Yale Law School

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Pat Robertson: Was he an influential religious broadcaster or some kind of 'evangelicalist'?

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Pat Robertson: Was he an influential religious broadcaster or some kind of 'evangelicalist'?

I must admit that I have not had the time to dig into the 666 million words or so (that’s an estimate) of news and commentary dedicated to the death of the Rev. Pat Robertson. It’s hard to do much reading when at the wheel of a car for about 1,400 miles (and that was the return trip).

But I do have some thoughts on the passing of the charismatic quote machine that journalists loved, loved, loved to hate (see my 2005 commentary for the Poynter Institute). If Robertson didn’t exist, blue-zip-code pundits would have created him ex nihilo.

Truth be told, I never met the man — even though, technically speaking, I briefly worked for him during a failed 2000 attempt to build a D.C. beltway-based master’s degree journalism program for Regent University.

How to describe Pat Robertson?

First and foremost, he was a media maven and entrepreneur, creating the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1960. Years later, he sold the Family Channel for something like $2 billion. Love it or hate it, the niche-news and commentary DNA of The 700 Club can be found all over the place on cable television.

For journalists, he was mainly a political activist — playing a major role in the creation of the Christian Coalition. In 1988 he made a surprisingly relevant attempt to win the White House, seeking the Republican nomination. He was the son of a U.S. senator and, before jumping into media work, graduated from Yale Law School and New York Theological Seminary.

The media entrepreneur poured millions of dollars into academica, with the creation of Regent University — which only offered graduate-school degrees in subjects that Robertson considered culturally significant (such as law and mass communications).

Robertson was a bestselling author, with the help of numerous ghost writers (including a major gay-rights pioneer).

I would argue that his most significant achievement was helping merge the charismatic movement into mainstream evangelical Protestantism, adding doctrinal elements of Pentecostalism into the rapidly growing world of post-denominational Christianity in America and around the world.

But here is the big journalism question: Why do so many mainstream journalists call Robertson an “evangelist,” even though crusades and public preaching of that style were never part of his life and work?


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New podcast: Did the mainstream press ever figure out why Pat Robertson was important?

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New podcast: Did the mainstream press ever figure out why Pat Robertson was important?

If you look at the headline and the art for this post, it’s obvious that this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) focused on media coverage of the Rev. Pat Robertson’s retirement as host of the “700 Club.”

Try to forget that. Work with me here, for a moment.

What if I told you that the man at the heart of this story grew up in Washington, D.C., as the son of a U.S. Senator. Then he did his undergraduate work at a quality school known for its academic rigor, graduating magna cum laude while studying history at Washington and Lee University.

Later, he earned a Yale Law School degree. After that — think low New York bar exam scores and a big religious conversion — he earned an MDiv degree from New York Theological Seminary.

Somewhere in that mix, he served in the U.S. Marines. Later, he founded a multi-million-dollar broadcasting empire and started a graduate-school university and a law school.

Does it sound like someone with a pretty good shot at having an impact on American life and culture?

Well, that’s Pat Robertson — sort of. It's clear that, for most journalists, this resume doesn’t have much to do with the man’s life and work. This is, after all, the religious broadcaster (as opposed to televangelist) who, for decades, served up “spew your coffee” soundbites that launched waves of embarrassing headlines and late-night TV jokes. He was important because this was the kind of wild man who helped lead the Religious Right further into the heart of Republican Party politics.

The minute anything crazy or scary happened in the world — from politics and pop culture to hurricanes and earthquakes — the press turned to Robertson for what was billed as semi-official “evangelical” reactions, even as his words frequently left mainstream evangelical leaders sad, puzzled or furious.

Robertson was one of the official alpha-male media voices of evangelicalism, even after he women and men had emerged who had more clout and connections in the movement.

I was never a Robertson fan. However, it was always clear to me — thinking in terms of church history — that he wasn’t really an “evangelical,” strictly defined, even though he was an ordained Southern Baptist minister. The key is that he was a leader in the rising tide of charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity in America and the world at large (see this Pew Research Center resource page).

Does that matter? Well, Pentecostal Christianity very diverse, in terms of race and class, and is the fastest growing for of religious faith on the planet.


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That crucial role Pat Robertson plays for way too many American political journalists

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That crucial role Pat Robertson plays for way too many American political journalists

What images leap into your mind when you hear the word “televangelist”?

If you are a certain age, you probably think of the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart weeping and choking out the words, “I … HAVE … SINNED!” For millions of other folks — especially journalists, like me, who once worked at The Charlotte Observer — this term will always be linked to the Rev. Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker.

