Richard Lee Roberts (born November 12, 1948) is an American television evangelist and faith healer who serves as the chairman and chief executive officer of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association. He previously served fifteen years as the president of Oral Roberts University.
Early life and education
Richard Lee Roberts was born on November 12, 1948, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of evangelist Granville Oral Roberts and schoolteacher Evelyn Lutman Roberts. The third of four children, Richard had an older sister, Rebecca Ann, who was killed, along with her husband, Marshall Nash, in a plane crash in 1977; and an older brother, Ronald David, who committed suicide in 1982, six months after coming out as homosexual, and five months after entering a drug rehabilitation facility. Robert's younger sister, Roberta Jean Potts, is a practicing attorney in Tulsa.
As a young boy, Roberts watched his father travel the United States and the world conducting healing meetings, where he would preach and pray for the sick. At times, his father and mother were gone for periods as long as six weeks. When school permitted, Roberts accompanied his father on trips and dreamed of having a healing ministry of his own; many times walking by his side as his father prayed for people in the "invalid tent". During the portions of the services where his father prayed for people, Roberts was often standing on his chair, clapping when people were healed.
At age 5, Roberts had his first public performance at an Oral Roberts crusade in Baltimore, Maryland, where he stood on a chair to sing "I Believe." Around the same time, his father began to teach him golf; the first time he swung the club, Roberts sent a ball through the family's living room window. In the book Expect A Miracle: My Life and Ministry, Oral Roberts wrote about the bond he and his son Richard built through playing golf.
Though drawn to ministry, the attention his father drew made Roberts uncomfortable, leading to teasing at school. Roberts wrote, "I came home from school many a day with my shirt torn and my nose bloodied from being in fights with the other kids who made fun of me, my dad and the healing ministry of Jesus Christ." As a teenager, with the negative press his father was receiving and pressure from his father to sing at crusades, he began to pull away from involvement with his father's ministry and began pursuing other talents and interests, such as singing. Roberts learned to play the guitar and performed around Oklahoma, dreaming of a career as a nightclub singer in Las Vegas. In 1966, he played the lead in his high school's production of The Sound of Music and was offered a scholarship to Interlochen.
Graduating from Memorial High School in May 1966 Roberts attended University of Kansas, intending to study music. During the summer of his freshman year, he worked at the famous Starlight Theater in Kansas City, with a number of performers including Shirley Jones. He also had been working in a number of nightclubs and had been offered a contract to sing in Las Vegas.
While at the University of Kansas, Roberts fell ill and had to go to the hospital. When he returned home, he heard a voice telling him that he was in the wrong place and that he belonged at Oral Roberts University instead. The next year, Roberts left Kansas and enrolled at ORU. In 1968 Roberts dedicated his life to Jesus Christ and joined his father’s ministry as a singer.
Roberts holds three degrees from Oral Roberts University: BA in communications in 1985; a master's degree in 1992; and a DMin degree in 2002.
Family
Against the wishes of his family and friends, Roberts married Patricia "Patti" Holcombe on November 27, 1968. In his book, He’s The God of a Second Chance, Roberts wrote that the marriage was "a terrible mistake that I didn't know how to get out of," but that he did not believe in divorce. Together they have two children, Christi (b. 1971) and Juli (b. 1972). Patti filed for divorce in 1978. In 1983, she released a book called Ashes to Gold, discussing her thoughts on Roberts' ministry and university.
Because of his high-profile divorce, Roberts believed it was important to go before the executive staff of the ministry and the university to discuss his desire to remarry and seek their approval. They approved his request. Several weeks later, on January 11, 1980, Roberts married Lindsay Salem at the campus chapel of Rollins College.