Pat Robertson

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Pat Robertson (2006)

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (born March 22, 1930 in Lexington , Virginia ) is an American preacher and politician . He is considered one of the most influential figures on the conservative right in the United States . He is a co-founder of the Christian Coalition of America and the founder and president of the Evangelical Regent University .

Origin and early years

Robertson's ancestors were among the earliest European immigrants to America. One of his ancestors participated in the Boston Tea Party . Pat's son Absalom Willis Robertson , the former representative of Virginia in the House of Representatives and in the Senate of the United States . Robertson was a US Marine and was ordered to Japan in connection with the Korean War . He did not take part in combat operations.

activities

Religious activities

Robertson hosts the television program The 700 Club , which is broadcast on many secular and religious channels. He is an ordained minister of the Southern Baptists , but also sympathizes with theological views of the Pentecostal movement . His Christian fundamentalist views are very controversial, especially his demands to remove the boundary between church and state and his strict rejection of homosexuality and feminism . Robertson preaches a God who will not forgive but who will punish him; He takes the view that God regularly punishes people for moral wrongdoing, and has therefore repeatedly declared natural disasters as divine vengeance (see below).

In 1977 he founded the evangelical " CBN University" in Virginia Beach and became its chancellor. Today it is known as Regent University .

Political activities

Robertson is the founder and president of the American Center for Law and Justice , a law firm and lobbying group that defends the rights of religious Americans and believes that the separation of church and state can be lifted by individual choice of faith become. She repeatedly campaigns against abortion and for the traditional Christian family image in court hearings .

George HW Bush with Robertson in 1991

In the 1970s and 1980s, its political significance in the USA was initially minor. The decline of the evangelical moral majority and the foreseeable end of Ronald Reagan's term of office led him to apply for the office of US president in the Republican Party in 1988 . What hurt him was that he had falsely claimed to have taken part in combat operations in the Korean War. A former comrade contradicted him; Robertson sued him for defamation, but withdrew the lawsuit shortly before Super Tuesday in the face of overwhelming evidence . In the primaries , George Bush Sr. sat down . by.

Robertson is a Christian Zionist and campaigns for the interests of Israel in public . For his activities, he was awarded the Friends of the State of Israel by the Zionist Organization of America . However, like many conservative evangelicals, he is accused of supporting the Jewish state based only on religious ties to the Holy Land , not on sympathy for the Jews living there . Robertson publicly described the severe stroke of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in January 2006 as a divine punishment for the evacuation of the Gaza Strip , because Sharon had " divided God's land" . Robertson also saw the 1995 murder of Yitzchak Rabin as a just divine punishment for his peace policy towards the Palestinians. Robertson is seen as a sympathizer and advocate of Dominionism , so he advocates making Christian fundamentalism the dominant current within US politics and ultimately establishing a theocracy .

After the mass murder in Las Vegas in October 2017, Robertson blamed Donald Trump's critics for the crime, as they undermined state authority with their attacks on the president and thus, as well as by calling into question the infallibility of the Bible, acts of violence like those in Las Vegas would have made possible: "People who do not believe in God run amok."

Business activities

Pat Robertson (1986)

In 1960 Robertson bought the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia. It now broadcasts in 180 countries and 71 languages. Robertson is said to have a net worth between $ 200 million and $ 1 billion. According to author Bethany Moreton, the Christian Broadcasting Network supported the Guatemalan dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt, who was later convicted of genocide . In 1999 plans were drawn up for a joint venture between Robertson and the Bank of Scotland , which should prepare an expansion of the bank into the American market. However, the bank had to distance itself from Robertson after he publicly called Scotland a “dark country” “overrun by gays” and called for prayers against the looming power of homosexuals.

Through his company Freedom Gold Ltd., founded in 1998, Robertson was in close business contact with the war criminal Charles Taylor , who also held 10% shares in Freedom Gold. Robertson secured mining rights for raw materials in Liberia , which Taylor could use to finance his war in Liberia and Sierra Leone .

Views

Conspiracy theory

In 1991 Robertson published his book The New World Order . In it he spread the conspiracy theory that various groups, including the United Nations , the World Bank , the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve System , would work in secret to establish a " New World Order " that would involve a significant loss of sovereignty for nation states and in a totalitarian world government would result. US policy is already being controlled by an “invisible hand” that will soon emerge publicly. Robertson identified the coming world ruler as the antichrist of the biblical Revelation of John . Robertson cautioned readers to be vigilant and prepare for these end-time developments that would precede the Second Coming of Jesus Christ . These theories met with a great response from the religious right in the USA, particularly in the ranks of the extreme right-wing John Birch Society , which had long held similar views. The book became particularly important for the emergence of the radical right-wing militia movement in the 1990s.

