Pat Robertson

Pat showing off the one-finger victory salute.

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“”…make not my Father's house a house of merchandise.

—John 2:16

“”The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.

—Robertson, professional rambler

“”If my only exposure to religion were to the ramblings of the Pat Robertson network or the pontifications of right-wing politicians who after every mass shooting call only for "thoughts and prayers", I would probably have rejected it my­self.

—Rev. Barry W. Lynn

“”Pat Robertson doesn't worship the cross. He worships the fucking dollar sign.

—Corey Taylor

“”You ever get the feeling that if there's an afterlife, Pat Robertson's going to spend his first thousand years in it really, really, surprised?

—Keith Olbermann

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (1930–2023) was a founding member of the 700 Club, an ultra-authoritarian Baptist Christian extremist group that funds itself using old school TV telethons. He was also the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network and Regent University, which operate on the same campus in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Pat Robertson (King of Stupid Statements) claimed to have a direct link with God like the prophets. He often used that link on his show to tell God to "cure" people watching who have given him money. But the most famous use of his God talk was predicting disasters to strike against the United States and particular states or cities in response to their support of equal rights for homosexuals. Orlando was one place Robertson said God told him would be hit by a meteor. He also liked to get really personal, claiming for example that Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke due to his ungodly division of Israel (apparently Sharon being old and grossly obese couldn't have possibly been a factor).

Robertson was an old earth creationist and thought that a 6,000 year old earth is "not in the Bible", but despite this, his organisation sells Young Earth Creationist material.

Oh, and he's the son of A. Willis Robertson, a prominent Virginia Democratic segregationist. The elder Robertson opposed practically every civil rights proposal, even anti-lynching bills. Hence the concern troll designation to one of Pat Robertson's ludicrous and debunked conspiracy theories.

Fake war hero

Robertson served in the Marines during the Korean War and frequently claimed to have seen combat, including in his memoirs and numerous interviews. In 1981, Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey, himself a decorated Korean War vet, showed that Robertson had used family connections to land a cushy posting to divisional headquarters in Japan. Robertson was accused by both McCloskey and a Korean war veteran who served with him of sexually harassing a Korean girl who was employed to clean the barracks. The controversy helped derail Robertson's presidential chances when Robertson repeated the claim in a campaign brochure.

Presidential candidate

Robertson ran a strong campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, challenging Vice President George H.W. Bush, Senator Bob Dole, and others. Robertson's hard right campaign scored a close second to Bush in the Iowa caucus and won the Nevada and Washington primaries, but flamed out by Super Tuesday. Robertson endorsed Bush, who won that year.

President Trump

Robertson thought Democrats, Liberals, and progressives who opposed Trump were 'revolting' against God's plan for America.

“”If the Lord’s plan involves a pussy-grabbing, thrice-married, narcissistic, megalomaniac carrying out His wishes… well, I finally get the point about how God works in mysterious ways.

—Hemant Mehta

Robertson opposed Obamacare because despite the help affordable care gives to sick poor people.

Armchair stormchaser and healer

Robertson liked to play armchair stormchaser from his television studio by ordering hurricanes to change course in the name of Jesus, while blaming storms that do hit on people's failure to pray them away. Hemant Mehta wants to know why Robertson did not pray Hurricane Katrina away.

In addition to prophet of doom, TV faith healer, and media mogul, Robertson had broken into the market of infomercials. He had a range of products from juicers to diet regimes (who wouldn't want the strength and physique of a 93-year-old man?) to self-motivation guides that he hawked daily on his show. He had also founded the Christian Broadcasting Network, the propaganda arm of his organization that likes to pretend it's a news show.

