Some people are lunatics:
Oral Roberts University, the debt-ridden evangelical institution riven by scandal, has been handed a $70 million lifeline.
Mart Green, founder of the Christian office and educational supply store chain Mardel, said Tuesday he would immediately give $8 million to the university, with the rest to come after a 60-to-90-day review of the university’s financial records.
Green said his family must approve the financial review before the $62 million is given and is requesting at least two seats on the board of regents for his family members.
As the Fark headline says, it’s “Proof that ‘rich’ and ‘smart’ are not synonyms…”
Jake
A fool and his money…makes the Talevan very happy.
OK. Chrisitan educational supplies I can see. You got your Jesus Loves Me pencils, chalk boards with the 10 Commandments printed on the borders, Wetsuits Made EZ books and all that. But Christian office supplies?
The mind recoils.
gypsy howell
Ha ha! And so, the scam continues. I’ll be those board members are entitled to all kinds of luscious perks paid with all that tax-free money.
Zifnab
Yeah, this sounds a lot less like foolishness and a lot more like money laundering.
Mart Green finds himself a $70 million dollar tax shelter.
Cinderella Ferret
Michael any particular reason you are interested in Oral Roberts? Ahem …
Sure. It should be obvious. Toilet paper. Kleenex. You know, to wipe up the mess in the Men’s Room. Pens. Pencils. Paper. To draw historically accurate scenes of Jesus and the baby dinosaurs. Come on get with the program!
Notorious P.A.T.
Isn’t that the university where the head guy was just found to be using its money to buy clothes, cars, vacations, etc for himself? Yeah, that’s the kind of enterprise I would donate to as well.
4tehlulz
Most likely made in China, by communists.
jcricket
They have special built-in protection against heathen use.
Damien
Could it be that he’s a corrupt, money hungry, unethical person who’s currently in a position of power and tax exempt?
Nah, it’s because his name makes for a convenient blowjob joke. That must be it.
stickler
Zifnab is on the right track above. But I’d bet it’s more than a tax shelter. This rich bidnessman is buying himself a University. It’ll still have “Oral Roberts” on the masthead, but after the audit turns up all kinds of happy hijinks, he’ll be able to put whoever he wants in as President of the University. Two seats on the Board of Regents, $62 million to dole out when he pleases, and evidence of mismanagement on the part of the current leadership … this guy holds the whip hand.
Think of it as more of a buyout or hostile takeover than a “rescue.”
Jake
And given the proclivities of your average Talevangical, photos of him holding the whip (and leash) will surface in a year or so.
carol h
Ah, so much ignorance. I just happens that I had my extended family visiting us in Oklahoma last weekend for the wedding of my son. He just returned from Iraq and we had the “wedding” although he was married at the courthouse just before he deployed. We drove by Hobby Lobby, a Christian craft store also owned by the Greens and she wondered how a craft store could be Christian. It’s hard to described unless you have been there, but the “Testimints” by the cash register instead of TicTacs is one clue. The greeting card selection is another, along with being closed on Sundays. It’s not as obvious as Mardel, though. You get Washing in the Blood just by walking into that place. They have cut down on office supplies in the last few years to focus on home schooling supplies and Christian books. If you’re looking for home schooling supplies that don’t mention the dreaded Darwinism it’s definately the right spot.
Buck
This guy is clearly preparing to do to Oral Roberts what Jerry Falwell did to Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.
Does ORU have a waterslide?
Damien
Those are, unfortunately, the only ones I can ever seem to find. I swear to God (no pun intended) that if you’re not a fundi Christian it’s practically impossible to homeschool in this country… even if you want to do so to keep your kids away from said Fundi’s public teacher counterparts.
mantis
Christian office supplies? Do they sell staplers?
Andy K
Lemme guess…at Mardel’s HQ they’ve got, under lock & key, the pencil Jesus used to sign the tab at the Last Supper.
jrg
Only time will tell if Green an idiot for doing this.
If he manages to sustain the university by cleaning house; recruiting and hiring well for law, administration, and teaching degrees; and finding additional wealthy donors looking for naming opportunities, this donation could give him and his family PR and political connections for decades.
I don’t think this makes sense to people because most people do not have 70 million dollars to spend on something like this. Besides, Fark and Balloon Juice are not evangelical Christian web sites.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to believe that Green is an idiot by virtue of his association with Oral Roberts University… but I think he might be doing a smart thing (for himself).
Brad
Howdy. I’m a liberal democrat [why I’m a daily reader of this blog] christian that lives about two miles from ORU.
I know dozens of ORU students and they are, to the person, fine people. Agree with their faith, or the way the express their faith, or not, they are fine people. And most of the ones I know would consider themselves “liberal democrats.” So much for stereotypes.
You need to understand, there is a difference between Oral Roberts Ministries and Oral Roberts University. Alot of these kids come to ORU because their parents think they’re sending them to some sort of Bible college. Or, they’re ORU alum and know that it’s a good education. They get here and find out that the University itself has a standard for academic excellence and the students are routinely challenged to think outside of the box, both in their faith and their studies. It is a good school. It ain’t Harvard, but it’s a good school.
I say that to say this. ORU is an institution worth saving. Even if you think, as I do, that Richard Roberts is an insincere snake oil salesman, ORU isn’t Richard and ORU needs to be saved for the students sake. After the scandal hit, most of the students I’ve talked to, and most of the Tulsa community, and substantially all of the ORU alum, have been interested in one thing: getting rid of Richard Roberts so that ORU can survive and somehow pay off its debt.
Green’s gift has strings attached. Boiled down, it looks like the Roberts will have to lose control of the University, and the University will be further separated from the Ministry. The University will have to adopt a “transparent” accounting policy, and the fiscal abuses of the Roberts will have to stop.
Time will tell whether Green is a snake in the grass who will use the University for his own purposes. He will get two seats on the board of regents; but there’s a bunch of regents so it doesn’t appear that he’ll have some big voting block. He’s had absolutely no tie to ORU in the past and he’s not a well known individual around town (although his stores are). But right now it appears that he’s just a man who’s got more money than he knows what to do with, and who’s faith tells him that it might just be a good thing to use that money to save a decent institution like ORU. The students, faculty and alums deserve that much. And Green deserves more than disrespect for what he’s doing. He’s given no indication that he’s doing this for wrong motives. Believe me – the students, the faculty, Tulsa and the courts [there’s currently four lawsuits on file] will be watching closely.
And I’m not an alum. I graduated with two degrees from the University of Tulsa.
Thanks for the bandwidth.
Don
Don’t know about the two seats on the Board of Regents for the Greens at mentioned above. The Oklahoman printed a story (1-15-08)reporting that the the Board of Regents was to be disolved and that a Board of Directors was to be formed. Apparently Mart Green was appointed as chairman, and so far thirteen members of the new board were chosen by Green’s group, Oral Roberts being one of those appointed. Maybe the report was not totally correct, but this was the essence of the report. The article indicated that this setup was the one required of the University to get the 62 million dollars. Guess it is a free country and that if a person wants to, he or she can give 70 million dollars to a universit–and if the university regents agre–can over as the chairman of the board as a condition of said gift. But I cannot help but feel that when the dust clears, someone, somwhere might well see this as odd. (But at the moment, I noted only general euphoria around Oklahoma.) But maybe the situation will look a bit different when all the facts come out.