- Pat Robertson (circa. 1930) was Chairman of the Board of the cable
network "The Family Channel" (TFC), which was founded by the Christian
Broadcasting Network (CBN) of Virginia Beach, Virginia. He was also president of
the political action group Christian Coalition. Robertson is the son of a United
States senator. He graduated from the Yale University Law School and the New
York Theological Seminary, and briefly attended the University of London. Pat
Robertson has a mammoth media, educational, and legal empire with an estimated
value of a billion dollars. These enterprises work hand in hand to further
Robertson's agenda. Robertson's message is carried daily on the "700
Club" talk/news program, via his (now private, for profit) Family Channel,
broadcast on almost 10,000 cable systems and reaching some 68 million homes.
The "700 Club," founded by CBN (1977), was funded substantially with
monies contributed by CBN donors. Robertson, who piously touts the importance of
moral integrity, has yet to answer for the millions that found their way into
his pockets in early May of 1992, when he and his son sold public shares in TFC.
The network changed its name to the Family Channel in 1989. To protect the
tax-exempt status of CBN, Pat Robertson and his son, Tim, spun off the Family
Channel in 1990, legally separating it from CBN. In 1992, the Robertsons sold
shares of stock for the Family Channel, which resulted in a payoff of over $500
million for CBN. The Robertsons also owned a block of stock. Regeant University,
founded by Robertson, has on its sprawling campus a journalism school and law
school. Regeant receives funding from Coors beer through the Coors Foundation.
Robertson lives on the top of a Virginia mountain, in a huge mansion with a private airstrip. He owns the Ice Capades, a small hotel, diamond mines (in Zaire), a vitamin company (Kalo Vita) involved in a multi-level marketing scheme along the lines of Amway, and until recently, International Family Entertainment, parent company of the Family Channel (see below) -- all estimated to be worth between $150-200 million. How does a televangelist, who is supposedly involved in non-profit work, manage to create such a fortune for himself? One thing is known for sure, Robertson's numerous private business interests have at times pushed their expenses onto the tax-exempt, religious interests of CBN. For example, Robertson was caught using CBN money and equipment to aid his diamond mining operation -- a double good deal for Pat, seeing as he employed people in Zaire for ridiculously low wages, and managed to use CBN's infrastructure to cut costs even more. In looking at Robertson's businesses, one is struck by the constant use of non-profit, donor money to fund his schemes. (For documentation of this and more, see Rob Boston's book entitled The Most Dangerous Man in America?: Pat Robertson and the Rise of the Christian Coalition.)
-
On 6/11/97, Pat Robertson announced his departure as president of the Christian
Coalition and the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). On the same day,
Robertson, along with his son , Tim, struck a megadeal with media baron Rupert
Murdoch for the sale of International Family Entertainment (IFE), parent company
of the Family Channel, for $1.9 billion. In addition, CBN agreed to sell its
more than 3.8 million shares of stock in IFE to Murdoch for $136.1 million.
(Robertson remains active in both organizations.) The deal enabled Murdoch to
take over the Family Channel's cable television audience for his subsidiary, Fox
Kids Worldwide. Murdoch intends to transform the Family Channel, which is the
ninth-largest cable television network in America, into a network of children's
programming that will compete with Time Warner's Cartoon Network and Viacom's
Nickelodeon. Under the terms of the sale, Fox Kids is required to continue
carrying The 700 Club, which Robertson cohosts, at 10am Eastern time weekdays,
and to keep rebroadcasts on at 10pm. Also benefiting from the deal was Regeant
University, the graduate school Robertson established in 1977 as CBN University.
Having agreed to sell its 4.2 million shares in IFE for $147.5 million,
Regeant's total endowment will rise to $276.5 million, making it one of the 100
most highly endowed universities in the country.
Robertson
has relinquished day-to-day operations of his eight-year-old grassroots
political organization, the Christian Coalition, but he has become board chair,
a new position. Don Hodel, 62, a secretary of Energy and Interior in the Reagan
administration, succeeded Robertson as president and chief executive. He is a
former board member and executive vice president of Focus
on the Family. Pat and Tim Robertson, along with Tele-Communications Inc.
founder John Malone, formed IFE in 1990 to buy out the Family Channel from CBN
after the network's profitability threatened the ministry's tax-exempt status.
While CBN programming originally had been heavy with Christian shows, The 700
Club wound up as the only overtly "Christian" show on the Family
Channel schedule. (Source: 7/14/97, Christianity Today.)
- Until the mid-1980s, Robertson was known to his television viewers as a Southern
Baptist preacher and Pentecostal
who claimed to speak in tongues and publicly divert hurricanes through the power
of prayer. When he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988,
however, he abruptly resigned his ordination, insisted that he was merely a
media executive, and grew testy when anyone referred to him as a televangelist.