Blaming victims

See the main article on this topic: Blaming the victim

“”The interests of the people are on their health and their finances, and on their pleasures and on their sexuality, and while this is going on while we’re self-absorbed and the churches as well as in the population, we have allowed rampant secularism and occult, etc. to be broadcast on television. We have permitted somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 to 40 million unborn babies to be slaughtered in our society. We have a court that has essentially stuck its finger in God's eye and said we’re going to legislate you out of the schools. We’re going to take your commandments from off the courthouse steps in various states. We're not going to let our little children read the commandments of God. We’re not going to let the Bible be read, no prayer in our schools. We have insulted God at the highest levels of our government. And, then we say ‘why does this happen?’ Well, why it’s happening is that God Almighty is lifting his protection from us.

—Robertson, blaming everything except the terrorists themselves for 9/11

Robertson had often blamed the victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks for being hit. For example, after 9/11, he agreed with Jerry Falwell that the ACLU, abortionists, etc were responsible for angering God. He blamed the earthquake in Haiti on a 200-year-old pact with the devil for the country's independence. The earthquake in the east USA was also clearly a sign that the second coming of Jesus is near. Hurricane Katrina was a punishment from God. The 2017 Las Vegas Strip shooting was caused by disrespect for Donald Trump and the national anthem. Apparently both God's aim and his timing leave somewhat to be desired, if Robertson is to be believed.

By the way, massive tornadoes that level entire towns in Oklahoma are not caused by God, but by the insufficient understanding of people who just don't know where to build safely. Tornadoes also happened because not enough people prayed.

Robertson just wanted to let you know...

Hate, hate, hate!

Homophobia

In August 2013, Robertson revealed his belief in a gay conspiracy theory about gay death rings. Basically, Robertson suggested that men in San Francisco wear very sharp rings that could cut you during a handshake and spread HIV. In July 2013, he had advised one 700 Club viewer to never "like" a social-media photo of a gay couple kissing because it would equate to condoning their relationship. Robertson denied he's anti-gay and said that he actually has "thousands" of gay fans who watch his show looking "to have a better way". He advised a parent whose son came out to investigate his sports coaches in case the son had been molested, because he believed that people turn gay because of child abuse. He advised a woman to be wary of letting her children meet a lesbian friend of hers: "You don’t want your children to grow up as lesbians."

That was Pat Robertson loving the sinner, thank you very much.

Robertson's homophobia had even cost him financially, such as when a plan for him to work with the Bank of Scotland in 1999 was cancelled because Robertson called the nation "a dark land" overrun by homosexuals and said the heads of the Church of Scotland were not Christian since they allow homosexual priests to be ordained.

Atheophobia

According to Robertson, atheists were responsible for the Wisconsin Temple Shooting. He also believed that atheists are unfit to raise children, asking a Christian grandmother to do anything to ensure that her grandson doesn't grow up as an atheist and advocated corporal punishment for non-religious children until they respect Christian beliefs. That'll teach 'em, all right, though you might not like the lessons they'll learn from abuse by a loved one.

Islamophobia

For Robertson, "Islam is not a religion but a military group bent on world domination" (he must've missed the bit about them praying and having a holy book and all that religious stuff). He also claimed that Muslims seek to “take over the world and murder those that do not convert to its political system”, while defending Christianity… while forgetting that crimes and murders were also committed in the name of Christianity, which have also destroyed the image of the religion he claimed to follow and the reputation of millions of genuinely peaceful and virtuous Christians around the world. Should we mention that Christian Dominionists are no better than Islamists?

Robertson also claimed that Obama attended an "Islamic madrassa"… which is "mostly false" according to PolitiFact. He also said that "radical Islam is in the religion of Islam", and that radical Muslims are “satanic” (never mind that that's one of the few bad traits you can't pin on them). For him, Muslims are "worse than the Nazis". For all his craziness, George W. Bush — of all people — defended Muslims against Robertson's claims.

Full on Taliban

When a viewer asked Robertson what to do about her friend who had a Buddhist statue, Robertson told her to "Break it. Destroy it". Theft and vandalism FTW!

Demagogue much?

In the wake of the shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin in which 7 people (including the gunman, Wade Michael Page) were killed, Robertson was his usual deranged perceptive self when he proclaimed that the gunman (a known white supremacist) attacked the temple because "people who are atheists, they hate God".

