Pat Robertson: Icon of Post-Denominational America

Pat Robertson (1930-2023) is recalled as a transformative religious broadcaster, savvy businessman and political organizer who helped found the Religious Right. But maybe he’s best remembered as a co-founder of post-denominational America.

Robertson was raised Southern Baptist, and, after a born-again experience in his twenties, was ordained a Southern Baptist minister. After an experience speaking in tongues, he became a charismatic Christian who helped lead an American upsurge in American charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity that spilled over into Latin America with global implications. Robertson transcended and never needed denominations. His flock was generically evangelical and mostly viewed him on television.

America’s Protestant denominations seemed formidable, perhaps at their strongest, when Robertson was a young Christian, founding the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1960. But by the time of his death they had become nearly immaterial. Nearly all major U.S. denominations are declining, notably excluding the Assemblies of God, a multiracial Pentecostal church. Nondenominational American Christianity is growing. And even denominational churches, especially if they are successful, often disguise their affiliation.

Robertson both accelerated and exploited this trend. His constituency was committed to conservative Christianity, often but not always charismatic. They believed in being born-again and the Bible’s authority. They were typically not very committed to denominations, and many weren’t even committed to institutional churches. After all, the Holy Spirit was everywhere. Most of Robertson’s fans might attend church on Sunday, but often they were more energized by special prayer meetings and rallies tangentially in the church or perhaps in hotel ballrooms. They were often skeptical of institutional Christianity, which they saw as suppressing the Holy Spirit. Many of his followers, especially older ones, were chiefly energized by watching his broadcasts.

Understanding the times, Robertson founded parachurch ministries, not churches. His ministries were evangelistic, instructional, humanitarian, academic, philanthropic, and political. None of them depended on churches, much less denominations. They depended on his personality and entrepreneurship, backed by dollars raised by televised appeals or direct mail. There were no physical collection plates. On The 700 Club, Robertson pontificated, interviewed, prayed, shared words of knowledge, pronounced healings. He was pastoral but never a pastor. He preferred to be known as a broadcaster, not an evangelist. His fans bought his books and other materials, focused on his name brand, not on particular denominations or traditions. Robertson once explained:

“As far as the majesty of worship, I’m an Episcopalian; as far as a belief in the sovereignty of God, I’m Presbyterian; in terms of holiness, I’m a Methodist … in terms of the priesthood of believers and baptism, I’m a Baptist; in terms of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I’m a Pentecostal, so I’m a little bit of all of them.”

Most of these labels ultimately meant very little, thanks partly to Robertson’s nearly 60-year career of religious entrepreneurship. His constituency cared about personal spiritual vitality, and receiving God’s blessings, not old Protestant traditions. His work synthesized various forms of Protestant Christianity and, in a sense, almost made them irrelevant to broader American life. Nearly all well-informed Americans know who Robertson is. Very few could name a single denominational leader.

Although conservative, Robertson’s Christianity was not particularly doctrinal. As Tocqueville noted in early America, most Christians weren’t very doctrinal then, and they aren’t now. Robertson catered to this preference with practical spirituality laced with appeals for miracles, financial and family counsel, plus political activism. Robertson was a key founder of the modern Religious Right. Like other evangelicals of his time, he shifted from Jimmy Carter in 1976 to Ronald Reagan in 1980, thereafter staying Republican. He urged evangelicals to focus on social issues, oppose the Soviet Union, and support Israel.

Robertson was key to Dispensationalism, with its stress on the End Times, becoming paramount in evangelicalism and wider U.S. Christianity. The Rapture escalated from an esoteric corner of fundamentalism to becoming mainstream in popular culture. Robertson’s commentary on current events, especially relating to the Mideast, often strove for connections to biblical prophecy. He exuded a personal calm even while speculating that the apocalypse was close. This odd serenity was paradoxical. And the constant implied anticipation of potential cosmic disaster severely crippled longterm thoughtful Christian political witness. Robertson also contributed to a Manichaean perspective by evangelicals in which they were, in politics as well as spirituality, the Lord’s anointed, equipped with special wisdom and innocence. More traditional Protestant political theology understands that all groups, including even the redeemed, are fallen by nature, frail in wisdom, and, like everybody else, pursue self interest.

Plumbing the depths of historic Protestant insights about political engagement was not part of Robertson’s project. He was entrepreneurial, practical, results oriented, forward leaning, intuitive. His Gospel presented the Holy Spirit as active and accessible. The scion of an old Virginia family, he inherited the political instincts and shrewdness of his politician father. He was also a masterful businessman who made hundreds of millions through his savvy management, investments and sales. His success depended on his sincerity. He had many controversies but, unlike some of his contemporaries, largely avoided scandal. Robertson trusted God would bless him, and so He did.

Sclerotic American denominationalism was already starting to stumble before Robertson and other evangelical entrepreneurs built a new post denominational American Christianity. But his creative genius and the empire it built helped close one religious era and open another, with consequences still unfolding, in America and globally.