65 Facts About Pat Robertson

1.

Pat Robertson is associated with the Charismatic Movement within Protestant evangelicalism.

2.

Pat Robertson serves as chancellor and CEO of Regent University and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network.

3.

Pat Robertson graduated near the top of his class at Yale Law School in 1955 but later failed the New York bar exam, which he described as a minor setback since he never planned to practice law and he already had a career with a major corporation on Wall Street.

4.

Pat Robertson became a Christian while having dinner at a restaurant in Philadelphia with an author and WWII veteran, Cornelius Vanderbreggen.

5.

Pat Robertson is a best-selling author and the former host of The 700 Club, a Christian News and TV program broadcast live weekdays on Freeform from CBN studios, as well as on channels throughout the United States, and on CBN network affiliates worldwide.

6.

Pat Robertson announced his retirement at the age of 91 from the 700 Club in October 2021, on the sixtieth anniversary of the first telecast on October 1,1961 of what eventually became CBN.

7.

The son of US Senator A Willis Robertson, Robertson was a Southern Baptist and was active as an ordained minister with that denomination for many years, but holds to a charismatic theology not traditionally common among Southern Baptists.

8.

Pat Robertson unsuccessfully campaigned to become the Republican Party's nominee in the 1988 presidential election.

9.

Marion Gordon Pat Robertson was born on March 22,1930, in Lexington, Virginia, into a prominent political family, the younger of two sons.

10.

Pat Robertson's parents were Absalom Willis Robertson, a conservative Democratic Senator, and Gladys Churchill, a housewife and a musician.

11.

Later, Pat Robertson thought about which first name he would like people to use.

12.

When he was eleven, Pat Robertson was enrolled in the preparatory McDonogh School outside Baltimore, Maryland.

13.

Pat Robertson was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's most prestigious academic honor society.

14.

In 1948, the draft was reinstated and Pat Robertson was given the option of joining the Marine Corps or being drafted into the Army; he opted for the first.

15.

Pat Robertson was promoted to First Lieutenant in 1952 upon his return to the United States.

16.

Pat Robertson then went on to receive a law degree from Yale Law School in 1955, near the top of his class.

17.

In 1956, Pat Robertson met Dutch missionary Cornelius Vanderbreggen, who impressed Pat Robertson both by his lifestyle and his message.

18.

Pat Robertson was ordained as a minister of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1961.

19.

In 1960, Pat Robertson established the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

20.

Pat Robertson started it by buying the license of a defunct UHF station in nearby Portsmouth.

21.

The venture became so lucrative that it could not continue to be kept under a tax-exempt charity, so Pat Robertson spun off The Family Channel into a separate commercial entity that was sold to News Corporation for $1.9 billion in 1997.

22.

Pat Robertson founded CBN University, a private Christian university, in 1977 on CBN's Virginia Beach campus.

23.

In 1994, in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, Pat Robertson solicited donations to provide medical supplies to refugees in neighboring Zaire, where Pat Robertson had exploratory diamond mining operations.

24.

Pat Robertson is the founder and chairman of The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc.

25.

Pat Robertson was the founder and co-chairman of International Family Entertainment Inc.

26.

Pat Robertson is a global businessman with media holdings in Asia, the United Kingdom, and Africa.

27.

Pat Robertson struck a deal with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based General Nutrition Center to produce and market a weight-loss shake he created and promoted on The 700 Club.

28.

In 1999, Pat Robertson entered into a joint venture with the Bank of Scotland to provide financial services in the United States.

29.

On February 4,2010, at his war crimes trial in the Hague, Taylor testified that Pat Robertson was his main political ally in the US, while Pat Robertson has denied ever meeting or speaking to Charles Taylor.

30.

Pat Robertson's gelding named Tappat won the 1999 Walter Haight Handicap at Laurel Park and the 2000 Pennsylvania Governor's Cup Handicap at Penn National Race Course.

31.

Pat Robertson was nominated for, but did not run in, the 2000 Kentucky Derby.

32.

Pat Robertson is a past president of the Council for National Policy.

33.

On November 7,2007, Pat Robertson announced that he was endorsing Rudy Giuliani to be the Republican nominee in the 2008 Presidential election.

