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All Muck is Local: God Responds to Wrongful Termination Suit
Oral Roberts built his university and medical research center with nothing but his own sweat, grit and vision of a 900-foot Jesus (oh, and lots of contributions from his viewers). But now, his son Richard is accused of using the school as his own private cash cow and forcing faculty members to illegally dive into Tulsa politics.
Dr. Tim Brooker and two other former professors are suing the university and President Roberts for wrongful termination. In a petition this week, Brooker maintains he and his colleagues were fired for presenting a laundry list of complaints compiled against Roberts and his wife, including: 11 remodels of their university home, $800/month cell phone bills, horses for their children and scholarships for their friends, all on the school's dime.
But it's Brooker's complaints about the 2005 mayoral election that bring the story to All Muck is Local. Dr. Brooker is a successful professor of practical politics; his work has brought him enough attention for the Republican National Committee to base a program out of ORU to help shape national campaigns and issues. Brooker maintains (and his students have confirmed) that his class never focused on local politics, because it “turns neighbors into enemies.”
But in December of 2005, Brooker claims that Roberts approached him and said it was time to leverage ORU's funds and campaign experience to support Randi Miller – a county commissioner and friend of Roberts'- in her mayoral bid. Brooker pointed out that directly supporting a local candidate was a bad idea, not least because it would violate the university's 501(c)(3) status. Roberts insisted, and eventually the school began to shill for Miller. When the IRS did indeed contact the university about its campaign activities, Roberts allegedly told Brooker to take the fall and to deny that his employer or the university proper had played a role. The cover-up was driven home when the university provost signed an affidavit attesting to Roberts deniability- a statement that Brooker says he wrote and that the university intentionally distorted and even changed in order to absolve the president.
Roberts says that God says this case is a matter of “blackmail and extortion,” claiming that the plaintiff's lawyer holds a personal grudge against him after losing millions of dollars to ORU over several cases. “'We live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit against another person whether they have a legitimate case or not,'" God told Roberts.
In a phone call Friday, the lawyer, Gary Richardson, told me that he is not seeking “to kill the cow to get to the milk,” and that he's only interested in the corrupt practices of the university's current administration. He also says he's only been in a single case involving the university's adjacent hospital; the case never went to trial.
Comments (14)
TSUMBRA wrote on October 7, 2007 10:23 AM:"THAT Manure Night at Leroy's Corral"
TSUMBRA wrote on October 7, 2007 10:24 AM:www.ilovepoetry.com/viewpoem.asp?id=93508
Was it Richard we saw in the crowd THAT night holding hands with George W and Larry Craig?
"THAT Manure Night at Leroy's Corral"
moondancer wrote on October 7, 2007 12:16 PM:www.ilovepoetry.com/viewpoem.asp?id=93508
Was it Richard we saw in the crowd THAT night holding hands with George W and Larry Craig?
The 800 buck phone bills? Evidently, late night text messages to teen boys.
OkieFromMuskogee wrote on October 7, 2007 2:17 PM:I heart religious hypocrites.
There is no longer an "adjacent hospital." Oral Roberts' "City of Faith" medical center was open only from 1981 to 1989. It closed due to financial problems, and never came close to being able to pay its way. Many of the people who sent in their $77 to help build the hospital came to Tulsa, often without insurance, expecting to be taken care of.
They renamed the buildings the CitiPlex Towers, and today it's a strange-looking office complex.
Stakeholder wrote on October 7, 2007 6:20 PM:Christian superstition has been a brake on humanity for two thousand years. We'd have been better off with Ba'al and his Bo'oys...
dee Illuminati wrote on October 7, 2007 6:42 PM:I'm wondering if Ba'al & Bo'oys would be any different? I saw the Koolaid drinking faithful cheering during the service where the Oral Roberts denounced his accusers. Yeah watching them cheer in Church for all the worldly concerns was inspirational. CNN did a piece on it and I thought of Jonestown.
Els wrote on October 7, 2007 7:20 PM:The CityPlex towers have rent so inexpensive, they are the home of numerous call centers. There is still a hospital housed there. It's called "Tulsa Surgical Hospital" and it makes use of all the equipment put in for the original City of Faith. It's a boutique hospital for knee and hip replacements owned by the doctors who perform surgery there.
The building itself is...interesting.
Tulsa wrote on October 7, 2007 11:16 PM:Regarding the City of Faith (or Citiplex): Does anyone else find it weird that an architect would build an enormous gold, shiny building that shows the reflection of... the parking lot? Always bothered me.
Pete wrote on October 8, 2007 1:57 AM:I wonder if God cries. Shame on you both Roberts. Guess Patty was right about you, Richard, and your less than honest family. I'd hate to be you when you stand in front of God.
Anonymous wrote on October 8, 2007 2:03 AM:"(oh, and lots of contributions from his viewers)."
Not all those viewers are rich Christians... any of this sem pertinent today, especiallly considering this latest fall from grace?
But don't judge Christians just by their hypocrites. Jesus dealt with the televangelists long ago, in an earlier, but strangely recognizable manifestation.
Matthew 23, v13-29
13. "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.
14. ["Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.]
15. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
23. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.
25. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.
27. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
29. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous,
RB-Chicago wrote on October 8, 2007 8:58 AM:Jesus was speaking of the Pharisees and their scribes, but this sounds a lot like the whole lot of televangelists today.
Ever been to Tulsa? This stupidity is in the water!
Dee Illuminati wrote on October 8, 2007 11:02 AM:To Anonymous.
"There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law."
And this I find interesting in that that statement sums up much of what you can expect from someone, including malicious obedience and faithfully following a demagogue or cult.
I ran into an individual recently whom was a by-product of the above statement, this was an individual whom was irritated by the unexpected, irritated by the anomaly, and instead of seeing it as an opportunity of inquiry, saw all phenomenon as fact. And you have to know the meaning of phenomenon to understand that statement.
I think what draws the posters to TPM is not raw bipartisan wedge issues, not even the "MUCK," but instead an intelligent discourse of the world around us.
I run into people fixated upon a particular idea, process, or outlook, at a loss at an alternative, call it dogma, call it group-think, call it intellectual laziness, call it an inability to pick up the bible and read it for ones-self.
I will say this: Jesus overturned the money lenders tables, he pulled an animal from the MUCK on the Sabbath, he traveled with the tax collector and the prostitute, and somehow: "In the fashion of those whom hijack religion to their own needs" we get these renegade demagogues and their supporters of an idea in absence of context.
Even Mother Teresa expressed doubts, as did Jesus. And to be candid I remain doubtful that the uneducated, the morally bankrupt, the intellectually slothful can meet the ideals that religion espouses.
Religion was intended for the masses, it is not the same as spirituality. I will say this, as you climb the summit of science, you arrive at phenomenon at an apogee of all disciplines, faith and belief in the absence of genuine understanding, and as you descend the summit of faith and phenomenon down the slope of religion, you find superstition, fear, and guilt.
Martin Luther had it correct, we all have to liberate ourselves. And what that has to do with Satellites for Jesus is beyond me.
tekel wrote on October 8, 2007 5:53 PM:An open letter to Gary Richardson: do us all a favor. After you get the milk, kill the cow, burn the carcass, and salt the ground so that nothing can ever grow. And post the video to youtube.
And while you're at it, see if you can get their accreditation revoked, so that all of the poor saps who went to school there lose their worthless degrees.
noshrub wrote on October 8, 2007 8:47 PM:I want to know about those late-night text messages that Lindsey Roberts sent to "underage males." HUH??