Pentecostalism -- grew from an estimated 20 million to 600 million during Mr. Roberts' decades in ministry. His international broadcasts and crusades deserve a large part of the credit for the increase, Christian scholars said.

In the 1970s, Mr. Roberts' prime-time specials drew 40 million viewers, and he appeared frequently on talk shows. He also had a program, "Something Good Is Going to Happen to You!," that aired Sundays.

At the time of his death, however, Mr. Roberts' ministry and celebrity had been in decline for years, a drop accelerated by a prophecy the preacher made 22 years ago that "God will call me home" unless $8 million was raised for scholarships to Oral Roberts University by March 31, 1987.

The money was raised, but by then, Mr. Roberts had become a laughingstock to many in and out of Christian world.

With dwindling revenues, the televangelist was forced in 1989 to downsize his ministry, laying off 250 employees, closing Tulsa's City of Faith medical center and an adjoining medical school and selling vacation homes and luxury cars.

A heart attack in 1992 forced him into semiretirement, although he remained the chancellor of Oral Roberts University. He spent most of his final years in a Newport Beach condominium with his wife, Evelyn, who died in April 2005. They had been married 66 years.

Mr. Roberts turned over the presidency of Oral Roberts University to his son, Richard. But he resigned in 2007 amid allegations that he had spent university money on personal expenses when the school was more than $50 million in debt.