Because Robertson had included Jewish bankers like the Rothschilds in the ranks of the alleged conspirators and relied on authors like the British fascist Nesta Webster , his book was criticized as anti-Semitic in the New York Review of Books . In his defense, Robertson referred to his long support for Israel; the references to Webster would come from one of his assistants rather than himself. According to political scientist Daniel Pipes , Robertson's conspiracy thinking is in fact not centered on Jews, but on secret societies such as Freemasons and Illuminati . Robertson and his supporters identify the “liberal media”, the Democratic Party and American universities as the accomplices of these alleged conspirators.

Christian fundamentalism

Robertson believes that prayer can have immediate physical effects (such as against natural disasters and disease). He regularly attacks leftists, liberals, homosexuals, Muslims and women's rights activists. In an appeal for funds to combat the Equal Rights Amendment in Iowa he called feminism and emancipation as "a socialist, anti-family movement, which causes women to leave their husbands, kill their children, witchcraft practicing the capitalism to destroy and lesbians to be. "the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 he called soon after as punishment for abortion, homosexuality and wickedness in the American population, but this statement into perspective later after violent protests. Nevertheless, he also described the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as God's just punishment for the sins of the residents of New Orleans .

After the severe earthquake in Haiti in 2010 , he blamed the people of Haiti for this quake. In his view, Haiti “ a long time ago ” ( the late 18th century is meant) “made a pact with the devil” ( swore a pact to the devil ) to get rid of French colonial rule, and is therefore since ( ever since ) cursed ( cursed ). Robertson was then attested not least to a lack of knowledge of the historical facts , since, according to him, the Haitians should have rebelled against "Napoleon III." Napoleon III gained political power in 1848, while the Haitians gained independence as early as 1804; meant was Napoleon I.

In August 2005, Robertson expressed his desire for the assassination of then Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on his talk show "The 700 Club" , which led to diplomatic conflicts and strong protests.

Pat Robertson supported the two dictators in Guatemala and Liberia , Efraín Ríos Montt and Charles Taylor , who themselves belong to evangelical churches in their countries. When the latter was overthrown by the United States, Robertson strongly criticized President Bush, claiming that Islam would now seize power in Liberia.

Attitude to other religions and beliefs

On March 23, 1995, Robertson spoke out about Hindus and called their religion "demonic". He stressed that if he had his way, only Christians and Jews should be allowed to participate in the government of the United States, since they are better suited to this than Hindus, Muslims or atheists.

David Cantor , a senior research analyst for the Anti-Defamation League , said that attitudes towards religious beliefs were unconstitutional. This is therefore not a purely religious statement, but a political one.

In 1995, during his program The 700 Club , Robertson called the Islamic religion Christian heresy .

As a result of Muslim protests against Mohammed caricatures in Europe, he called Islamic radicals "demonic". In view of the outbursts of anger the cartoons provoked in many Muslims, he regretted that the ideology of political correctness does not allow adequate action to be taken against Islam, whose goal is world domination : "Islam is not a religion of peace". Reverend Barry W. Lynn , director of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State , called these statements irresponsible. Robertson would add more gasoline to the fire at a time of tension.

In September 2006, Robertson accused the Muslims of failing to understand how reasonable dialogue works because they were violently approaching questions of history and truth.

Prophecies

As a millenarian Christian, Robertson is convinced that human history has already reached the end times and that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is imminent. He claimed several times that God himself had spoken to him and made several prophecies: in late 1976, he predicted the day of judgment in 1982. Accordingly, the earth should have set between October and November 1982.

On January 2, 2007, Robertson announced that God had revealed to him that the United States would be hit by a major terrorist attack, presumably with nuclear weapons , in 2007 .

In early 2008, Robertson predicted that the Middle East conflict would spill over to world peace and predicted nuclear attacks on coastal cities in the United States this year. These would take place during or immediately after the US presidential election in early November 2008.

On January 1, 2009, Robertson said that God had given him information about the future price of gold and oil.

In September 2011 Robertson was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize, along with other end-time prophets . On January 4, 2012, Robertson reported that God had spoken to him again and showed him who would win the 2012 presidential election. Robertson did not want to tell the press what exactly God had told him.

