CBN Founder and THE 700 CLUB Host Pat Robertson Dies at 93
By Movieguide® Staff
Pat Robertson, the longtime TV host, minister, and founder and chairman of The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), died on June 8, 2023. He was 93.
Movieguide® founder and publisher Dr. Ted Baehr said: “Pat was a friend for a long time and one of our first Good News Communications, Inc, Board of Reference members. I was on one of the first 700 CLUB programs before the beautiful CBN campus was built. His decision to train leaders is wonderful. Multiplying strong Christian leaders is the most important task today.”
Robertson became an icon in religious media after founding CBN in 1960. He would later go-on to start Regent University in 1977, a private Christian college in his home of Virginia Beach.
“Pat Robertson has been a dear friend to Movieguide® for decades,” Movieguide® CEO Robby Baehr said. “God called him home, and while we mourn with his family, we are grateful for all his dedicated years serving in ministry.”
CBN reported of Robertson:
Born Marion Gordon Robertson in Lexington, Virginia on March 22, 1930, the nickname “Pat” was given to him by his older brother. Sticking with that moniker rather than his birth name was just the first of many conventions he would defy during his lifetime.
The Yale-educated lawyer and son of a U.S. senator, Robertson had hoped to become a successful businessman. In his 1972 autobiography, Shout It From the Housetops, he wrote about his dream of living the life of a New York socialite. But his path took a decidedly different turn in the 1950s when he became a born-again Christian.
Greg Laurie recounted Robertson’s prowess for business, which allowed Pat to start CBN with nothing.
“He had no money to speak of, and he decided the Lord wanted him to have that station,” the pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship said. “When it was all said and done, Pat got it for free. So that means not only did he have faith, but he was a good negotiator, too.”
According to CBN, Robertson started CBN with only $70. Today, the ministry reaches hundreds of millions of people worldwide. CBN reaches 150 countries in more than 100 languages.
In 1966, Robertson started THE 700 CLUB, one of the longest-running TV shows in history.
A true visionary, Robertson listened to God’s call on his heart to share the Gospel truth to the world.
But Robertson’s influence extended past the spiritual. In 1988, Robertson ran for the U.S. presidency. Despite losing to George W. Bush, Robertson proved to many that Christians could be respected beyond a religious context and should comment on social and political issues.
“Pat always had this vision to go where a lot of people don’t go. When you do that, sometimes you’re criticized by people,” Laurie noted. “He’s been a risk taker in the best sense of the word. A visionary. A dreamer. But someone whose message was the Gospel.”
After his presidential run, Robertson returned to CBN.
Robertson maintainted a longstanding relationship with Movieguide®, and received the Special Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual Movieguide® Awards Gala.
Movieguide® previously reported:
A highlight of the Awards Gala was Movieguide®’s presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award for Communicating and Living the Good News to The Rev. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, The Family Channel, Regent University, and Operation Blessing.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” Rev. Robertson said after receiving standing ovation. “Thank you so very much.
“I want to thank Ted Baehr and this wonderful organization for this honor you’re giving me. It’s been a thrill. It’s been a long journey, 55 years of broadcasting. I guess that’s a long time. I’ve done 10,000 live television shows, 10,000 of them. You guys with these scripts should know, you do a movie, a week, a month, a year. I do five a week, but anyhow, that’s the way it goes.
“God has blessed me. We are so privileged to live in this great land. We are so blessed. I’ve been all over the world. I’ve seen desperate poverty. I’ve seen suffering. I’ve seen leper colonies. I’ve been to people who were desperately poor, didn’t have enough food to eat and done what I can to help them along the way.
“To realize when you come back to this nation, you get clean water, you take that for granted. Most people can’t get it. I’ve been to India where they had to drink out of these feted pools that were just green and sickening, [but] we have fresh water, we have fresh air, we have delicious food. We have, even though the freeways are blocked up, roads that work. Most of them are dirt roads in other countries. We have so much here in this nation and we are so blessed.
“In another month I am going to be 87 years old! Praise God for His blessing and my life,” Pat concluded. “I’ve only got 13 more years to go, and I’ll hit 100, and then I guess it’s 110, after that, but whatever it is, thank you all. Ted, thank you.
“God bless all of you. God bless America.”
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