Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash: Pat Robertson Disfigured Religious Broadcasting and the Face of America. So Long, Buddy.
October 6, 2021
By Bill Berkowitz
At age 91, Pat Robertson is retiring as daily host of the “700 Club.” In 1961, Robertson, a Yale-educated lawyer, a Marine officer veteran and the son of a U.S. senator from Virginia,
founded the Christian Broadcasting Network -- the first Christian network in the United States. Ten years later, after a series of telethons to raise money to save the network, he launched the “700 Club,” which became one of the most popular and politically influential programs in the history of religious broadcasting.
The history of the modern conservative movement -- circa 1964 to the present -- is replete with its share of hucksters, snake oil salesman, rhetoricians, sexual deviants, mudslingers, marketers and one-hit wonders. But it also has had more than its fair share of visionaries, opportunists (in the best sense of that word), and motivated entrepreneurs, perhaps even revolutionaries. During his long career, Pat Robertson has embodied all of the above. He was a right-wing religious huckster before right-wing religious hucksters were a dime a dozen. While there don’t appear to be any super sexual peccadilloes dotting his past, a la Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard and countless others – he is not a man without a pockmarked past.
Immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Jerry Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority, chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and senior pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, appeared with host Pat Robertson on his “700 Club,.” Falwell pulled no punches, saying: "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' " Robertson responded: "Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the ante-chamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population."
In a prayer during the program, Robertson said: "We have sinned against Almighty God, at the highest level of our government, we've stuck our finger in your eye," said Robertson. "The Supreme Court has insulted you over and over again, Lord. They've taken your Bible away from the schools. They've forbidden little children to pray. They've taken the knowledge of God as best they can, and organizations have come into court to take the knowledge of God out of the public square of America."
Falwell later issued a less than graceful apology.
It is virtually impossible to overstate the damage Robertson has wrought upon this country over the past 50 years. During that time he has been a powerful political force. In 1988, after losing his bid to be the GOP’s presidential standard-bearer, he created The Christian Coalition, giving the world the baby-faced, mega-articulate, politically savvy Ralph Reed. The Christian Coalition “introduced ostensibly nonpartisan Christian voter guides, also called ‘Christian score cards,’ handed out at conservative churches or placed on windshields in church parking lots,” Religion News Service’s Mark I. Pinsky pointed out.
Out of the failed presidential run, Robertson built upon the work of Richard Viguerie, the king of conservative direct mail, by compiling an enormous mail list of conservative activists.
“He was very smart,” said Frances Fitzgerald, author of “The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America,” told Pinsky in a phone interview. “He turned his presidential campaign into this notion of organizing from the community base up. It’s what people have been doing ever since. You can’t always do it from a religion platform.”
Robertson's mixed faith and politics and, as New York Times religion writer Dudley Clendinen wrote, he had the ability to "apply the tools and skills of modern television evangelism to presidential politics," played well early.
Robertson wrote some 20 books, founded Regent University -- located across the street from CBN studios and headquarters in Virginia Beach -- and the American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian activist organization led by sometime Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow.
He built a multi-million dollar media empire. While he courted many in his audience with magical thinking, he also provided a measure of comfort to many viewers and supporters.
As The New York Times’ Maria Cramer recently reported, “The show transformed evangelical broadcasting, moving it away from scripted sermons and recordings of tent revivals and turning it into a cozy talk-show format where Mr. Robertson discussed topics such as nutrition, relationships, marriage and politics, said John C. Green, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Akron.”
Ronald Reagan, Shimon Peres, the former prime minister of Israel; and other world leaders, appeared with Robertson. While building the alliance between religious and secular conservatives, Robertson appeared to delight in vilifying feminists, gays and lesbians and Muslims.
He called feminism “a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
He blamed natural disasters on America’s spiritual deficits.
In 2012, he advocated for the legalization of marijuana.
Last year, Robertson condemned Black Lives Matter: “Of course, Black lives matter,” Robertson explained, and then added that the movement itself is “a stalking horse for a very, very radical anti-family, anti-God agenda.”
“We don’t want to go along with a lesbian, anti-family, anti-capitalist, Marxist revolution,” Robertson said. “We don’t want that for America.”
RNS’ Pinsky noted that “Robertson’s firm support of former President Trump may well be the last memorable moment of his on-air career.” He endorsed The Big Lie and “the Jan. 6 pro-Trump gathering at the Capitol in the run-up to the rally. After it proved to be a riotous attempted insurrection, Robertson stayed off ‘The 700 Club’ for a week. When he returned, he acknowledged Biden’s victory.”
“Pat Robertson contributed greatly to some of the worst trends in American Christianity over the last forty years,” said the Rev. David P. Gushee, distinguished university professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University. “These included the fusion of conservative white Protestantism with the Republican Party, the use and abuse of supernaturalist Christianity to offer spurious and unhelpful interpretations of historical events and the development of a conservative Christian media empire that made money and gained power in the process of making everyday Christians less thoughtful contributors to American life.”
Pat Robertson changed the world: He melded politics and religion and revolutionized religious broadcasting. His “700 Club” was the model for Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s PTL (Praise the Lord) network and for Paul and Jan Crouch on their Trinity Broadcasting Network. He hosted five presidents, and many world leaders. His name, however, will always be synonymous with magical thinking, political conspiracies, divisiveness, and bigotry and hate.
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