Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (March 22, 1930 – June 8, 2023) was an American media mogul, religious broadcaster, political commentator, presidential candidate, and charismatic minister. Robertson advocated a conservative Christian ideology and was known for his involvement in Republican Party politics. He was associated with the Charismatic movement within Protestant evangelicalism. He served as head of Regent University and of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN).
Marion Gordon Robertson was born on March 22, 1930, in Lexington, Virginia, into a prominent political family, the younger of two sons. His parents were Absalom Willis Robertson (1887–1971), a conservative Democratic Senator, and Gladys Churchill (née Willis; 1897–1968), a housewife and a musician. At a young age, Robertson was nicknamed 'Pat' by his six-year-old brother, Willis Robertson, Jr., who enjoyed patting him on the cheeks when he was a baby while saying "pat, pat, pat". Later, Robertson thought about which first name he would like people to use. He considered "Marion" to be effeminate, and "M. Gordon" to be affected, so he opted for his childhood nickname "Pat".
In 1948, the draft was reinstated and Robertson was given the option of joining the U.S. Marine Corps or being drafted into the U.S. Army; he opted for the former. Robertson described his military service as follows: "We did long, grueling marches to toughen the men, plus refresher training in firearms and bayonet combat." In the same year, he transferred to Korea, "I ended up at the headquarters command of the First Marine Division," says Robertson. "The Division was in combat in the hot and dusty, then bitterly cold portion of North Korea just above the 38th Parallel later identified as the 'Punchbowl' and 'Heartbreak Ridge'." For Robertson's service in the Korean War, he was awarded three Battle Stars.
Robertson was promoted to First Lieutenant in 1952 upon his return to the United States. He then went on to receive a law degree from Yale Law School in 1955, near the top of his class. However, he failed his first and only attempt at the New York bar exam necessary for admission to the New York State Bar Association, which did not deter Robertson because he never intended to practice law anyway. Shortly thereafter he underwent a religious conversion and decided against pursuing a career in business. Instead, Robertson attended The Biblical Seminary in New York, where he received a Master of Divinity degree in 1959. He became a born again Christian while having dinner at a restaurant in Philadelphia with author and World War II veteran, Cornelius Vanderbreggen. After his conversion, Robertson left the corporate world and went into ministry.
In 1954, Robertson married Adelia "Dede" Elmer a fashion model and beauty queen in the Miss Ohio State contest, who was studying for her masters in nursing at Yale University. She had also been a nursing student at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. They remained married until her death in 2022, and had four children, among them Gordon P. Robertson.
In 1956, Robertson met Dutch missionary Cornelius Vanderbreggen, who impressed Robertson both with his lifestyle and his message. Vanderbreggen quoted Proverbs (3:5, 6), "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths", which Robertson considered being the "guiding principle" of his life. In 1961, he was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister by Freemason Street Baptist Church in Norfolk, Virginia.
In 1960, Robertson established the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach, Virginia, by buying the license of a defunct UHF station in nearby Portsmouth. The station, with the call sign WYAH-TV, first broadcast on October 1, 1961. The network became known for producing the long-running TV series The 700 Club, starting in 1966, which Robertson served as a long time co-host. On April 29, 1977, CBN launched a religious cable network, the CBN Satellite Service, which eventually became The Family Channel. It was the first satellite television channel in America to connect to cable systems across the country. The venture became extremely lucrative, so Robertson spun off The Family Channel as a commercial entity that was sold to News Corporation for $1.9 billion in 1997.
In 1994, he endorsed the document "Evangelicals and Catholics Together". Robertson announced his retirement at the age of 91 from The 700 Club in October 2021, on the sixtieth anniversary of the first telecast on October 1, 1961, of what eventually became CBN.
Robertson founded CBN University, a private Christian university, in 1977 on CBN's Virginia Beach campus. Since its founding, the university has established eight academic schools and offers associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in over 150 areas of study. It was renamed Regent University in 1990. According to the school's catalog, "a regent is one who represents Christ, our Sovereign, in whatever sphere of life he or she may be called to serve Him."
