What the Hell Is Wrong with Pat Robertson?
A trip down memory lane with fundamentalism’s crazy uncle
Every six months or so, Christian televangelist and elderly rabble-rouser Pat Robertson says something crazy and shocking. Misogyny? Unhinged warmongering? Weird, unorthodox theology? Yes, yes, and yes. Every time he does the crazy-guy-on-TV dance, there’s a wave of blog posts and articles and commentary: a collective, baffled question mark. How did this guy come to a position of influence in the Christian Right. It’s seen, in many quarters, as a reflection on the inherent craziness of Christians that he would have any influence at all if he goes around demanding assassinations and so on.
I grew up in North American Protestant Subculture (NAPS, we’ll call it), and I spent a chunk of time in the Pro-Robertson camp. There’s no defense for his regularly occurring bouts of retrograde craziness — they’re manifestly un-Christian, and patently ridiculous. However, the story of the subculture in which he gained a voice, and the history of how he got there, is interesting.
Other bloggers, like the venerable Slacktivist, have done a great service by dissecting the present-day Church Culture. One of his best posts was an explanation of how ‘influence’ is accrued in the North American Protestant church. Since there is no strict ecclesiastical structure or obvious church hierarchy, one earns influence by being visible. Sometimes this is good, sometimes this is bad — but it’s a free market sort of approach. Even if a given leader doesn’t consciously approach their ministry that way, it’s how people rise to high-visibility positions. You can be appointed head of a national-council-on-whatever, but most church-going folks won’t know your name until you’ve put out a bestselling book about Christian parenting or hosted a conference about strengthening families, or something along those lines.
Pat Robertson is the son of a US Senator. He spent some time in the military, though apparently he didn’t see combat. After coming home, an encounter with a Dutch evangelist impressed him so much that he decided to become a Christian. Only four years later, in 1960, he dove into the world of Christian media. This was an era when overtly evangelical Christian programming was starting to blossom. Robertson followed the usual pattern of those who wanted to spread the gospel: he bought a small UHF station in Virginia, and founded the Christian Broadcasting Network. He details the process in his autobiography — it’s the usual story of A Christian Who Believes God Wants Him To Do X, And Faces Challenges Along The Way. Early on, he covered operating expenses for the station by hosting a telethon — he challenged 700 people to donate $10 each month, enough to cover the station’s costs and keep it on the air. This group eventually became known as ‘The 700 Club,’ and that was used as the name for the UHF station’s first talk show.
CBN grew to include multiple UHF stations, and more original programming, as well as evangelism and outreach projects. Operation Blessing was one such umbrella project, covering inner-city missions, third-world food shipments, and so on. As a kid growing up in Christian culture, I remember watching stories on TV about Operation Blessing airplanes flying food and medical supplies to Africa. I saved up money and sent it in to help.
As CBN grew and years passed, The 700 Club would become its flagship television show. In addition to interviews with Christian personalities, the show featured Bible teaching, often by Robertson or one of his co-hosts. The show began to run inspirational personal-interest stories about people who’d been healed by God of various illnesses, people who had faced and overcome adversity with God’s help, and so on. By the early 80s, The 700 Club was being syndicated by Christian television stations around the country, most of them starved for original programming with high production values. News segments started running, and eventually a ‘CBN News’ department had a group of correspondants covering Washington events, international news, and so on.
Robertson, as the host, was high-profile and had good name recognition in Christian circles. There were some idiosyncratic bits specific to the Charismatic/Pentecostal camp he was a part of, but nothing like the wild theatrics of hucksters like Benny Hinn and Robert Tilton. He weathered the ‘Televangelist Scandals’ of the 80s without any hookers, drugs, sweatshops, and so on. Robertson was seen as a level-headed respectable Christian figure who’d earned his position by building CBN, spreading the gospel, and helping the poor via Operation Blessing. His teaching was available in expanded tape-and-video collections, covering topics like Spiritual Warfare (basically, directed prayer intended to stop demons), and Christian financial principles. He wrote books, the usual stuff for that era. 200 Answers To Life’s Pressing Questions, and so on. His advice was usually uncontroversial in Christian circles, focusing on faith, wise financial stewardship, and so on. As The 700 Club’s emphasis on news progressed, Robertson’s opportunities for commentary also increased. Generally, he and his one or two co-hosts would chat about their thoughts on the various news segments. Pat, as the host, would often have the strongest opinions.
In 1988, Robertson stepped down from hosting the 700 Club in order to run for president. He failed to secure the Republican nomination. One of his most memorable and visible moves was a public session of prayer in which he commanded a hurricaine heading for Virginia to turn around. He was mocked vigorously in many circles, but I remember that Christians I knew saw this as a reasonable thing to do — if you are praying to the God of the universe, why not ask him to stop a hurricane? Regardless, he lost his bid for the nomination.
When he returned to CBN and The 700 Club, the news-and-commentary aspect of the show began to dominate. Other projects were launched by Robertson, some under the CBN banner, others affiliated. The American Center For Law And Justice was founded as a counter to the much-hated ACLU, fighting in favor of school prayer and religious liberty. Regent University was founded as a college and graduate school for Christians, with a relatively strong media program. At the time, I considered enrolling. While Robertson had expressed political views in his books and teaching before, they became more integral to The 700 Club and his other projects. Many other Christian organizations were busily spinning off side-organizations to pursue specific social or political agendas as well. The Family Research Council, a spin-off of Focus On The Family, is one example.
In the early 1990s, he wrote the book The New World Order, echoing George Bush I’s use of the phrase in discussing global relations. It was a conspiracy theorist’s political guide, tracking the workings of The Illuminati, The Freemasons, and the Trilateral Commission and how their power influenced US politics. Among other things, it asserted that Jimmy Carter had intended to be a good president until they got to him. By this time, I was watching the 700 Club less and less, and cringing more and more at the implicitly political and partisan comments Robertson would offer in his on-air commentary. In 1992, none other than Rush Limbaugh covered the primary race for The 700 Club’s news division.
Occasionally, as years passed, I would hear of something controversial Robertson had uttered and cringe. Eventually, even my relatively conservative Christian parents stopped watching due to the political partisanship of the show. Over the decades, though, he had built up a lot of capital in Christian circles. Robertson’s ability and willingness to leverage that politically is both a reflection of his personality, and a mirror of the Church Culture’s growing politicization.
There’s a much longer, wackier downward slide to chronicle, of course. Robertson cozied up to third-world dictators and (arguably) used the Operation Blessing charity as a cover for — no shit — buying African diamond mines. He created a line of nutritional supplements and claimed they allowed him to leg-press the equivalent of an economy car. His sale of CBN to Fox, turning it into The Family Channel, made him an even wealthier man, and ensured that he’d always have a platform: under the terms of the sale, the network was required to broadcast the show twice a day. Forever. “How is he still on TV,” you ask? It’s in his contract.
The story of Robertson’s descent into craziness isn’t what’s interesting to me, though. Rather, it’s the story of old fashioned American televangelism, charity fundraising, and eventual grasping for the reigns of real power that will be told over, and over, and over again.
