Roberts

TULSA, Oklahoma (AP):

Twenty years ago, tele-vangelist Oral Roberts said he was reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise US$8 million to found a university, or else he would be "called home."

Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Christian evangelical college in scandal.

Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home remodel-ling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's high school senior year trip to the Bahamas, and the purchase of a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus sport utility vehicle for his wife, Lindsay.

Mrs. Roberts a member of the school's board of regents who is referred to as ORU's 'first lady' on the university's website is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholar-ships to friends of her children and sending scores of late night text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as "underage males."

At a chapel service this week on the 5,300-student campus known for its 60-foot tall bronze sculpture of praying hands, Roberts said God told him: "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. This lawsuit ... is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion."

San Antonio televangelist John Hagee, a member of the ORU board of regents, said the university's executive board "is conducting a full and thorough investigation."

Colleagues fear for the reputation of the university and the future of the Roberts' ministry, which grew from tent revival meetings in the southern U.S. to one of the most successful evangelical empires in the country, hauling in tens of millions of dollars in contributions a year.