During his campaign, he was forced to concede that he had exaggerated his
educational background, that he had failed the bar exam, and that he had fudged
the date of his marriage to conceal the fact that his first child had been
conceived out of wedlock. (Reported in the 5/25/92 issue of Christian News.)
- What does Pat Robertson believe concerning the inerrancy and inspiring
of God's Word? On 6/1/78, Robertson stated on a 700 Club program:
"Anything coming through man is contaminated to some extent. Therefore, since the Bible came through man, there must be some errors in it. So, we must never equate the Bible with the perfect Jesus." (Emphasis added.)
This is modernistic unbelief! (cf. 2 Pe 1:20-21). In 1985, Robertson also
made statements such as: "The Bible is not a science textbook," and
"The only thing perfect in the universe is God Himself." [As of 11/00,
we have no evidence that Robertson has amended these views.]
- In October of 1989, Robertson started the Christian Coalition (CC) to
stand against the National Endowment for the Arts and to promote Christian
values in the political arena (i.e., "... to give Christians a voice in
their government again ... [seeking] to reverse the moral decay that threatens
our nation by training Christians for effective political action and getting
more Christians involved in influencing public policy"). Robertson has also
stated that the Coalition's purpose is to "restore Godly principles and
Godly people to all centers of influence, from the school house to the White
House." The plan was to contact all churches and train Christians
(including "pro-life Catholics") to be effective in the political
arena and assist in voter registration. (Quoted from a 9/92 fund raising letter
from CC.) The Christian Coalition's main activity is to distribute voter guides
in election years (depicting candidates' positions on the issues) -- 70 million
were distributed for the year 2000 election.
That the Christian Coalition is a big-time political action organization cannot
be questioned. It has organized seminars throughout the country to train more
than 5,000 evangelicals in how to succeed in local politics, particularly by
capturing school board seats and influencing local education policies. It has
full-time lobbyists in Washington. Each year numerous "Christian Action
Training Schools" are held across the country; 2-day workshops at $35 per
person to teach activists how to shape public policy, run grass-roots
organizations, elect candidates who say they represent "Christian
values," and run for offices ranging from school board to Congress. (See
the Christian Coalition Congressional Scorecard.)
[The Christian Coalition is not as new as it would appear. It came into being as
a spin-off from Robertson's 1981 organization, The Freedom Council. Robertson
was not successful with The Freedom Council. In 10/86, in the midst of an IRS
audit, the organization was dissolved. It appeared that The Freedom Council had
abused its tax-exempt status.]
- In 1990, Robertson started the American Center For Law and Justice (ACLJ),
a law group providing free legal counsel for Christians in battle with
"anti-God, anti-family groups." Executive director of the ACLJ is
former Ohio prosecutor Keith Fournier, a charismatic Catholic activist and
former Dean of Evangelism and legal counsel at the Roman Catholic (Franciscan)
University of Steubenville in Ohio. Fournier has authored Evangelical
Catholics, a book which is a plea for Protestants to join Catholics
in a joint evangelization effort; i.e., an "evangelistic endeavor"
that will "evangelize" the world by the year 2000." Fournier,
speaking of Robertson and others in Evangelical Catholics: "I
found not only a tremendous openness to my presence but also a growing respect
for my church and a thawing in what had been hard ice in the past."
Jay Sekulow serves as the ACLJ's general counsel. The ACLJ absorbed Concerned Women for America's legal staff when CWA disbanded that aspect of its work. Sekulow boasts of having SWAT teams, which he defines as "spiritual warfare assault teams," to defend religious liberty and fight anti-Christian bigotry. Using leased and chartered jets, lawyers from the ACLJ's Virginia Beach headquarters leave at a moment's notice to defend its agenda anywhere in the nation. The ACLJ staff includes 17 full-time lawyers and more than 500 affiliated lawyers. The ACLJ's main office occupies the fourth floor of Regeant University in Virginia Beach. There are regional offices in Atlanta, Mobile, Phoenix, Nashville, and New Hope, Kentucky (a suburb of Louisville -- this office handles most of the ACLJ's anti-abortion cases), as well as a legislative office in Washington, DC. (Source: The Freedom Writer).
The ACLJ poses a danger that outweighs whatever beneficial purposes it might
have -- a danger that should labeled: LEGAL ECUMENISM. The potential danger in
the ACLJ is the ecumenical overtones and ecumenical bait being dangled before
the legally-needy believer. Professing fundamentalists must be extremely careful
in the future, that in their desire to retain/regain constitutionally guaranteed
freedoms, they are not conned into an ecumenical mesh from which they will be
unable to extract themselves. Those who in the future accept the assistance of
the ACLJ may discover that they could wind up regaining/maintaining the right to
publicly exercise a faith which they no longer possess, that faith having been
lost in an ecumenical planning for legal justice (11/92, Fundamentalist
Digest).
