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During an orgy of basketball watching, I discovered that my distaste for a certain brand of conservative, evangelical Christianity is so strong that I cannot find it within me to pull for Oral Roberts University, a #15 seed playing for a spot in the Elite 8. Then I liked their team so well that I began feeling conflicted. Then at halftime I read up on Oral Roberts to fortify myself. From Wikipedia:
[H]e also pioneered televangelism and laid the foundations of the prosperity gospel and abundant life teachings. . . .
Until 1947 Roberts struggled as a part-time preacher in Oklahoma, but when he was 29 Roberts said he picked up his Bible and it fell open at the Third Epistle of John, where he read verse 2: "I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospereth." The next day, he said, he bought a Buick and God appeared, directing him to heal the sick. . . .
In 1977, Roberts claimed to have had a vision from a 900-foot-tall Jesus who told him to build City of Faith Medical and Research Center, and the hospital would be a success. . . .
In 1983 Roberts said Jesus had appeared to him in person and commissioned him to find a cure for cancer.
Roberts' fundraising was controversial. In January 1987, during a fundraising drive, Roberts announced to a television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would "call him home." However, the year before on Easter he had told a gathering at the Dallas Convention Center that God had instruced him to "raise the money "by the end of the year" or he would die. Regardless of this new March deadline and the fact that he was still $4.5 million short of his goal, some were fearful that he was referring to suicide, given the impassioned pleas and tears that accompanied his statement. Late in March 1987 while Roberts was fasting and praying in the Prayer Tower [building at the center of the ORU campus], Florida dog track owner Jerry Collins donated $1.3 million. . . .
Roberts maintained his love of finery and one obituary maintained that even when times became economically hard, "he continued to wear his Italian silk suits, diamond rings and gold bracelets—airbrushed out by his staff on publicity photos. . . .
[T]he City of Faith Hospital was forced to close in 1989 after losing money. Roberts was forced to respond with the sale of his holiday homes in Palm Springs and Beverly Hills as well as three of his Mercedes cars.
In my Bible, the portentous verse from the Third Epistle of John appears on page 1490 of a total of 1514. If the book "fell open," or was opened at random, it seems likely to me that it would be to a page closer to the middle. Thin to win! Since mine is off the shelf now, I just opened the Bible at random and read. See if you can pick out the sentence my eye first fell upon:
A. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
B. He set it like a willow twig, and it sprouted and became a low spreading vine, and its branches turned toward him, and its roots remained where it stood.
C. Sell your possessions, and give alms.
D. He who loves money will not be satisfied with money; nor he who loves wealth, with gain: this also is vanity.
It was B. I was hoping for something more personal. The three wrong choices just go to show that the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. Arkansas held on for a 2-point win when ORU's star player had his 3-pointer skim off the rim at the buzzer.
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