Spirit of Antichrist

Who is, according to Robertson, the Antichrist?

You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.

The answer is a bit vague, but certainly many Christian denominations that disagree with him are part of the Antichrist thing.

Anti-Hinduism

Robertson repeatedly attacked Hinduism, calling it a cult "in touch with Satan and demon spirits".

Money, money, money!

Charity money used wrongly

From here, however, Robertson's crazy preacher mentality started to take a more sinister turn. The 700 Club runs a charity called Operation Blessing which supposedly helps people in need in Third World countries. But it has been shown that Robertson used it as a front group to push his own nefarious financial doings in Africa. One terrible example was in the mid 90's when Robertson ran a telethon to pay for planes for Operation Blessing to remove refugees from camps in Rwanda. Instead, it was later discovered by a reporter from The Virginian-Pilot that Operation Blessing's planes were transporting diamond-mining equipment for the Robertson-owned African Development Corporation, a venture Robertson had established in cooperation with Zaire's then-dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, whom Robertson had befriended earlier in 1993. According to Operation Blessing documents, Robertson personally owned the planes used for Operation Blessing airlifts.

Financial entanglement with dictators

Another example was his use of the the CBN propaganda wing to secure his financial entanglements with dictators. Robertson repeatedly supported former President of Liberia Charles Taylor in various episodes of his 700 Club program during the United States involvement in the Liberian Civil War in June and July of 2003. Robertson accused the U.S. State Department of giving Bush bad advice in supporting Taylor's ousting as president, and of trying "as hard as they can to destabilize Liberia."

Robertson was criticized for failing to mention in his broadcasts his $8,000,000 (USD) investment in a Liberian gold mine, and falsely claimed — just as he had in Zaire — that the planes he sent over with supplies for the mines contained aid for victims of the Rwandan genocide. Taylor had been indicted by the United Nations for war crimes at the time of Robertson's support, and in 2012, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison for “aiding and abetting the widespread and systematic commission of crimes against the civilian population of Sierra Leone”.

Business scams

See the main article on this topic: Confidence trick

Robertson created a multilevel marketing scheme known as American Benefits Plus that sold discount coupon books to fellow-Christians. After taking all the money from the suckers, Robertson renamed the business as KaloVita, abandoning the then-worthless coupon books. KaloVita sold highly-overpriced megavitamins. In due time KaloVita was sold off to end an IRS investigation and investigations by state attorneys general for fraudulent behavior.

Failed prophecies of the Second Coming

Robertson has made many prophecies over the years. None of them have come to pass.

• 1980: "a year of sorrow and bloodshed that will have no end soon, for the world is being torn apart, and my kingdom shall rise from the ruins of it."
• 1982: The Great Tribulation would begin in October or November 1982, following an invasion of Israel by the Soviet Union.
• 1985: Worldwide economic collapse!
• 1996: Jay Rockefeller (D-West By God Virginia) would be elected President of the United States in 1996. (Obviously he's a candidate for being the Antichrist, because, well, he's a Rockefeller.)
• 2007: After his prophecy of 1982 failed to pass, he changed it to 2007, because 2007 is 40 years since the Six-Day War and 400 years since the founding of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Israel and the Six Day War often figure in date-setting attempts by End Times preachers, but what Jamestown has to do with it is anyone's guess (unless Robertson thinks modern Virginia has a central role in the End Times due to his own inflated view of Virginia Beach-based CBN's importance in the overall scheme of things).

For his failed efforts, he shared the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize for Mathematics with some other prophetic losers: Dorothy Martin, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Lee Jang Rim, and Credonia Mwerinde, and Harold Camping.

So far his track record is 0 for 5, although to be generous one could say his 1980 prophecy was accurate inasmuch as the Iran-Iraq War and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan both date from that year, with the consequences of both still playing out today with no end in sight.

