Oral Roberts and the End of an Era, Part II

Oral Roberts Crusade Poster from 1957



Oral Roberts, among others, pioneered a "new" media (TV) of their day as a vehicle for spreading a message of miracles that proceed from a good God along with Oral's popular notions of Seed Faith. By this means, the former tent revivalist had extended his reach far beyond the canvas of a tent or even the concrete of a large auditorium to an audience that never had to leave their homes to hear and see him in action. Of course, other preachers and religious personalities were also experimenting with TV's promise and pitfalls. Each of them brought their own twist and carved out their own audiences. Meanwhile, the next generation of TV preachers such as Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes watched and learned.

But TV ministry is expensive. Getting viewers to underwrite the broadcasts requires a constant flow of giving which, in turn, demands a message that will constantly delight an audience rather than confront it. Television ministries, therefore, perfected their "product": inspiration.

All of this was not lost upon churches that wanted to grow large. Even if they were not broadcasting their services, they found their own ways to keep the inspiration flowing and the confrontation at a minimum. "Old school" sermons turned into inspirational sermonettes with testimonials and contemporary MOR music filling out the mix. It was Oral Roberts and others whoe pioneered this shift from the televised "crusade" to the religious variety or talk show format. Compared to a televised Billy Graham crusade -- or even the old days of Oral Robert's televised miracle services -- these programs were far more in keeping with the broader sensibilities of the culture. While it is true that Dr. Graham was still getting away with preaching a longer message with a confrontational "make a decision for Christ" challenge at the end, it must be remembered that he didn't have to keep a weekly TV show on the air!

But, once again, the revolution in the delivery of information is changing things and will, no doubt, continue to powerfully redefine the communication of Christian messages and values. The monopoly of old-fashioned broadcast TV with its several channels -- the medium that supported Oral Roberts and other TV preachers of his time -- has been replaced by cable, satellite, internet and the other Tweets and Tubes of our times. If you are reading blogs like this one, then I don't need to tell you about the power and variety of today's communication technology. Oral Roberts lived to see this revolution begin, but neither he or any of us now living can truly imagine where things will go from here. A long time ago, the printing press changed the world, and we are still living out the implications of that fact. But now we are living in a day when everyone's last name can be Guttenberg. What will that mean 200 years from now (should the Lord delay His return!)?

I recently learned of the 25 year old San Francisco Bay Area resident, Austin Heap, who figured that the world out to know what was going on in Iran in the days following their last (rigged?) election. When he found out that the authorities were blocking the abilities of the people to Twitter out footage and reports, he cobbled together something called "Haystack" which allowed the people in the streets to get around the government chokehold. What kind of a communications environment are we in when a young man in his mid-twenties can get the drop on both the government of a pretty large country and CNN? What will this mean to the propogation of the gospel and the spread of the church? I'm not sure. But it might just represent the same kind of leap that Oral Roberts made when he traded his tents for a TV studio and, in his own way, changed the world.

Oral Roberts and the End of an Era

In mid-December, noteworthy evangelist Oral Roberts died at age 91. For many people, Oral was a sort of quirky has-been -- a relic of America's tent revival past who traded up for TV cameras and a pioneering role as one of his generation's very first "televangelists". Of course, there is a respectable University in Tulsa that bears his name, but even ORU has had to come up with ways to survive some of its founders controversial statements and actions over the years.

So now Oral is gone and no one (trust me on this) is going to replace him. My confidence in that statement can be explained by the simple truth that Oral Roberts was a product of his times and times, as they say, have changed. But lost in the shuffle of the story of the stuttering boy from Bebee, Oklahoma who claims to have been healed by God of his own tuberculosis at age 17 is the reality that Oral Roberts changed his world, especially the Christian world of his time, even as it changed him. Several of these shifts were nothing short of revolutionary while others were merely remarkable.

For one thing, Jack Hayford (among others) points out that Oral Roberts -- the classical Pentecostal healing evangelist and tent preacher -- was a key figure in paving the way for the charismatic ministry of the Holy Spirit to overflow into the mainline Protestant denominations. Rev. Roberts' decision to join the United Methodist Church in 1968 shocked many of his oldline Pentecostal contemporaries, not to mention quite a few Methodists. For decades, classical Pentecostalism had been treated as the embarassing bumpkin cousin of the mainstream denominations by the leaders and adherents of those church systems. With the undeniably influential Roberts' crossover affiliation, the lines were blurred and the rules were changed. The rest, as they say, is history.

Oral was also visionary about his use of media -- especially television in its early days. While many preachers had been broadcasting services and sermons on the radio for decades, Oral Roberts boldly brought cameras into his healing miracle services so, as he said, people could witness the miracles for themselves. This move changed everything from television broadcasting itself (the first "reality" shows?) to American religious practice and perception. It changed Oral, too. The "new" televangelist Roberts consistently preached the message that "something good is going to happen to you" thanks to the faith promises of a "good God" who wanted nothing but "good things" for the viewers.

It was a message that was free of both fundamentalist pronouncements of impending hellfire and liberal doubts about Scripture and the historical Jesus. American viewers quickly got the message that there was a new, positive gospel in town and that was far more "inspirational" than the stuff preached in their churches. The brief, dramatic testimonies and seed faith promises on the tube opened up a new outlet and the ministry marketplace was suddenly born again. Now there was a whole new level of competition for people's time, attention and money! Once the dust began to settle it was clear that churches, broadcast media, evangelists and consumers of religious teaching would all come a long way from where they started.

Space does not permit me to continue to name all the changes Oral and his kind made in the religious landscape of their generation. However, I feel it is more important to hold up their accomplishments to the white hot light of the present times to see what shines through, what burns up and what blocks out the light altogether. That is what I will do in my next post.