Pat Robertson, a non secular broadcaster who turned a tiny Virginia station into the worldwide Christian Broadcasting Community (CBN) and helped make faith central to Republican Get together politics in the USA via his Christian Coalition, has died. He was 93.
Robertson’s loss of life on Thursday was introduced by his broadcasting community. No trigger was given.
Robertson’s enterprises additionally included Regent College, an evangelical Christian faculty in Virginia Seashore; the American Heart for Legislation and Justice, which defends the spiritual rights of Christians; and Operation Blessing, a global humanitarian organisation. He additionally tried to run for president.
For greater than a half-century, Robertson was a well-recognized presence in American residing rooms, recognized for his 700 Membership tv present, and in later years, his televised pronouncements of God’s judgement, blaming pure disasters on all the pieces from homosexuality to the educating of evolution.
Anti-Muslim statements
Robertson repeatedly made anti-Muslim statements, particularly after the 9/11 assaults in 2001, serving to make Islamophobia mainstream within the Republican Get together.
The late pastor attacked Muslims, Islam and the Prophet Muhammad all through the years. He known as the faith a “monumental rip-off” in 2002. He typically warned that the aim of Islam is “world domination”, fuelling conspiracy theories that Muslim immigrants goal to take over Western societies.
In 2013, he in contrast Islam to Nazism, urging policymakers to “determine our enemy” because the US did throughout World Conflict II.
His American Heart for Legislation and Justice helped lead authorized opposition in 2010 to a deliberate Muslim group centre in New York Metropolis over its proximity to the World Commerce Heart buildings that collapsed within the 9/11 assaults.
The builders finally deserted the plan for the centre after nationwide strain from right-wing teams.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an advocacy group, beforehand denounced what it known as Robertson’s “bigoted, hate-filled views”.
“His legacy is a potent reminder of the pressing want for extra understanding and respect in our world dialogue about faith,” Abed Ayoub, govt director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), informed Al Jazeera on Thursday.
“His problematic Islamophobic rhetoric typically created pointless divisions in our society. We hope that sooner or later, spiritual leaders try to advertise peace, empathy and interfaith understanding, reasonably than fostering worry and discrimination.”
Presidential marketing campaign
However Robertson’s affect grew through the years and continued in mainstream conservative politics.
In 1988, he introduced an enormous following with him when he moved straight into politics by searching for the Republican presidential nomination.
Robertson pioneered the now-common technique of courting Iowa’s community of evangelical Christian church buildings and completed in second place within the Iowa caucuses forward of Vice President George HW Bush.
Robertson’s masterstroke was insisting that three million followers throughout the US signal petitions earlier than he would resolve to run, Robertson biographer Jeffrey Okay Hadden mentioned. The tactic gave him a military.
″He requested folks to pledge that they’d work for him, pray for him and provides him cash,” Hadden, a College of Virginia sociologist, informed The Related Press in 1988. ″Political historians might view it as one of the crucial ingenious issues a candidate ever did.″
![Former Republican presidential contender Pat Robertson, his son Tim and wife Dede. Robertson,](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/AP23157823746939-1686229682.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C503)
Robertson later endorsed Bush, who received the presidency. The pursuit of evangelicals in Iowa, which holds the primary caucuses each presidential election 12 months, is now a ritual for Republican hopefuls, together with these currently seeking the White Home in 2024.
Robertson began the Christian Coalition in Chesapeake, Virginia in 1989, saying it will additional his marketing campaign’s beliefs. The coalition grew to become a significant political power within the Nineteen Nineties, mobilising conservative voters via grassroots actions.
By the point of his resignation because the coalition’s president in 2001 — Robertson mentioned he wished to focus on ministerial work — his impression on each faith and politics within the US was “huge,” based on John C Inexperienced, an emeritus political science professor at The College of Akron.
Many adopted the trail Robertson minimize in spiritual broadcasting, Inexperienced informed the AP in 2021. In US politics, Robertson helped “cement the alliance between conservative Christians and the Republican Get together”.
Robertson was born on March 22, 1930, in Lexington, Virginia, to Absalom Willis Robertson and Gladys Churchill Robertson. His father served for 36 years as a US congressman and senator from Virginia.
![Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole (L) greets Christian Coalition supporters with coalition founder Pat Robertson](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/1996-09-14T000000Z_647390551_RP1DRICRDKAI_RTRMADP_3_NODESC-1686230218.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C547)
Certainly one of Robertson’s improvements was to make use of the secular talk-show format on his community’s flagship present, The 700 Membership, which grew out of a telethon when Robertson requested 700 viewers for month-to-month $10 contributions. It was extra suited to tv than conventional revival conferences or church companies and gained an enormous viewers.
His visitors finally included a number of US presidents — Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
Controversial remarks
At occasions, Robertson’s on-air pronouncements drew outrage.
He claimed that the terrorist assaults that killed 1000’s of People on September 11, 2001 have been brought on by God, angered by the federal courts, pornography, abortion rights and church-state separation.
He called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2005. Later that 12 months, he warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania city to not be stunned if catastrophe struck them as a result of they voted out faculty board members who favoured educating “clever design” over evolution. And in 1998, he mentioned Orlando, Florida, ought to watch out for hurricanes after permitting the annual Homosexual Days occasion.
Although Robertson had been a staunch supporter of Israel, the Israeli government broke ties with him and teams related to him in 2006 after he urged then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip.
![Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (L) is greeted by Pat Robertson](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2016-02-24T120000Z_300423090_GF10000321741_RTRMADP_3_USA-ELECTION-TRUMP-1686229696.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C527)
In 2014, he angered Kenyans when he warned that towels in Kenya might transmit AIDS. CBN issued a correction, saying Robertson “misspoke”.
Robertson additionally might be unpredictable: In 2010, he known as for ending necessary jail sentences for marijuana possession convictions. Two years later, he mentioned on The 700 Membership that marijuana ought to be legalised and handled like alcohol as a result of the federal government’s warfare on medication had failed.
Robertson condemned Democrats caught up in intercourse scandals, saying for instance that President Invoice Clinton turned the White Home right into a playpen for sexual freedom. However he helped solidify evangelical support for Trump, dismissing the candidate’s sexually predatory comments about girls as an try “to appear like he’s macho”.
After Trump took workplace, Robertson interviewed the president on the White Home. However after Trump misplaced to Joe Biden in 2020, Robertson mentioned Trump was residing in an “alternate actuality” and will “transfer on”, information retailers reported.
Robertson’s son, Gordon, succeeded him in 2007 as chief govt of CBN, which is now primarily based in Virginia Seashore. Robertson remained chairman of the community and continued to look on The 700 Membership.
Pat Robertson stepped down as host of the present in 2021, and Gordon took over the weekday present.