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Pioneer televangelist Oral Roberts dies at 91: Brought Pentecostals into the mainstream

Oral Roberts, the pioneering television evangelist and faith healer who became the dean of Pentecostal preachers in the U.S. died December 15 at the age of 91, in Newport Beach, California, of complications from pneumonia.

In 1954, Roberts became the second evangelist to appear on television— Rex Humbard was the first by a few months—when NBC began broadcasting his tent crusades. He switched to a half-hour Sunday show 13 years later, and by 1977 his Sunday morning show reached 1.1 million households and was the top-rated religious program on television.