World's Most Successful Scam Artist Dies

Pioneering televangelist Oral Roberts has died.

Evangelist Oral Roberts died today in Newport Beach, Calif., due to complications from pneumonia, according to a news release from OralRobertsNews.com. His son, Richard, and daughter, Roberta, were at his side, the release said. The founder of Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and Oral Roberts University was 91. There will be a private family internment. Arrangements for a public memorial service in Tulsa are pending and will be announced soon. “Oral Roberts was the greatest man of God I’ve ever known,” Richard Roberts said in the release. “A modern-day apostle of the healing ministry, an author, educator, evangelist, prophet, and innovator, he was the only man of his generation to build a worldwide ministry, an accredited university, and a medical school. “

In addition to claiming that God spoke directly to him every day, this multimillionaire scam artist also performed faked healings for hundreds of thousands of deluded saps who promptly handed over their meager life savings. In 1987 he told a worldwide television audience that unless they sent him $8M immediately, God would "call him home." The money arrived shortly. Plus an extra $1.1M. Later that same year his son (and eventual successor) claimed that he'd seen his father raise a child from the dead. More millions arrived shortly. In 1998 a whistleblower was forced off Oral Roberts University's board of regents after he revealed that its founder led a lavish Beverly Hills lifestyle, including owning a $17M mansion there.

Oral Roberts will be laid to rest in a platinum coffin lined with gold and encrusted with precious gems as his multimillionaire heirs reverently light thousand-dollar bills in his memory. Praise His Name!

UPDATE: Pam Spaulding points us to this clip of Pastor Roberts ranting about gay sex. It's actually pretty funny. "Go on. Go on and touch it. Go ahead, girl! Touch him on the most sensitive part of his body."