By Daniel Arkin - NBC News
Pat Robertson, the conservative evangelist and media mogul who pushed the modern Christian right, cultivated a large national following and regularly drew criticism for his incendiary political statements, died Thursday, according to his official broadcast network. He was 93.
Robertson was one of America's most prominent and influential Christian broadcasters and entrepreneurs, a religious leader and fighter on cultural issues in equal measure.
In a way, Robertson was also a business visionary. He turned a small Virginia television station into a powerful religious broadcaster, combining incendiary ideological content with twentieth-century entertainment techniques. He also inspired other conservative Christians to follow in his footsteps.
He created the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), home of the talk show The 700 Club, and founded the Christian Coalition, a group that helped mobilize evangelicals into a conservative bloc and one of the cornerstones of the modern Republican Party.
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Robertson achieved national popularity in the 1980s, when social conservatism was on the rise. He ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, a race he won for George H. W. Bush. But he would remain akingmaker in the Republican Party for decades to come, uniting conservative Christians behind George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
Pat Robertson, in Virginia Beach in 2015.Steve Helber / AP
For his political views and public comments, Robertson came under intense scrutiny in the media, earning a reputation as a right-wing provocateur.
In his 1988 presidential bid, he was criticized for appearing to exaggerate his military service record. In interviews at the time, Navy veterans claimed Robertson, the son of a politician, used political influence to avoid tough combat service. Robertson denied the allegations.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Roberson and fellow televangelist Jerry Falwell were harshly criticized for blaming abortion doctors, feminists, LGBTQ people, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Robertson was criticized in 2010 for falsely claiming that the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti that year was caused by enslaved blacks who made a "pact with the devil" in the eighteenth century while fighting for liberation from French colonizers.
A son of a politician with a religious awakening
Marion Gordon Robertson was born on March 22, 1930 in Lexington, Virginia. His father, Absalom Willis Robertson, served in both the House and Senate. The young Robertson graduated from Washington and Lee University in 1950. He became a reservist in the Marine Corps and entered active duty, serving for two years in the Korean War. He earned his law degree from Yale University in 1955.
In the years that followed, Robertson said he experienced a transformative religious awakening. He studied at New York Theological Seminary and graduated in 1959, then was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister in 1961.
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The same year, Robertson purchased a bankrupt UHF television station in Portsmouth, Virginia, which he renamed the Christian Broadcasting Network. The channel went on the air on October 1, 1961, when he was 31 years old.
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Five years later, CBN began production on The 700 Club, which became a mainstay of television and one of the flagship Christian-themed programs on the air. It was revolutionary for its time: unlike traditional Christian television, it adopted an interview format normally associated with secular entertainment. (The show was originally hosted by popular televangelist Jim Bakker, who left CBN in 1972.)
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Robertson turned CBN into a powerful entity and a go-to destination for politicians courting religious conservatives. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump appeared as guests, according to the network.
It expanded with CBN University, a private Christian institution that opened its doors to students in 1978. Twelve years later, the school's name was changed to Regent University.
His attempt to be a presidential candidate
Robertson deepened his political career in the 1980s. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, running against Bush and Bob Dole. The evangelist focused his campaign on social issues at the heart of the modern conservative movement. He openly opposed abortion rights, supported prayer in schools, and came out against progressive culture in general.
Robertson's candidacy got off to an unexpectedly strong start with a second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. But his campaign soon died down and he won only four primaries before dropping out of the race. Bush eventually clinched the nomination and won the presidency. Robertson had endorsed his candidacy.
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Robertson continued to make his mark on Republican politics and the American political scene. A year after his failed presidential bid, he launched the Christian Coalition, a political advocacy group that furthered his goals and helped Republicans take control of Congress in 1994.
His last years and break with conservatives
Robertson left the Christian Coalition in 2002. Five years later, he stepped down as CBN's chief executive and handed the position over to his eldest son, Gordon Robertson, who continued to host The 700 Club through 2021.
In recent years he remained one of the defining faces of the Christian right, beloved by the conservative public, although he occasionally broke with the party line on certain issues.
In the wake of Democrat Joe Biden's victory over Trump in 2020, Robertson appeared to break with part of the conservative movement and, according to news reports, chastised the former president for living in an "alternate reality." He implored Trump to "move on" instead of denouncing a nonexistent fraud.
