With CBN, “The 700 Club,” Regent, the Christian Coalition, and a run for president, he changed evangelicals’ place in public life.
Across six decades in front of the camera, Pat Robertson brought his Pentecostal sensibilities and conservative politics into millions of living rooms as the pioneer of Christian television and the leader of the Christian Coalition.
The outspoken broadcaster died Thursday at age 93 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, home to his Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and Regent University. Robertson signed off as host of CBN’s flagship program The 700 Club in 2021 at age 91, though he continued to appear on monthly Q&A segments.
During his TV career, the one-time Republican presidential candidate hopeful interviewed five US presidents and dozens of global leaders; prayed for millions of viewers; offered political predictions; and stirred controversy with his off-the-cuff commentary characterizing disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and the 9/11 attacks as God’s judgment.
Although his controversial remarks garnered a lot of attention in his later years, Robertson was also among the most influential evangelicals of the 20th century, with an entrepreneurial spirit and a willingness to do whatever he sensed was God’s will.
“Robertson has shaped three major religious developments: the charismatic renewal, Christian TV, and evangelical politics,” CT wrote in a 1996 profile of Robertson. “Together, these developments helped transform evangelicalism from a small, defended backwater to the leading force in American Christianity.”
Before CBN became the broadcasting powerhouse it is today—with a $300 million annual budget and a reach across 174 countries—it was a defunct Virginia television station and a call from God.
There was no successful model for Christian TV when Robertson bought …