Web links

Wikiquote: Pat Robertson  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Victor and Victoria Trimondi: War of Religions , 2006, p. 42.
  2. ^ David John Marley: Pat Robertson: An American Life , ISBN 978-0-7425-5295-1 .
  3. ↑ a b James Brady: Pat Robertson Redux . Forbes , February 2, 2006, accessed May 1, 2017.
  4. ^ Regent University: Pat Robertson
  5. ↑ Martin Durham: Robertson, Pat . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 2, p. 620.
  6. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Yurica Report News Intelligence Analysis of Yurica & Associates, Bellingham WA 2004 (accessed on: March 7, 2012).
  7. ↑ https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pat-robertson-las-vegas-massacre_us_59d2e869e4b048a44324a6bb Report from the Huffington Post of October 2, 2017.
  8. ↑ Bethany Moreton: To serve God and Walmart. The making of Christian free enterprise , Harvard 2009, p. 224
  9. ↑ BBC News, Bank drops evangelist
  10. ^ Washington Post, Pat Robertson's Gold
  11. ^ Pat Robertson: The New World Order . Word Publishing, Dallas 1991.
  12. ↑ Michael Scott Lupo: Milleniarism . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 2, p. 477.
  13. ↑ Nigel James: Militias . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara / Denver / London 2003, Volume 2, p. 474.
  14. ↑ Martin Durham: Robertson, Pat . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 2, pp. 620 f.
  15. ^ Daniel Pipes: Conspiracy. The fascination and power of the secret . Gerling Akademie Verlag, Munich 1998, p. 224 f.
  16. ↑ Michele Swenson: Democracy Under Assault: TheoPolitics, Incivility and Violence on the Right . Sol Venture Press, Denver 2004, ISBN 978-0-9766788-0-9 , pp. 172f.
  17. ↑ Religious conservatives claim Katrina was God's omen, punishment for the United States Media Matters for America, September 13, 2005, accessed January 16, 2010
  18. ↑ US evangelist says quake-hit Haiti made 'devil' pact . Foxnews.com. January 13, 2009. Retrieved January 13, 2010.
  19. ↑ Voodoo Declaration for Earthquakes. Telepolis article dated January 14, 2010
  20. ^ Pat Robertson's Racist Blaming of Haitian Victims and the Televangelist Misuse of History. Article by Juan Cole, President of the Global Americana Institute, Jan. 13, 2010.
  21. ^ Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuela's president Media Matters for America, August 22, 2005, accessed January 16, 2010
  22. ^ Valli J. Rajan: Christian Pat Robertson Denounces Hinduism as "Demonic" . In: Hinduism Today , July 1995. 
  23. ^ Pat Robertson: The New World Order . Word Publishing, Dallas 1991, p. 218.
  24. ^ "Part 26: Dick Cheney, numbers and the metaphysics of 9/11," BJ Sabri, January 28, 2005, Online Journal.
  25. ^ "Robertson says Islam isn't a faith of peace: Televangelist calls radicals 'demonic'" , Sonja Barisic, March 14, 2006, Associated Press.
  26. ↑ http://www.sullivan-county.com/identity/pat_islam.htm
  27. ↑ 700 Club website scrubbed Robertson's controversial comments calling Muslims 'satanic' , JM, March 14, 2006, Media Matters for America.
  28. ^ Robertson: "Muslims deal with history and the truth with violence. They don't understand what reasoned dialogue is. " , KD, September 25, 2006, Media Matters for America.
  29. ↑ Doomsday: 1971-1997 . Abhota.info. Retrieved July 26, 2009.
  30. ^ "Pat Robertson warns of terrorist attack in 2007," Jan 2, 2007, MSNBC.com.
  31. ^ Robertson predicts Mideast disaster and nuclear strikes on America during or shortly after American Election . Patrobertson.com. Retrieved July 26, 2009.
  32. ^ Pat Robertson: God says US will accept socialism . Wnd.com. Retrieved August 6, 2010.
  33. ^ Winners of the 2011 Ig Nobel Awards , Boston Globe. September 29, 2011. 
  34. ^ Pat Robertson: God Has Shown Me Who Will Win Election . newsmax.com. Archived from the original on January 8, 2012. Retrieved January 4, 2012.
  35. ^ Barry W. Lynn: I predict Pat Robertson is wrong , The Washington Post. January 4, 2012. Retrieved March 11, 2012. 
personal data
SURNAME Robertson, Pat
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robertson, Marion Gordon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American preacher and politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Lexington , Virginia