Pat Robertson

Norfolk, Va. - Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said Wednesday that 2008 will be a year of violence worldwide and a recession in the United States, followed by a major stock-market crash by 2010.

Praying about events in the coming year and sharing what he believes God has told him is an annual tradition for Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network.

"The Lord was saying that there's going to be violence and chaos in the world," Robertson said on his "700 Club" news-and-talk show. Continue.

At the Beach with Pat Robertson: Reclaiming America For Christ

Last Friday I hit Virginia Beach, to spend the weekend at "Assembly 2007", with a gaggle of apocalyptic "Word Faith" Christian preachers, and their devotees, as they celebrated bad history, their continued quest to impose Biblical law on America and the World, and the magical power of money to mainline deep pocketed believers straight to God... One of the big name draws, Pastor John Hagee, has been reported as encouraging his church members to hold dollar bills aloft and wave them to the heavens, as if money were some magical lure to the almighty...

Maybe Word-Faith adherents think it is. The tendency is like a tacky, quintessentially American New-Age Calvinism grafted onto a Christian will to dominate the world and a nihilistic expectation, sometimes in the foreground and sometimes in the background, that the end is coming... soon. The tendency fits well with corporate capitalism too, and it wouldn't be surprising to hear Gordon Gecko-like phrases coming from Word Faith pulpits of characters like Hagee or Creflo Dollar : "Money is good. GREED is good !". Those themes are latent anyway. Continue.

Pat Robertson's Christian Nationalist Extravaganza

There is a Christian nationalist extravaganza going on this weekend in Virginia Beach, Virginia. It's a radical effort to capture American history in a way in which Christian rightists cast themselves as the protagonists of America's story. And people like you and me are but interlopers in God's grand scheme.

The occasion is the 400th anniversary of Capt. John Smith's landing at Jamestown. While the state of Virginia is hosting its own party, televangelist Pat Robertson will lead an alternative for those who, like its stage manager John Blanchard, say: "We want to reaffirm our Christian roots - we are a Christian country." Continue.

For God's Sake

In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement -- the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right -- suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. "Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure," he wrote, "and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order."

Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration.

Unfortunately for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a product of the university’s law school. She’s the former top aide to Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S. attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than testify to Congress on the matter. Continue.

Media Finally Discovers Army of Pat Robertson Acolytes in Bush

When Monica Goodling's name erupted into the news last week in the attorney scandal, the mainstream press suddenly realized that Pat Robertson's Regent University exists -- and that it's got a big footprint in the Bush admin.

Monica Goodling on her Regent University homepage: "If I only had two seconds to tell you why I'm here, I'd have to say this: I want to leave the world a better place than I found it. Tough assignment, but, worth a try."

When Monica Goodling's name erupted into the news last week, the mainstream press discovered suddenly that Pat Robertson's Regent University exists. Not only that, the press learned that it has made a deep footprint in George W. Bush's Washington.

Since Robertson's failed presidential campaign, coverage of him has largely focused on his mercurial and bizarre personality. He seemed only to appear in the news when one of his many entertainingly outrageous gaffes or false prophecies earned publicity. While Robertson's hysterical episodes deserved all the coverage they generated, with a few notable exceptions, the mainstream press habitually ignored his political machinations. Robertson and his cadres exploited this lack of scrutiny to quietly erect a sophisticated and far-reaching political network that today propells the Christian right's ongoing march through the institutions. Continue

Pat Robertson reveals God's predictions for 2007

Televangelist sincerely believes God speaks to him, his former ghost-writer says

by JewsOnFirst, January 7, 2007

As he has in the past, God confided his predictions of major upcoming events to televangelist Pat Robertson. Robertson generously relayed the alerts to his "700 Club" viewers -- and thus to the rest of the world.

Most notably, there would be an attack by "evil ones" featuring "mass killing," Robertson said. “I'm not saying necessarily nuclear, the Lord didn't say nuclear.” But, he added, “It'll be mass killing, possibly millions of people, major cities." Click here for our report, which includes comments by Rev. Mel White, Robertson's former ghost writer.

Conversation with the Rev. Mel White

Cofounder of Soulforce and former Pat Robertson ghost writer discusses Robertson, state of the religious right

Recorded conversation with interviewer, Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak of JewsOnFirst.org, January 9, 2007

We talked with Rev. Mel White for last week's report, Pat Robertson reveals God's predictions for 2007. White ghost-wrote Robertson's biography America's Dates with Destiny for the televangelist's 1988 presidential campaign and is a cofounder of Soulforce, an organization committed to ending religiously based bigotry against gays and lesbians.

In this ten-minute conversation with JewsOnFirst, White discusses Robertson and the broader religious right, which, he says, is tightly unified with a lot of money to spend on the 2008 presidential race. "The Arlington Group and The Council for National Policy," he says, "have an agenda for all of us. Progressives can hardly get together on anything, and these guys have gotten together on everything." To listen to the conversation with White, please click here.

To purchase White's new book, Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of The Christian Right,Click here.

Listen to a second interview with White here.

