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Pat Robertson, Televangelist Central to Republican Party’s Culture War Agenda, Dead at 93 [1]
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Date: 2023-06-08
Pat Robertson, the fiery ultra-right televangelist, founder of a multi-media empire, and the politically powerful Christian Coalition, is dead at 93. Robertson was one of the major figures that made so-called family values agenda central to the Republican Party’s agenda.
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, marketeers 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.
Marion “Pat” Robertson was born on March 22, 1930 in Lexington, Virginia. In 1960, he founded what was to become the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), the first Christian network in the United States, where its mainstay was the talk show, The 700 Club. Originally hosted by the rising televangelist Jim Bakker, who left CBN in 1972, and subsequently hosted by Robertson. In 1978 he founded CBN University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, which in 1990, changed its name to Regent University.
Robertson made his mark in two ways: As host of The 700 Clubhe quickly became known for a wide range of crazy commentaries, often linking natural disasters to the LGBTQ and pro-choice communities. According to Britannica.com, “Following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, he and fellow evangelist Jerry Falwell were criticized for apparently agreeing (on a broadcast of The 700 Club) that the tragedy had been caused by the immoral practices of abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).” Falwell later issued a not-so-gracious apology.
In 2010 Robertson was criticized again, this time for his claim that the devastating earthquake in Haiti that January was divine retribution for a ‘pact with the Devil’ made in the late 18th century by enslaved Black people seeking liberation from French rule.”
Last year, the then-retired Robertson returned to the airwaves to issue his “hot-take” on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: “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.” Robertson suggested 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.”
And he became an enormously powerful figure in the Republican Party.
After his run for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 1988 floundered, Robertson founded the Christian Coalition., where he brought on a young man named Ralph Reed to run the operation. Following on the heels of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, became one of the most important proponents and perpetrators of America’s culture wars.
Reed became an instant media star. As Executive Director, Reed offered an articulate and often calming television persona. More often than not he had the mainstream media eating out of his hands -- even while defending one Robertson's frequent loopy commentaries. Reed was smart, media savvy and a remarkable political strategist. Time magazine called him "the right hand of God" in a 1995 cover story.
Reed, who later founded and heads up the Faith & Freedom Coalition, was for a time caught up in a scandal that focused on his longtime friend, lobbying titan Jack Abramoff, which involved taking money from one Indian tribe to kill the gambling operations of another tribe.
While Robertson was being loopy, Reed was focused on political power. Despite playing a soft-spoken, conciliatory spokesperson during many of his public appearances, Reed occasionally revealed what he and his Christian right colleagues were set on achieving, and how they would go about it: “It's like guerrilla warfare. If you reveal your location, all it does is allow your opponent to improve his artillery bearings,” he told the Los Angeles Times in March 1992.
“It's better to move quietly, with stealth, under cover of night. You've got two choices: You can wear cammies and shimmy along on your belly, or you can put on a red coat and stand up for everyone to see. It comes down to whether you want to be the British army in the Revolutionary War or the Viet Cong. History tells us which tactic was more effective.”
In large part thanks to Pat Robertson the Religious Right, now Christian Nationalists, no longer operate entirely in stealth like fashion. From Donald Trump to the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, from the Proud Boys to Turning Point USA, from Moms for Liberty to American Renewal, they are out, they are open and they are on the front lines of America’s never ending culture wars.
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