Deadline from God

Almighty God, says a handsome, snappily dressed Oklahoman, has personally asked him, in audible tones, to win a million souls by July 1, 1956. This theophanous request--especially with a deadline--might give pause to many a lesser man, but it is made to order for the special talents of the Rev. Oral Roberts, 37-year-old evangelist and faith healer and the U.S.'s newest religious comet.

Almost 2,000,000 people in the U.S. and South Africa have already heard Roberts' orotund voice, been exposed to his high-pressure evangelism. He has conducted 20 successful crusades, set up regular programs on 223 radio and 98 TV stations throughout the U.S., gone into the publishing business with books, tracts and two magazines (total circ. 5,000,000). But his most valuable asset is his "healing" right arm, through which, he says, the power of God flows like a current of electricity.

On the Floor. "Getting saved made many great changes for me," wrote Roberts in his autobiography (100,000 copies sold, at $1.50 each). This is probably the only understatement of which he has ever been guilty. The son of a struggling revivalist preacher in Ada, Okla., he was, at the age of 16, at "the end of the way," afflicted with tuberculosis and stuttering. Despairing of his life, his family took him to a revivalist healer. On the way, God spoke to him for the first time in an audible voice. Said He: "Son, I am going to heal you, and you are to take My healing power to your generation."

Roberts got well, became a preacher of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, traveled all over the U.S. For twelve years, he says, God did not give him the promised healing powers. One day he locked himself in his church study in Enid, Okla. and addressed himself to God: "I am going to find You. I will lie down on this floor before You and start praying. I will never rise until You speak to me." After several hours, he recounts, God ordered him to get up ("He spoke like a military commander"), get in his car, drive one block and turn right. As he started the right turn God gave him the healing power. Oral drove to the parsonage, ran into the house and shouted to his wife: "Evelyn, cook me a meal; the Lord has spoken to me!"

On the Road. Roberts promptly moved to Tulsa and set up headquarters. From then on, he says, "the thing mushroomed." Today, in a modern, air-conditioned building in Tulsa, an office staff of 155 keeps tab on Roberts' highly organized Healing Waters Inc., using row upon row of files and machines to sort and answer thousands of letters that pour in daily, handling magazine, tract and book distribution and keeping books on the evangelist's thriving financial affairs. On the road, another staff of twelve rolls across country in eight stainless-steel truck trailers. Their cargo: a 200-by-360-ft. tent that Roberts claims is the largest evangelistic tent in the world, an aluminum preaching platform that can hold 60 people, a 60,000-watt lighting and public-address system and sundry other equipment worth $240,000.

Roberts begins his revival meetings by warming up the audience with a session of lively hymn singing, then launches into a hellfire sermon, storming up and down the platform with microphone in hand. When he finally asks the unsaved to come forward, hundreds troop down the aisles past the shiny aluminum tent-poles. During the service Roberts also asks for contributions, which may average $2,000 for an audience of 10,000.

On the Offense. The laying on of hands is the climax. The halt, the lame and the blind file up, or are pushed or carried, before Roberts one by one. He prays for each one, sometimes seizing a head and wriggling it vigorously or pumping an arthritic arm up and down. "I ask the Lord to deliver our sister here from sugar in her blood," he cries. "Heavenly Lord, take the head noises away from this woman." Last week outside Harrisburg, Pa., an emaciated youth afflicted by polio and epilepsy rose unsteadily from his pallet after Roberts touched him on the first night of a 10-day crusade. "Oh, Jesus," moaned the crowd. "There he goes."

Thousands claim to have been cured through Roberts of everything from tuberculosis to menopause troubles, but most return home with the same ailments with which they came. Roberts' critics have accused him of shrewdly selecting hysterics and effecting only temporary relief. Earlier this year in Phoenix, Ariz., a group of ministers offered, while Roberts was in town, to pay $1,000 for any proof of divine healing, got no comers. Of such doubters, Roberts says: "I'll leave them to their theology. I'm out to save souls. I have more friends among doctors than among ministers."

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