Robertson, Pat

Robertson, Pat (Marion Gordon Robertson), 1930–, American evangelist and politician, b. Lexington, Va. The son of U.S. Senator A. Willis Robertson, he is a graduate of Yale Law School and an ordained Southern Baptist minister. In 1960 he founded the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). As host of a television talk show (1968–86, 1988–) on CBN and its cable channel (later the Family Channel; sold in 1997) that blends evangelical Protestantism with conservative politics, he has attained a large and loyal following. Robertson campaigned unsuccessfully for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination. In 1989 he founded the Christian Coalition, a conservative Christian political group that has been influential in the Republican party; he served as its president until 2001. In 2005–6 he attracted attention with a number of highly controversial remarks, including calling for the assassination of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Robertson is the author of a number of books, including an apocalyptic novel (1996).

Bibliography

See his autobiography (rev. ed. 1995); biographies by D. E. Harrell, Jr. (1987) and J. B. Donovan (1988); studies by G. T. Straub (1986), H. Morken (1988), A. D. Hertzke (1993), R. Boston (1996), and A. Foege (1996).

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Robertson, Pat

 orig. Marion Gordon Robertson

(born March 23, 1930, Lexington, Va., U.S.) U.S. evangelist. He attended Washington and Lee University, served in the Marine Corps, and earned a law degree from Yale University. After undergoing a religious conversion, he studied at New York Theological Seminary and was ordained a Southern Baptist minister in 1959. In 1960 he started the nation's first Christian television station, at Portsmouth, Va., and he built it into the Christian Broadcasting Network. Its mainstay was his talk show, The 700 Club. In 1988 he campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination. In 1989 he founded the Christian Coalition, a conservative political organization that went on to exercise wide influence.

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Robertson, Pat (Marion Gordon) (1930–  ) Protestant evangelist; born in Lexington, Va. The son of a conservative Democrat who served 34 years in the U.S. House and Senate, he graduated from Washington and Lee (1950), took a law degree from Yale, and was ordained a Southern Baptist minister in 1961 after being "born again." He established the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia (1961) where he appeared as an evangelical preacher. His network eventually reached 30 million cable television subscribers in the U.S.A.; it enabled him to launch a career as a leader of the religious right. After an unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, he returned to his television ministry.