Pat Robertson, broadcaster who helped make religion central to GOP politics, dies at 93

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — 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 death Thursday was confirmed in an email by his broadcasting network. No cause was given.

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.

For more than a half-century, Robertson was a familiar presence in American living rooms, known for his “700 Club” television show, and in later years, his televised pronouncements of God’s judgment — usually delivered with a smile, as a gentle lament — that blamed natural disasters on gays and feminists and accused Black Lives Matter demonstrators of being anti-Christian.

Robertson was a “happy warrior” who was soft-spoken, urbane and well-read, said Ralph Reed, who ran the Christian Coalition in the 1990s.

“He was not some backwoods preacher,” Reed said. “He was very enthralling, avuncular and charming. He had a great sense of humor.”

The money poured in as he solicited donations, his influence soared, and he brought a huge following with him when he moved directly into politics by seeking the GOP presidential nomination in 1988.

Robertson pioneered the now-common strategy of courting Iowa’s network of evangelical Christian churches, and finished in second place in the Iowa caucuses, ahead of Vice President George H.W. Bush.

His masterstroke was insisting that three million followers across the U.S. sign petitions before he would decide to run, Robertson biographer Jeffrey K. Hadden said. The tactic gave him an army.

He asked people to pledge they’d work for him, pray for him and give him money,” Hadden, a University of Virginia sociologist, told The Associated Press in 1988. “Political historians may view it as one of the most ingenious things a candidate ever did.”

Robertson later endorsed Bush, who won the presidency. Pursuit of Iowa’s evangelicals is now a ritual for Republican hopefuls, including those currently seeking the White House in 2024.

Robertson started the Christian Coalition in Chesapeake in 1989, saying it would further his campaign’s ideals. The coalition became a major political force in the 1990s, mobilizing conservative voters through grass-roots activities.

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.

Many followed the path Robertson cut in religious broadcasting, Green told the AP in 2021. In American politics, Robertson helped “cement the alliance between conservative Christians and the Republican Party.”

At times, his on-air pronouncements drew criticism.

After a devastating earthquake in 2010, he said Haitians were cursed by a “pact with the devil” made by the slaves who rebelled against French colonists centuries earlier and, in 2020, he spoke out against the Black Lives Matter movement, saying it wants to destroy Christianity. “Of course, Black lives matter,” Robertson said, but the movement is “a stalking horse for a very, very radical anti-family, anti-God agenda.”

“To insinuate that our movement is trying to destroy Christianity is disgraceful and outright offends our Christian siblings who are a part of our movement against racial injustice,” responded Patrice Cullors, a BLM co-founder.

Robertson also claimed the terrorist attacks that killed thousands of Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, were caused by God, angered by the federal courts, pornography, abortion rights and church-state separation. Talking again about 9/11 on his TV show a year later, Robertson described Islam as a violent religion that wants to “dominate” and “destroy,” prompting President George W. Bush to distance himself and say Islam is a peaceful and respectful religion.

He called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2005, although he later apologized.

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.

In 2014, he angered Kenyans when he warned that towels in Kenya could transmit AIDS. CBN issued a correction, saying Robertson “misspoke about the possibility of getting AIDS through towels.”