Oral Roberts and the Rise of the Prosperity Gospel

Root, Jonathan

ISBN 10: 0802877273 / ISBN 13: 9780802877277

Published by Eerdmans Publishing Company, William B., 2023

About this Item

Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Seller Inventory # 48725266-6

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Oral Roberts and the Rise of the Prosperity Gospel
• Publisher: Eerdmans Publishing Company, William B.
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802877273
• ISBN 13: 9780802877277
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good
• Weight: 0.661 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

In 1946, God gave Oral Roberts a new Buick.

 And this just one of many miracles the young, broke preacher learned to expect, as Oral Roberts would go on to build an evangelistic ministry worth millions of dollars, a medical complex, and a university. How do we interpret the life of a man who seemed to combine rampant consumerist excess with a sincere devotion to the gospel?

Seeking to answer this question, Jonathan Root weaves together accounts of Oral Roberts’s life in a balanced and engaging narrative.  This fresh biography covers Roberts’s early life during the Great Depression in Oklahoma, his family’s financial struggles during his early career as a Pentecostal preacher, his healing ministry’s explosive growth in popularity via the new media of radio and television, and his empire’s eventual collapse. Root pays special attention to how Roberts introduced the “prosperity gospel” to American Protestants with his affirmation that God intends his followers to be both spiritually and physically fulfilled.

Root’s engaging narration looks to primary sources on Roberts’s life as well as the mythologized stories he told years later. The man who emerges is both deeply flawed and entirely earnest in his devotion to Christ. Oral Roberts and the Rise of the Prosperity Gospel will be an absorbing read for all those interested in American religious history and one of its most colorful figures.

About the Author

 

Jonathan Root is a postdoctoral teaching fellow in history at the University of Missouri. His research explores the relationship between the prosperity gospel and American culture, specifically its consumer and therapeutic elements.