Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash: Pat Robertson Says Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Was Compelled by God to Speed Up the End-Times
Pat Robertson (Jeff Gill)
March 3, 2022
By Bill Berkowitz
Just when you thought you’ve heard it all from Pat Robertson, he comes out with a humdinger of a hot take. On Monday, the now retired televangelist, went back to his television studios, and said that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “compelled by God” in his decision to invade Ukraine. Is Robertson still hopeful he’ll be alive to witness end-times battles in Israel?
In a return appearance to the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “The 700 Club,” the media mogul said: “I think you can say, well, Putin’s out of his mind. Yes, maybe so. But at the same time, he’s being compelled by God. He went into the Ukraine, but that wasn’t his goal. His goal was to move against Israel, ultimately.”
According to The Washington Post’s Timothy Bella, the 91-year-old Robertson “cited verses from the book of Ezekiel that note how nations will come together to rise up against Israel, suggesting that Ukraine is merely a ‘staging ground’ for an eventual Armageddon battle. ‘God is getting ready to do something amazing. ‘And that will be fulfilled.’”
Robertson’s comments were posted on Twitter and as of Tuesday morning, it had been viewed 2 million times.
Last year, when Robertson “retired” from religious broadcasting, I wrote:
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.
Robertson, a former presidential candidate, is no stranger to hyperbolic/apocalyptic statements. Numerous times he has claimed that the end of the world was just around the corner. In 1980, he said “I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be a judgment on the world.”
One of Robertson’s most alarming interventions came immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when he host Jerry Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority, chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and senior pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church. Falwell said: "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." Falwell later issued a less than graceful apology.
The Washington Post’s Bella reported that “In 2006, Robertson relayed an inaccurate prediction he said he received from God about a possible tsunami devastating the Pacific Northwest, according to the Associated Press. The next year, he said God told him there would be a terrorist attack on the United States: ‘The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.’”
In October 2020, Robertson assured his audience that God told him that Donald Trump would win the presidency, but an asteroid would subsequently destroy the earth. He certainly one-upped Adam McKay’s movie “Don’t Look Up!”
“On Monday, Robertson again indicated that the end of the world was near, thanks to Putin and Russia, Bella reported. “Although Turkey has issued a statement of support for Ukraine and is not backing Russia’s invasion, Robertson claimed without evidence that Turkey would ‘come together’ with Russia. He went on to say how the area that includes Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey ‘is going to be mobilized against Israel in the latter days.’”
“And God says, ‘I am going to deal with it,’ ” Robertson said.
He added: “Is Putin crazy? Is he mad? Well, perhaps. But God says, ‘I’m going to put hooks in your jaws, and I’m going to draw you into this battle, whether you like it or not.’ And he’s being compelled after the move into Ukraine. He’s being compelled to move again.”
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. His “700 Club” became one of the most popular and politically influential programs in the history of religious broadcasting.
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