I learned a new word today

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funeralized

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I still think "passed away" is strange

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Like Billy Graham, I'm going home

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[Oral] 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 instructed 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, Florida dog track owner Jerry Collins donated $1.3 million.

Highly worried from what he perceived as Roberts threatening to starve himself, Collins said, "I did it in order to save the guy from going to heaven in a hurry. It's got nothing to do with religion. I've been a Baptist and a Methodist. I believe in religion and not just the church. You have to help one another." Altogether, Roberts raised a total of $9.1 million. Later that year, he announced that God had raised the dead through his ministry. Some of Roberts' fundraising letters were written by Gene Ewing, who headed a business writing donation letters for other evangelicals such as Don Stewart and Robert Tilton

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