Robertson, unlike many evangelicals, did not believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. He believed that the Second Coming of Jesus will be after a 7-year Great Tribulation (also known as the Obama administration by fundamentalists), during which the Antichrist will rise to power and the prophecies in the Book of Daniel and Book of Revelation will take place.

In addition, Robertson was strongly under the impression that Jews must convert to Christianity for the End Times to kick in. Whether the lack of this precondition has anything to do with his current piss-poor track record as a prophet is left strictly up to the reader.

On the other hand, Robertson hated direct competition, calling other would-be prophets "nutty" and their prophecies originating "from the pit of Hell", among other things.

In February 2022, in the wake of Vladimir Putin's unprompted invasion of Ukraine, the now-retired Robertson made a special appearance on the 700 Club for a trip into Cold War End Times nostalgia, where the mysterious Biblical lands of Gog and Magog in the apocalyptic prophecy in Ezekiel 38-39 were actually Russia. On the program, Robertson declared that Putin was "compelled by God" to invade Ukraine, and believed that this was a precursor to the ultimate goal of moving "against Israel ultimately", invading together with other supposed mobilized armies in the region (such as the armies of Turkey, Iran, Sudan, and other nations which he randomly assigned to the mysterious Biblical territories mentioned in Ezekiel 38). For some reason, this was an example of God "getting ready to do something amazing".

Books

One of Robertson's books is the 1992 book The New World Order. The book promotes the New World Order conspiracy. That book cites among its sources anti-Semitic author Eustace Mullins. In addition, Constance Cumbey has accused Robertson of plagiarizing wholesale passages from her 1983 book The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow in The New World Order.

Ol' Pat felt left behind after all the brouhaha over the Left Behind books and he decided to try his hand at an apocalyptic "end times" novel in 1996, The End of the Age. The novel has civilization as we know it end from an asteroid impact and massive tidal wave in California. Sound familiar? It should — it's an obvious rip-off from Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's 1977 science fiction novel Lucifer's Hammer. Only this time the premise is Christian, so of course the Antichrist comes to power and becomes the President of the United States, who takes orders from a shadowy Middle Eastern worshiper of the Hindu god Shiva and makes New Age the official state religion, along with the usual mark of the beast stuff, while the remaining Christians eventually gather in an isolated Colorado compound to fight back with, what else, a Christian television station. Doesn't that bit about an ingathering in Colorado sound familiar too? Really, it's not worth the bother. Read Lucifer's Hammer instead.

Pat Robertson, Hitman of The Cloth

In 2005, Robertson called for the assassination of a democratically-elected leader of an independent foreign nation, Venezuela, live on television. Of Hugo Chavez, he said "if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war." Unusually for a right-winger, Robertson soon apologised, sort of, but not before he'd lost the support of the right-wing Christians he claimed to represent. Fellow televangelist Jack van Impe called Robertson Osami^[sic] bin Laden for his comments on Chavez.

Anonymous

Anonymous, or some faction within Anonymous, planned to target Robertson and called for a boycott of Christian Broadcasting Network and televisions stations that broadcast material from Robertson. It is claimed this is a first step with more to follow. This appears to have been a complete failure.

Reasonable stances

Pot legalization

One rare reasonable position Robertson took was his support for legalization of marijuana and the ending of mandatory prison sentences for possession of the drug, saying it should be "legal like alcohol."

Age of the Earth

In another wonderful stopped clock moment, Robertson's commentary on the Nye-Ham debate of February 2014 is surprisingly reasonable. He has also declared astronomer, old-earth creationist, and Christian apologist Hugh Ross to be Regent University's "Scientist in Residence" as of 2019, despite Ross not performing any research at the university; the "residence" appeared to mean a week-long speaking tour every semester or two and heavy promotion of his books to Regent's science faculty.

Trans people

When asked about dealing with transgender people, Robertson responded that transgenderism is real, sex-change operations are not sinful, and that one should address a trans person by the gender with which they identify. However, he questioned the validity of the identities of trans people who are gender non-conforming or don't go through medical transition, and he also called the transgender bathroom issue "liberalism run amok" because he considered it petty compared to the threat of "thermonuclear annihilation".

