Someone phoned the other day and in the course of catching up asked why I had not mentioned the lawsuit filed against Oral Roberts University. I laughed and said I had posted it in passing, but that if it was going to play out the way it was looking to play out, there would be lots to blog about over quite a period of time.

The original court document is divine drama all by itself. I don’t quite know what it is with Americans and religious scandal, but they do go for the gold in all the seven deadlies and that dance is quite public.  True to our humanness, we absorb it as entertainment.

Now the lawsuit has been amended, and it has gone from sublime scandal to the luridness of the penny dreadfuls.

20 years ago an insider wrote a book about the excesses of the Oral Roberts empire, and was tossed out for her trouble. Patti Roberts Thompson was son Richard Roberts first wife. Her public telling was a book, Ashes to Gold and she and her accusations were all neatly swept away.

Meantime other religious scandals captivated a hungry public - Jimmy Swaggart, the PTL Club, Ted Haggard, a veritable litany and laundry list of leaders transgressions and resurrections.

This time 3 professors filed the original suit, claiming wrongful dismissal. Some of the spin and reaction has been laugh out loud material. Greed, excess, privilege, pride, outrage, it’s all there. And God gets talked about a lot.

Richard Roberts stood up and told students and supporters and anyone else who cared to listen that God had told him to fight the lawsuit.  It was already a twisted tale, and it was revealed the organization would do it’s own internal review. One of the regents is televangelist John Hagee. That’s like the fox investigating the hen-house, but those that follow religious scandals know this seems to be part of the script.

Interestingly the three professors aren’t asking for gobs of money, but if or when that changes is any-one’s guess. ORU certainly came out swinging, using their medium - media, landing on Larry King Live. And this time, people are swinging back, including former university regent Carlton Pearson.

There are several new allegations and added defendants. Tulsa World:

The full, unsubstantiated report now attached to the lawsuit contains new allegations that Lindsay Roberts, Richard Roberts’ wife, spent the night in an ORU guest house with an underage male nine times, was photographed 29 times in her car with an underage male after midnight and after minors’ curfew, visited Victory Christian School with an underage male 81 times in 2004, smoked with an underage male at her house and repeatedly moved her “male 16-year-old friend” into her family’s house.
…The amended lawsuit also contains a new defendant — ORU’s board of regents — and two new legal claims.

The former professors now claim that the board has neglected to properly oversee ORU, Richard Roberts and administrators.

The lawsuit claims that Vice Provost Jeff Ogle sexually harassed a professor, who was allegedly forced to resign while Ogle was promoted. Ogle has refuted the harassment claim.

The lawsuit also claims that ORU and Richard Roberts gave “a convicted sexual deviant unrestricted access to the students of the university.” The unidentified man was a “mentor” to ORU students and had confessed to “exposing himself to a 15-year-old boy in a school locker room.”

“This further demonstrates the board’s wanton and arrogant disregard for the safety of the students under its care,” the lawsuit states.

As another example of alleged negligence, the plaintiffs claim that ORU and Richard Roberts fired the school’s financial comptroller three days after they filed their lawsuit, then ORU destroyed “voluminous materials and documents . . . constituting spoilation of evidence,” the lawsuit says.

Additionally, the ex-professors claim that ORU, the board and administrators conspired to fire them, did so and then “instituted a smear campaign” against them.

The lawsuit alleges that at least one conspiracy meeting happened on ORU’s plane, which is leased from Tulsa Jet Management, whose president is Tulsa City Councilor Bill Christiansen.

This piece of news about new allegations broke Friday. The second Mrs. Roberts wasted little time taking her public swing Saturday.  The Tulsa World comments are a busy place, as with any media/educational organization a lot of people are affected and a lot of commenters have first hand knowledge. (ORU has about 25 thousand alumni)

In the 1800’s preachers were as much media stars in America as they are today. One of the most famous was Henry Ward Beecher. He helped change the landscape of the US, and found himself an international figure.
The scandal and drama in and around Preacher Beecher’s life is the stuff of legend. 
The tradition continues.
Stay tuned.

October 2, 2007 lawsuit (.pdf)
Scandal Vulnerability Assessment Oral Roberts University, Oral Roberts Ministries: Original Draft Prepared by Stephanie Cantrees (released by plaintiff’s lawyers)
October 12, 2007 amended lawsuit (.pdf)
Oral Roberts University