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Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than yourselves. - PHI 2:3

Tulsa minister Richard Roberts stepped down last week as head of Oral Roberts University, despite his telling CNN he wouldn’t resign. He didn’t resign because it was the right thing to do. He didn’t resign because of the various scandals brought to light in recent months by former staff members and faculty at ORU. No, rather he resigned because the Lord told him to. This would seem odd to anyone not familiar with the Lord’s direct line to the Roberts family, so let me give you some background.

In 1977, Oral, Richard’s father, claimed that a 900 foot tall Jesus told him to build the City of Faith, a medical facility that, according to giant Jesus, would be successful. The hospital only lasted 8 years. By all accounts Jesus wasn’t 900 feet tall so to be fair to Oral, it probably wasn’t Jesus. In all honesty I’d have done anything a 900 foot tall anyone told me to do, but I’d probably not tell the whole world in an effort to get them to turn over their money to me.

In 1983 Oral said the Lord told him to find a cure for cancer. Still waiting on that one Oral.

1987 was the year Oral stated the Lord would kill him if he didn’t raise 8 million dollars. Why the Lord needed 8 million dollars is beyond me. I guess 900 foot tall robes are expensive.

A year later the ORU board of regents approved an undisclosed amount of money to be used for Oral to buy a house in Beverly Hills and an exclusive golf club membership. Oral claims the Lord told him he needed a west coast office and could gain partners for his ministry by hobnobbing with the country club elite. Hobnobbing is my word, not the Lord’s.

In 2004, on Kenneth Copeland’s Believer’s Voice of Victory show, Oral said he had a vision of “Smoke, and vapor, and blood” appearing “in the clouds in the skies over New York City and the east part of the United States, and which hung there for quite some time and then spread out across America, without touching the ground, and then God diffused it away from America and sent it out to the nations of the earth…” Ha! Take that other nations! Have an imaginary bloody cloud, compliments of the Lord! Apparently Jesus is Lord over America, and that’s about it. I guess my bible is wrong.

Now the Lord phone has passed to Oral’s son Richard, who recently claims the Lord told him to quit his job. Take the Lord out of the equation and you’re left with a man who got caught. A man who knew he’d have to quit before he got fired. A man who was actually asked to resign. A man whose first wife left him because of the “…shameless way that she and Richard rationalized their jet-set way of life.” A man who more than likely will be found to have been taking university money for years. University money provided by people who really care about their soul. People who work hard to support something they believe in. People like my late father.

Growing up I was immersed in the so called ‘faith movement’. I watched Richard Roberts’ show everyday. I watched as he and his wife Lindsey claimed to heal people through the television set. Richard would look right into the camera and reach out. “I’m getting a tingling in my, in my left wrist….someone….someone has a…a cancer? A cancer. Yes. Cancer! I command you OUT of that wrist! Oh yes. Oh yes. I feel it. Yes. Yes. The Lord told me the cancer is GONE! It’s gone! Oh praise God! Praise the Lord.” I questioned it then just as I do now. Where were all these people who were getting healed? Why didn’t he ever have them on his show? Why were the only testaments to healing brought by way of a message from a phone prayer partner? “We just got a message from a woman who called in and said she had wrist cancer until I got the Lord’s message and now her wrist cancer is gone!” How a cancer patient got a diagnosis of remission in less than five minutes is beyond me.

My father was a smart man who never got the chance to live up to his potential. Despite his coming from a family rife with unrivaled discord and failure, he managed to escape that environment and religion played a big part in that. He believed the things he was told by those selling the Lord. He wasn’t a fool, he just believed, because his life was turned around by religion. My father wanted to be a doctor at the City of Faith. I remember my mom and dad scraping money together so he could fly to Tulsa from our small home in California. Not having money made it hard, but they managed to do it. They believed.

My dad returned from Tulsa with a new found hope. I remember his attitude was different and for the first time in a long time he had direction. He had hope. The plan was we would move to Tulsa, he’d attend college at ORU and become a doctor at the City of Faith. One thing lead to another, and as oft happens, life got in the way and by the time we moved to Oklahoma the City of Faith was long gone. A towering monument constructed to help those in need was now being leased out as office space. I have to believe this affected my father’s psyche on some level.

He died long before this most recent scandal. He didn’t have to see a man he admired crash and burn as so many in that line of work do. For that I’m thankful. No one needs to have their faith wavered by people who built it up. People who exploit other’s personal beliefs for financial gain are amongst the worst people to walk the planet.

Thankfully ORU has recently been given a gift of $70 million dollars by the owner of Mardel’s and Hobby Lobby. Take that homeless and uninsured people of the nation. The 700 Club’s Pat Robertson has offered to help as well. A man who agreed with Jerry Falwell that 9-11 was the result of America’s stance on homosexuals. Both Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland are on the board of regents at ORU because who better to advise on how to best exploit the poor and believing among us than two men who have made a career of it. Don’t forget about Ted Haggard, the minister who decried gay marriage then went and did meth and hooked up with a gay hooker. He graduated from ORU in 1978. ORU : Educating Charlatans since 1963.

I feel great empathy for those taken in. I feel the worst thing any of these so called bastions of moral fortitude can do is take money from the poor and unfortunate by offering up healing and soul saving. Anyone who uses one’s religion against them as a tool of manipulation is truly evil. Whether it’s convincing people to fly planes into buildings or give up their entire social security check because they’re convinced they’re doing God’s work should go ahead and get prepared for their special seat in hell.

-Joel Decker