Robertson was a governing member of the Council for National Policy (CNP) and served on its Board of Governors in 1982, was the President of its Executive Committee from 1985 to 1986, and a member in 1984, 1988, and 1998.
Robertson was a past president of the Council for National Policy. In 1982, he served on the Victims of Crime Task Force for U.S. President Ronald Reagan. In Virginia, he served on the Board of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and on the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors. After his unsuccessful presidential campaign, Robertson started the Christian Coalition, a 1.7-million-member Christian right organization that campaigned mostly for conservative candidates. Billy McCormack, a Southern Baptist pastor in Shreveport, Louisiana, served as one of the four directors of the coalition as well as its vice president. The coalition was sued by the Federal Election Commission "for coordinating its activities with Republican candidates for office in 1990, 1992 and 1994 and failing to report its expenditures," yet the complaint was dismissed by a federal judge. In March 1986, he told Israeli Foreign Affairs that South Africa was a major contributor to the Reagan administration's efforts to help the anti-Sandinista forces.
In 1986, former Republican Congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey, Jr., who served with Robertson in Camp Pendleton, wrote a public letter challenging Robertson's record in the military. Robertson filed a libel suit against McCloskey but he dropped the case in 1988 in order to devote "his full time and energies toward the successful attainment of the Republican nomination for the president of the United States."
In September 1986, Robertson announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Robertson said he would pursue the nomination only if three million people signed up to volunteer for his campaign by September 1987. Three million responded, and by the time Robertson announced he would be running in September 1987, he also had raised millions of dollars for his campaign fund. He surrendered his ministerial credentials and turned leadership of CBN over to his son, Tim. In 1987, he left the Southern Baptist Convention to run.
Formed in 1990, IFE produced and distributed family entertainment and information programming worldwide. IFE's principal business was The Family Channel, a satellite delivered cable-television network with 63 million U.S. subscribers. IFE, a publicly held company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, was sold in 1997 to Fox Kids Worldwide, Inc. for $1.9 billion, whereupon it was renamed Fox Family Channel. Disney acquired FFC in 2001 and its name was changed again, to ABC Family. The network was renamed to Freeform on January 12, 2016, though Robertson's sale of the channel continues to require Freeform to carry four hours of CBN/700 Club programming per weekday, along with CBN's yearly telethon.
In 1994, the Coalition was fined for "improperly [aiding] then Representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and Oliver North, who was then the Republican Senate nominee in Virginia."
Robertson's Operation Blessing organization sent medical teams to developing countries to help people who had no access to medical care. In 1994, in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, Robertson solicited donations to provide medical supplies to refugees in neighboring Zaire (present-day Congo), where Robertson also had exploratory diamond mining operations. According to a 1999 article in The Virginian-Pilot, two Operation Blessing pilots who were interviewed alleged that the organization's planes were used to haul diamond-mining equipment to Robertson's mines in Zaire. Robertson denied the pilots' accounts.
In 1999, Robertson entered into a joint venture with the Bank of Scotland to provide financial services in the United States. However, the venture fell through as it was met with criticism from civil rights groups in the UK, owing to Robertson's controversial views on homosexuality. The Bank was forced to cancel the deal when Robertson described Scotland as a "dark land overrun by homosexuals".
A June 2, 1999, article in The Virginian-Pilot alleged that Robertson had business dealings with Liberian president Charles Taylor, with whom Robertson, according to the article, negotiated a multimillion-dollar contract for gold mining operations in Liberia. Robertson denied any business dealings with Taylor, and he also denied ever speaking to President George W. Bush about Taylor's alleged activities. On February 4, 2010, at his war crimes trial in the Hague, Taylor testified that Robertson was his main political ally in the U.S., while Robertson has denied ever meeting or speaking to Charles Taylor.
During the week of September 11, 2001, Robertson interviewed Jerry Falwell, who expressed his own opinion that "the ACLU has to take a lot of blame for this" in addition to "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians [who have] helped [the terror attacks of September 11th] happen." Robertson replied, "I totally concur". Both evangelists were seriously criticized by President George W. Bush for their comments, for which Falwell later issued an apology.
