Pat Robertson, a religious broadcaster who turned a tiny Virginia station into the global Christian Broadcasting Network, tried a run for president and helped make religion central to Republican Party politics in America through his Christian Coalition, has died. He was 93.
Robertson's enterprises also included Regent University, an evangelical Christian school in Virginia Beach; the American Center for Law and Justice, which defends the First Amendment rights of religious people; and Operation Blessing, an international humanitarian organization.
At the time, Jeffrey K. Hadden, a University of Virginia sociologist and a Robertson biographer, said Robertson's masterstroke was insisting that three million followers across the U.S. sign petitions before he would decide to run. The tactic gave him an army. By the time of his resignation as the coalition's president in 2001 - Robertson said he wanted to concentrate on ministerial work - his impact on both religion and politics in the U.S. was "enormous," according to John C. Green, an emeritus political science professor at The University of Akron.
He received a law degree from Yale University Law School, but failed the bar exam and chose not to pursue a law career. Robertson received a master's in divinity from New York Theological Seminary in 1959, then drove south with his family to buy a bankrupt UHF television station in Portsmouth, Va. He said he had just $70 in his pocket, but soon found investors, and CBN went on the air on Oct. 1, 1961. Established as a tax-exempt religious nonprofit, CBN brought in hundreds of millions, disclosing $321 million in "ministry support" in 2022 alone.
He called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2005. Later that year, he warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town not to be surprised if disaster struck them because they voted out school board members who favored teaching "intelligent design" over evolution. And in 1998, he said Orlando, Florida, should beware of hurricanes after allowing the annual Gay Days event.
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