34.

Pat Robertson appeared in a commercial with Al Sharpton, joking about this, and urging people to join the We Can Solve It campaign against global warming.

35.

In January 2009, on a broadcast of The 700 Club, Pat Robertson stated that he is "adamantly opposed" to the division of Jerusalem between Israel and the Palestinians.

36.

Pat Robertson has repeatedly called for the legalization of cannabis, saying that it should be treated in a manner analogous to the regulation of alcoholic beverages and tobacco.

37.

In September 1986, Pat Robertson announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States.

38.

Pat Robertson said he would pursue the nomination only if three million people signed up to volunteer for his campaign by September 1987.

39.

Three million responded, and by the time Pat Robertson announced he would be running in September 1987, he had raised millions of dollars for his campaign fund.

40.

Pat Robertson surrendered his ministerial credentials and turned leadership of CBN over to his son, Tim.

41.

Pat Robertson ran on a standard conservative platform, and as a candidate he embraced the same policies as Ronald Reagan: lower taxes, a balanced budget, and a strong defense.

42.

Pat Robertson's campaign got off to a strong second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, ahead of Bush.

43.

Pat Robertson did poorly in the subsequent New Hampshire primary and was unable to be competitive once the multiple-state primaries began.

44.

Pat Robertson later spoke at the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans and told his remaining supporters to cast their votes for Bush, who ended up winning the nomination and the election.

45.

Pat Robertson then returned to CBN and remained there as a religious broadcaster.

46.

In 1954, Pat Robertson married Amelia "Dede" Elmer a fashion model and beauty queen in the Miss Ohio State contest, who was studying for her masters in nursing at Yale University.

47.

Pat Robertson had been a nursing student at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

48.

On February 2,2018, Pat Robertson suffered an embolic stroke at his home in Virginia Beach.

49.

Pat Robertson was then taken to the nearest stroke center where he was administered the clot-busting drug tPA.

50.

Pat Robertson was responsive, awake, and moving all of his limbs about eighty minutes after his stroke began.

51.

Pat Robertson was discharged two days later and recovered at home.

52.

In June 2019, Pat Robertson was absent from The 700 Club for several days after he broke three ribs in a fall.

53.

Pat Robertson has denounced left-wing views of feminism, activism regarding homosexuality, abortion, and liberal college professors.

54.

Critics claim Pat Robertson had business dealings in Africa with former president of Liberia and convicted war criminal Charles Taylor and former Zaire president Mobutu Sese Seko who both had been internationally denounced for claims of human rights violations.

55.

Pat Robertson was criticized internationally for his call for Hugo Chavez's assassination and for his remarks concerning Ariel Sharon's ill-health as an act of God.

56.

Pat Robertson was tragically assassinated, and it was terrible thing that happened, but nevertheless, he was dead.

57.

Pat Robertson was dividing God's land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations or United States of America.

58.

Less than two weeks after Hurricane Katrina killed 1,836 people, Pat Robertson implied on the September 12,2005 broadcast of The 700 Club that the storm was God's punishment in response to America's abortion policy.

59.

On November 9,2009, Pat Robertson said that Islam is "a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination".

60.

Pat Robertson went on to elaborate that "you're dealing with not a religion, you're dealing with a political system, and I think we should treat it as such, and treat its adherents as such as we would members of the communist party, members of some fascist group".

61.

Pat Robertson claimed that Haiti's founders had sworn a "pact to the Devil" in order to liberate themselves from the French slave owners and indirectly attributed the earthquake to the consequences of the Haitian people being "cursed" for doing so.

62.

CBN later issued a statement saying that Pat Robertson's comments "were based on the widely-discussed 1791 slave rebellion led by Dutty Boukman at Bois Caiman, where the slaves allegedly made a famous pact with the devil in exchange for victory over the French".

63.

In March 2015, Pat Robertson compared Buddhism to a disease on The 700 Club.

64.

In October 2003, Pat Robertson was interviewed by author Joel Mowbray about his book Dangerous Diplomacy, a book critical of the State Department.

65.

Pat Robertson said that we could change American diplomacy by ridding ourselves of a large part of the State Department.