NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Pat Robertson united tens of millions of evangelical Christians through the power of television and pushed them in a much more conservative direction with the personal touch of a popular minister.
His greatest impact may have been to marry evangelical Christianity to the Republican party to a degree previously unimaginable.
“The culture wars that almost every national Republican candidate is waging today, that’s partly a product of Robertson,” said veteran political analyst Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
Robertson died on Thursday at the age of 93.
Robertson’s reach exploded with the rise of cable in the late 1970s. He galvanized many viewers into a political force when he ran unsuccessfully for president in 1988.
The following year, he created the deeply influential Christian Coalition. He tried to “influence and impact the trajectory of the Republican Party and make it a pro-life, pro-family party,” said Ralph Reed, who led the coalition in the 1990s and now chairs the Faith Coalition and freedom
The Christian Coalition helped fuel the “Republican Revolution” of 1994, which saw the GOP take control of the US House and Senate following the 1992 election of President Bill Clinton.
The son of a U.S. senator and graduate of Yale Law School, Robertson made political statements that appalled many, especially in his later years, placing ultimate blame for the 9/11 attacks to several liberal movements. He claimed to have participated in the prayer to keep a hurricane away from his base in Virginia.
“Even Pentecostals, and I’ve known a lot of them, usually won’t go that far,” said Grant Wacker, professor emeritus of Christian history at Duke Divinity School.
When he ran for president, Robertson pioneered the now-common strategy of courting Iowa’s network of evangelical Christian churches. He finished second in the Iowa caucuses, ahead of Vice President George HW Bush.
Robertson later endorsed Bush, who won the presidency. The persecution of Iowa evangelicals is now a ritual for Republican hopefuls, including those seeking the White House in 2024.
Reed pointed to former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott as examples of high-ranking Republicans who are evangelical Christians.
“It’s easy to forget when you live it every day, but there wouldn’t have been a single explicit evangelical at any of these levels 40 years ago in the Republican Party,” Reed said.
Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network began broadcasting in 1961 after he purchased a bankrupt UHF television station in Portsmouth, Virginia. His long-running show “The 700 Club” began production in 1966.
Robertson combined evangelism with popular reruns of family television, which was effective in attracting viewers so he could promote “The 700 Club,” a news and talk show that also featured regular people talking about finding Jesus Christ.
He did not rely solely on fundraising like other televangelists. Robertson broadcast popular secular shows and ran commercials, said David John Marley, author of the 2007 book “Pat Robertson: An American Life.”
“He was the one who made televangelism a real business,” Marley said.
Robertson had a soft-spoken style, speaking to the camera as if he were a pastor speaking one-on-one and not a preacher behind a pulpit.
When viewers started watching cable TV in the late 1970s, “there were only 10 channels and one of them was Pat,” Reed said.
His appeal was similar to that of evangelist Billy Graham, who died in 2018 after a career with a major impact on American religion and politics, said Duke Divinity School’s Wacker.
“He really showed a lot of pastors and other Christians in this country the impact the media can have — reaching beyond the four walls of their churches,” said Troy A. Miller, president and CEO of National Religious Broadcasters.
When he ran for president in 1988, Robertson’s masterstroke was to insist that 3 million supporters sign petitions before he decided to run, Robertson biographer Jeffrey K. Hadden told the AP. The tactic gave Robertson an army.
“He asked people to pledge to work for him, pray for him and give him money,” Hadden told the AP in 1988.
While working on the book as a graduate student at George Washington University in the late 1990s, Marley had unfettered access to Robertson’s presidential campaign files and saw a campaign plagued by infighting.
“But he put a lot of effort into his presidential campaign,” Marley said, adding that Robertson worked for at least two years to lay the groundwork for his presidential run.
Robertson relished his role as a “kingmaker” and sort of liaison between mainstream Republican leaders like Ronald Reagan and evangelical Christians.
“That ended with George W. Bush being able to have that conversation on his own,” Marley said.
During his 1998 interview with Robertson, Marley said he saw the preacher as someone who was as comfortable with his flaws as he was with his successes.
“I saw someone who was absolutely at peace with himself,” Marley said.
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Smith reported from Pittsburgh and Bharath from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporters Holly Meyer in Nashville and David Bauder in New York contributed.