In October 2003, Robertson was interviewed by author Joel Mowbray about his book Dangerous Diplomacy, a book critical of the United States Department of State. Robertson said that Americans could change American diplomacy by ridding America of a large part of the State Department.
Less than two weeks after Hurricane Katrina killed 1,836 people, Robertson implied on the September 12, 2005, broadcast of The 700 Club that the storm was God's punishment in response to America's abortion policy. He suggested that the September 11 attacks and the disaster in New Orleans "could [...] be connected in some way".
On November 7, 2007, Robertson announced that he was endorsing Rudy Giuliani to be the Republican nominee in the 2008 Presidential election. Some social conservatives criticized Robertson's endorsement of Giuliani, a pro-choice candidate who supported gay rights.
In 2009, Robertson said that Islam is "a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination". He went on to elaborate that "you're dealing with not a religion, you're dealing with a political system, and I think we should treat it as such, and treat its adherents as such as we would members of the communist party, members of some fascist group".
In January 2009, on a broadcast of The 700 Club, Robertson stated that he was "adamantly opposed" to the division of Jerusalem between Israel and the Palestinians. He also stated that Armageddon was "not going to be fought at Megiddo" but would be the "battle of Jerusalem," when "the forces of all nations come together and try to take Jerusalem away from the Jews. Jews are not going to give up Jerusalem – they shouldn't – and the rest of the world is going to insist they give it up." Robertson added that Jerusalem is a "spiritual symbol that must not be given away" because "Jesus Christ the Messiah will come down to the part of Jerusalem that the Arabs want," and this would be "not good."
Robertson repeatedly called for the legalization of cannabis, saying that it should be treated in a manner analogous to the regulation of alcoholic beverages and tobacco. Robertson stated that "I just think it's shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hard-core criminals because they had a possession of a very small amount of controlled substance. The whole thing is crazy." In 2014, he turned against the legalization of cannabis.
In March 2015, Robertson compared Buddhism to a disease on The 700 Club. The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a conservative Christian watchdog group Robertson founded to promote Christian prayer in public schools, called for a multi-pronged attack on mindfulness programs because "they appear to be similar to Buddhist religious practices. Proponents of secular mindfulness say mindfulness is not a Buddhist practice; it is a contemplative practice used in religious traditions around the world by many different names."
On August 11, 2017, Robertson was hospitalized after sustaining minor injuries in a fall from a horseback riding incident.
On February 2, 2018, Robertson suffered an embolic stroke at his home in Virginia Beach. A member of his family noticed his symptoms and alerted emergency medical personnel. He was then taken to the nearest stroke center where he was administered the clot-busting drug tPA. Robertson was responsive, awake, and moving all of his limbs about eighty minutes after his stroke began. He was discharged two days later and recovered at home. Following this incident, Robertson and his family thanked the paramedics and medical staff for their "extraordinary care and rapid response." They also urged people to learn about stroke, its symptoms and treatments. Robertson resumed his hosting duties on The 700 Club on February 12.
In June 2019, Robertson was absent from The 700 Club for several days after he broke three ribs in a fall. Upon his return, described the experience as very painful but said "Us old guys are tough, and we try to stay in there and keep on going." He then thanked viewers for their prayers.
Robertson's career spanned over five decades, and was the founder of several organizations, including CBN, Regent University, Operation Blessing International Relief and Development Corporation, the International Family Entertainment Inc. (ABC Family Channel/Freeform), the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ), the Founders Inn and Conference Center, and the Christian Coalition. Robertson was also a best-selling author and the host of The 700 Club, a Christian News and TV program broadcast live weekdays on Freeform (formerly ABC Family) from CBN studios, as well as on channels throughout the United States, and on CBN network affiliates worldwide. Robertson retired from The 700 Club in October 2021.
On June 8, 2023, Robertson died at his home in Virginia Beach, Virginia, at the age of 93.