Friday, April 10, 2009

Oral Roberts, faith healer, rich guy


Oral Roberts to visit local church

Today, the OC Reg reports that 91-year-old Oral Roberts will make an appearance at Life Church on Crown Valley, Saturday. The old fellow will perform a "Blessing of the Next Generation" with a "laying on of hands" for more than 40 children.

OK, whatever.

The Reg took some pics. In the one above, Roberts “strikes a spiritual pose at his Newport Beach home.”

Newport Beach home?! I thought Roberts was a country boy from Oklahoma! Shouldn't he be there, kissing ignorant children? And what’s a “man of God” doing living in wealthy and God-forsaken Newport Beach? (And is his backyard a golf course?!)

Life Church pastor Phil Munsey gushes that Roberts is “an amazing man…. He’s prayed for a million and a half people.”

I don’t get it. Anybody can pray for a million and a half people. More even. What’s Munsey talking about?

Maybe the point is that, sure, anybody can pray for multitudes—even you. But when Roberts prays, God really listens!

I bet Roberts' shoes are Italian.

The Reg interviews Roberts. It asks him what it’s like to speak to hundreds of thousands of the sheepery. The answer:

I pray for God's presence to come into my being, my body and my mind. The sermon comes to me. I don't make notes.

OK, I get it. He’s the Lord's conduit. God enters him and comes out squawking in Oral’s voice. Plus God gives him a superpower.

Wow, what a humble fucking guy. I bet he lives by the water, owns a yacht, hangs at the BBC.

The interview ends with a surprise:

Q. What do you think about President Barack Obama?

A. He is the man of this time. He's taken the burdens of the presidency in a remarkable manner. If he keeps on going the way he's going, he'll be a remarkable president. I voted for him.

Well, OK. That’s a pretty good answer.

No comments:

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...