Man accuses Pat Robertson of threatening to kill him

Televangelist denies making threat

NORFOLK, Va. -- One of Hampton Roads' highest-profile Christians stands accused of a not-so-Christian act.

A plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against Pat Robertson says the televangelist threatened his life and that of his family at a legal proceeding Wednesday in the Norfolk federal courthouse.

The accuser, Phillip Busch, is suing Robertson for misappropriation of his image in the promotion of Robertson's protein diet shake.

According to a complaint Busch filed with the Norfolk police, Robertson entered a room in the courthouse Wednesday afternoon to be questioned for a deposition -- an out-of-court form of testimony -- and told Busch:

Televangelist Pat Robertson charges Planned Parenthood with planning genocide against African American community

Televangelist Pat Robertson has again made shockingly offensive statements on his widely viewed 700 Club television show. On May 11th he stated that Planned Parenthood tried to use Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to carry out a genocidal birth control campaign against the black community. Robertson also said that the American Civil Liberties Union and the "Communist Internationale" had taken over Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and that the head of the latter was so "extreme" on the issue of church-state separation that he would not send a fire truck to a burning church. Click here.

Televangelist Pat Robertson calls Islam "satanic"

Billy Graham's son Franklin disdains Islam, too.

It's hardly news anymore when televangelist Pat Robertson says something offensive. His prounouncement that Ariel Sharon's stroke was God's punishment for withdrawing from Gaza leaps to mind. What is newsworthy about Robertson's latest statement -- that Islam is "satanic" and bent on world domination -- is that none of the major organizations of the religious right dissociated themselves from it. Does that mean they agree with it?

In fact, one religious right preacher, Franklin Graham, son and heir of Rev. Billy Graham, all but affirmed Robertson's calumny. Click here.

Robertson claimed "evolutionists worship atheism," evolutionary theory a "cultish religion"

"Summary: On CBN's The 700 Club, host Pat Robertson claimed that 'the evolutionists worship atheism' and that because 'evolution becomes their religion' it is "an establishment of religion contrary to the First Amendment." Robertson went on to suggest that evolution advocates were 'fanatics,' stating further, 'it is a religion, it is a cult. It is cultish religion.' Click here to for the complete report -- and a video clip of Robertson's statement.

Pat Robertson Endorses Giuliani for President

Rudolph W. Giuliani scored a coup today by winning the support of Pat Robertson, who, as one of the nation’s best-known televangelists, could help Mr. Giuliani reassure Republicans who are wary of his support for abortion rights and gay rights.

Mr. Robertson, the founder and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, said in endorsing Mr. Giuliani in Washington, that he believed “the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the blood lust of Islamic terrorists” and praised Mr. Giuliani as a “true fiscal conservative.”

While Mr. Robertson did not mention Mr. Giuliani’s support of abortion rights, he said approvingly that Mr. Giuliani “has assured the American people that his choices for judicial appointments will be men and women who share the judicial philosophy of John Roberts and Antonin Scalia,” who have argued against Roe v. Wade. Continue.

Candidate Endorsements Start Shaping Conservatives' Role in '08 Race

Ifill discusses Robertson's endorsement of Rudi Giuliani with two Christian right leaders who are often spoken of as the new generation of leaders: Rev. Joel Hunter (who briefly led Robertson's fading Christian Coalition) and Bishop Harry Jackson. Click here for the transcript, audio and video of the segment.

Romney Preaches to the Christian Right

In a Conservative Crowd, Candidate Talks About Marriage, Child-Rearing

Virginia Beach, May 5 -- Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) did not discuss his Mormon faith as he continued his outreach Saturday to conservative Christians in a graduation speech at Regent University, the school founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.

Instead, Romney, who is intensely courting this key segment of the Republican base in hopes of winning the party's 2008 presidential nomination, expounded on conservative themes such as the importance of child-rearing and marriage and the presence of evil in the world.

"There is no work more important to America's future than the work that is done within the four walls of the American home," Romney said. He also criticized people who choose not to get married because they enjoy the single life. Continue.

Pat Robertson: Raked over the coals while raking in the dough

Noting that Robertson's Operation Blessing has received tens of millions of dollars in faith-based funding from the Bush government, Berkowitz recalls the televangelist's initial opposition to the program. Robertson worried that religions like the Moonies and Scientologists would share in the funds. Then, writes Berkowitz, he voiced other objections:

As it turned out, recipients are able to discriminate in favor of their co-religionists, which Operation Blessing has done. Click here for the report.

Stop Bush Funding of Pat Robertson

National Jewish Democratic Council launches campaign to stop "faith-based" funding of Pat Robertson, other divisive figures

Federal funding for Pat Robertson's "Operation Blessing" has risen from $108,000 to $14.4 million annually. The NJDC is collecting signatures to urge the Bush administration to stop "faith-based" funding to the operations of such "divisive" figures. Click here for the campaign.

$14 million in federal faith-based money goes to Pat Robertson

"Televangelist's claim that Ariel Sharon's stroke was an act of God may have cost him the friendship of some Israelis, but it hasn't prevented his charity, Operation Blessing, from garnering faith-based grants from the U.S. government." Click here to read the report.