But what does the word actually mean and is it the best term to describe the Rev. Pat Roberson? That’s one of the topics that came up during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. Click here to tune that in, or head over to iTunes and sign up. The main topic we discussed this week? That would be Robertson’s headline-grabbing remarks about Alabama’s new abortion law:

"I think Alabama has gone too far," Robertson said Wednesday on "The 700 Club" before the bill was signed into law by Alabama's Republican Gov. Kay Ivey. "It's an extreme law."

The key question: Why did Robertson say what he said? What did readers need to know to understand what he was trying to say, whether they agreed with him or not? Hold that thought.

Meanwhile, back to that mild journalism curse word — “televangelist.” The pros at Merriam-Webster online offer a nice, logical definition:

… an evangelist who conducts regularly televised religious programs.

OK, that assumes that this person’s primary job is doing public, evangelistic events — like, for example, the Rev. Billy Graham.

The definition offered by the Cambridge Dictionary is a bit more candid:

… The activity of preaching (= giving religious speeches) on television in order to persuade people to become Christians and give money to religious organizations.

Ah, yes, raising money is crucial. But note that the primary goal remains winning people to Christian faith. Does that describe most of the work Robertson has done during his long media career?

I think the blunt offering at Dictionary.com — the source favored by Google — is precisely what most reporters are thinking when they use this term:


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That latest Pat Robertson juridical quote: Journalists may want to note these interesting facts

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It’s really hard for the mainstream press to consider someone crazy and wise at the same time. Then again, the Rev. Pat Robertson is not your normal public figure, is he?

This aging patriarch of the old Religious Right frequently provides one-liners that shoot straight into the headlines, as well as the monologues of late-night political humorists. He is gifted at that, and journalists have long welcomed opportunities to quote him as a defining voice in conservative American Christianity, even as his clout has declined and evangelicalism has become much more complex.

So now we have headlines about Robertson opposing an abortion law. Is that crazy, or what?

It’s a laugh to keep from crying equation. For more background on that, see this piece — “Excommunicating Pat Robertson” — that I wrote long ago for the ethics team at Poynter.org.

I’m not a Robertson fan, obviously. However, I do think that journalists may — from time to time — want to note one or two interesting facts in his background, other than pinning the “televangelist” label on him and then moving on. (Anyway, he’s more of a “religious broadcaster,” as opposed to being an “evangelist” in the traditional meaning of that word.)

We will come back to that topic — overlooked facts in the Robertson biography — in a moment. First things first: Why is he back in the news?

Well, there is this USA Today headline to consider, among many: “Televangelist Pat Robertson: Alabama abortion law 'has gone too far,' is 'ill-considered'.” Here’s the top of that report:

Longtime televangelist Pat Robertson, who opposes abortion, criticized Alabama's near-total abortion ban that on Wednesday became the nation's most restrictive and one expected to face legal challenge.

"I think Alabama has gone too far," Robertson said Wednesday on "The 700 Club" before the bill was signed into law by Alabama's Republican Gov. Kay Ivey. "It's an extreme law."


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The Los Angeles Times posits that this popular evangelical writer is a fundamentalist

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As a rule, GetReligion doesn't pay attention to editorials, commentaries and reviews for the simple reason that our purpose is to focus on the good and bad in mainstream religion news coverage, with a strong emphasis on the word "news."

Besides, it's hard to critique matters of accuracy, bias and balance in forms of writing in which authors are free to speak their minds, as columnists or commentators.

However, even it comes to writing about movies -- whether we are talking about news or commentary -- The Los Angeles Times is not just another newspaper. It matters what kinds of labels the La La land newspaper of record pins on real people who work in the public square.

So here is the top of the Noel Murray review of the new movie "The Case for Christ," which is based on the journey that former Chicago Tribune legal-affairs reporter Lee Strobel made from atheism to Christian faith. The headline on the review: " 'The Case for Christ' prioritizes drama over evidence."

Lee Strobel became a fundamentalist Christian hero thanks to his 1998 book “The Case for Christ,” chronicling how his dogged research into Jesus’ resurrection helped convert him from atheism. Director Jon Gunn and screenwriter Brian Bird’s film version emphasizes Stobel’s personal drama over his academic investigation, which makes for a watchable movie but thin theology.
Mike Vogel plays Strobel, who at the start of the 1980s was an award-winning Chicago journalist with a happy marriage and a bright future, until his wife, Leslie (played by Erika Christensen), found God. Anxious to get their life back to the way things were, he started interviewing scholars in various disciplines, hoping that by presenting Leslie with the facts, she’d back down.

Veteran GetReligion readers will not be surprised that it was the word "fundamentalist" that caught my attention, after clicking on a URL sent in by a reader on the West Coast.

There are two ways to read the "fundamentalist" clause in the lede.


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