Police brutality

See the main article on this topic: Police brutality

In June 2020, Robertson criticized Donald Trump's law-and-order response to the unrest following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, saying that this was a time to send messages that one "understand(s) your pain" instead of threatening to send military troops.

On April 15, 2021, Robertson called for the police officer who killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck, Derek Chauvin, to be put "under the jail". He then commented on the most recent police brutality incident at the time, the killing of Daunte Wright, where during a traffic stop, police officer Kimberly Potter mistakenly reached for her Glock 9mm handgun instead of her taser and shot Wright. Robertson, on his show, took out a handgun and Taser, noted that "there's no comparison" between the two weapons, and called the idea that a trained officer could even mistake the two devices "crazy". He then went off on the current status of police force competence and training, exclaiming that "we cannot have a bunch of clowns running around who are underpaid and who really are not the best and brightest."

Other examples of how weird Robertson can be

• Robertson appeared with Al Sharpton in an environmentalist video for the We Can Solve it campaign in 2008 to stop global warming. It didn't mean shit though, because Robertson believed that climate science (science about global warming) is a religion and did not understand that it is evidence-based.
• Robertson thought that marriage is a great thing, unless your wife has Alzheimer's. Then it's permissable to divorce her, ASAP.
• Robertson also thought that adoption is a great thing unless the kid is some damn furreigner or grew up "weird" due to sexual abuse or food deprivation, in which case it isn't.
• Robertson's views on domestic violence were also a trifle insane incoherent unenlightened odd, to say the least.
• Robertson's odd response to the French debate over legalizing same-sex marriage was a rambling screed that asserted that the Illuminati caused the French Revolution. No shit.
• Robertson thought that Dungeons and Dragons would lead gamers onto the road of perdition (no, not the movie), a tiresome old moral panic meme if there ever was one.
• Robertson thought that "XX-Rated" movies are a gateway to demonic possession.
• Robertson thought that since drugs exist, humanity is enslaved by vegetables, and only God can free us from our overlords. No, seriously.
• Robertson believed that AIDS can be spread by towels in Kenya, completely ignoring modern medical science — or even 80's science, for that matter.
• Robertson thought that houses can be demonically possessed and that the possession can be cured by dumping that house on some other sucker homeowner, despite the somewhat unethical nature of such an undertaking.
• Robertson once asked if macaroni and cheese was "a black thing."
• Robertson was fond of the strange idea that rebuking clothes and other inanimate objects with prayer will rid them of the demons that can attach to them. No, he really did say that.
• Robertson claimed to have leg-pressed 2,000 pounds with the aid of his special protein shake.

And just plain dishonesty

Robertson chastised the 2012 Republican Presidential candidates about being open about their positions.

Notable quotes

Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.

When lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved in Adolph Hitler were Satanists. Many of them were homosexuals. The two things seem to go together."

[Homosexuals] want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers."

You know what they do in San Francisco? Some of the gay community there, they want to get people. So, if they've got the stuff, they'll have a ring. You shake hands and the ring's got a little thing where you cut your finger. Really. I mean it's that kind of vicious stuff, which would be the equivalent of murder."

I know one man who was impotent who gave AIDS to his wife and the only thing they did was kiss."

I have a zero tolerance for sanctimonious morons who try to scare people."

The Islamic people, the Arabs, were the ones who captured Africans, put them in slavery, and sent them to America as slaves."

Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different . . . It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians . . . More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."

See also

• Gordon Robertson, the man's (poor) son.
• Jerry Falwell, Robertson's BFF when they were both alive
• Oral Roberts
• Frank Zappa's "Jesus Thinks You're a Jerk" is mainly about him (Broadway the Hard Way, Barking Pumpkin, 1989).
• Regent University, Robertson's vanity project private university
• Alex Jones, his successor.

External links

• Salvation for Sale A book about Pat Robertson by a former aide