Word: robertson
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...Buchanan sounded downright evangelical for a politician, one evangelist in particular sounded mighty like a politician. He was Marion Gordon ("Pat") Robertson, 55, head of the Christian Broadcasting Network and a fixture on CBN's four-times-a-day The 700 Club. Robertson, a Southern Baptist, has been transmitting signals that he might join the race for the Republican nomination to succeed Reagan. Political pros are uncertain how big a factor he could be in the primaries, let alone the convention, but they are convinced that he could energize the Christian right and siphon votes from other candidates. True believers...
Perhaps they are already. Preachers like Robertson command audiences that form, if not a true Moral Majority, at least several potent and readily mobilized minorities. Robertson's following provides much of CBN's $233 million annual income. In a year, viewers of The 700 Club log 4 million prayer calls to 4,500 volunteers manning telephone banks in 60 counseling centers. Such motivated constituencies can--and do--bestow blessings aplenty, in the form of money and votes, upon candidates who win their favor...
...movement deeply disturbs more traditional Evangelicals and Pentecostals (Oral Roberts and Pat Robertson, however, are among outsiders who are friendly). The Rev. Russell Spittler of California's Fuller Theological Seminary thinks such nice-sounding but strange messages show that his fellow Pentecostals are "theologically impoverished." Theologian Charles Farah Jr. of Oral Roberts University asserts that "there are hundreds of thousands of wounded Christians for whom it didn't work." The current best-selling Evangelical paperback The Seduction of Christianity, by Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon, charges that this TV-borne movement is a slide into occultism and a sign...
...fact that a Robertson is even a potential candidate confirms the extraordinary power and influence amassed in the past decade by the shrewd, colorful headliners of Gospel TV. While impressing some as shallow and vulgar popularizers, they bring real inspiration and solace to others. Their past struggles in low-paid Gospel circuits bespeak a deep commitment, whatever skepticism might be aroused by their present enjoyment of stardom's rewards. They have changed the face of television; they may be gradually altering the very nature of American Christianity...
Among Republicans with an eye on the top of the 1988 presidential ticket, the only prominent absentee was former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker, who declined to appear because he had expected to be out of the country. Some, including North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms and TV Evangelist Pat Robertson, were accorded podium time mostly as a reward for long-standing ardor. Others, notably former Delaware Governor Pierre S. du Pont IV, were long shots by any standard. A clear favorite was Kirkpatrick, a "heroine to conservatives" as Keene called her, who delivered a foreign policy address to the convention...