These political arms (CC and ACLJ) of Robertson's ministry are unbiblical
because they facilitate the bringing together of many different denominations
under the guise of encouraging conservative political action on the part of
those who hold so-called traditional Christian values. This is the same false
philosophy held by Jerry
Falwell's Moral Majority (now defunct) that America can be helped
politically and religiously by disobeying the plain commands of God's Word that
forbid fellowship with those who preach a false gospel, no matter how good their
political intentions may be. Fighting for religious liberty does not justify
forging ecumenical ties!
- Regeant University (formerly CBN University) was founded by Robertson. Known for its liberal arts and law courses, it also boasts of a psychological counseling department that literally denies the sufficiency of Scripture:
"It is exciting to be a counselor or psychologist as we approach a new millennium. We are in an age of technology, but technology has not resolved the basic problems of the human condition. With a mission to family, church, and community, the School of Counseling and Human Services offers an opportunity to be a leader in a still-emerging field. The challenge to the Christian mental health professional is to synergize personal faith with practice in public, private, academic, and corporate arenas [otherwise known as the integration of psychology and the Bible.] Our master’s program alumni work in educational and mental health offices across the country and internationally. Our doctoral program in clinical psychology is the only evangelical program of its kind on the East Coast. Today's students are tomorrow's leaders in helping people and organizations make sense out of the strife and chaos of modern life through understanding, healing, reconciliation, and faith. (Source: Rosemarie Scotti Hughes, Ph.D., Dean of the Regeant School of Counseling and Human Services.)
Some "unique" features of the school, as described by Regeant are: "Integration of Judeo-Christian principles into the curriculum and programs; a clinic to train students in the practice of counseling and psychology practice as well as to conduct research on the efficacy of Christian counseling; cooperative ventures with other schools at Regeant, such as law and education, in programs for families, churches, and the larger community; and curriculum established to meet national accrediting standards and state licensure" (10/00, Regeant University web site). You can pick up the catalogue of any secular university's psychology department, and its course descriptions would not vary from the godless courses found at Regeant.
- Robertson supports and encourages participation in acts of civil disobedience, such as Randall Terry's Operation Rescue. (Robertson wrote one of the forewords to Terry's book Operation Rescue.) Although there are numerous cases of civil disobedience in the Scriptures, it was never engaged for the purpose of forcing an ungodly society to obey Biblical principles.) Since Operation Rescue's stated purpose is to create social upheaval, and thereby pressure governments into changing the abortion laws, Robertson's philosophy seems to be the same as Operation Rescue's -- "the end justifies the means."
- In
July of 1999, Pat Robertson's CBN joined Tyndale House Publishers in launching a
$7
- Robertson endorsed Catholic-sympathizer Chuck
Colson's 1993 book, The Body: Being Light in Darkness (which
was also endorsed by Jerry
Falwell, J.I.
Packer, Bill
Hybels, Jack
Hayford, Carl Henry, and Cardinal O'Connor). Colson, ever ecumenical,
praises the Catholic chain of command, and includes the Catholic Church as a
part of the body of Christ. He also said, "the body of Christ, in all its
diversity, is created with Baptist feet, charismatic hands, and Catholic ears --
all with their eyes on Jesus." In blindly praising the Roman Catholic
Church Colson says it, "to its great credit, does call heretics to account.
Indeed she does, having burned more than a million at the stake!" (4/93, Berean
Call).
- "Mother"
Teresa was featured, together with other famous professing Christians, in an
award-winning television special entitled "Don't ask me, ask God."
Hosted in 1984 by Pat Robertson, and broadcast on 150 television outlets as well
as CBN, the first airing had more than 15 million viewers and ranked as one of
the top five television specials of the season. (Reported in Is Mother
Teresa a True Christian?, by David W. Cloud, pp. 5-6.)
- Announced at a press conference on 3/29/94 was an ecumenical declaration titled "Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium" (ECT). The negotiations toward the declaration were initiated in 9/92 by Chuck Colson and Richard Neuhaus (former Lutheran clergyman turned Catholic priest) under the auspices of the ecumenical and theologically liberal Institute on Religion and Public Life (headed by Neuhaus). The declaration starts with "We are Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics who have been led through prayer, study, and discussion to common convictions about Christian faith and mission." It goes down-hill from there. The coalition specifically called for an end to aggressive proselytizing of each other's flocks (in effect, a mutual non-aggression pact), and even confessed their past sins against unity.
The declaration said: "All who accept Christ as Lord and Savior are brothers and sisters in Christ." This conveniently ignores the fact that Catholics espouse a works-salvation false gospel! In a revealing admission of what brought these groups together, some signers said it was the experiences of worshiping together in the Charismatic Movement and working together in political causes such as anti-abortion [Moral Majority for example]. In fact, one writer correctly assessed that the declaration "amounts to a truce on theological issues so that the parties can continue to cooperate on political issues."
Forty people signed or endorsed the document, including Protestants J.I. Packer, Pat Robertson, John White (of NAE), Bill Bright (of Campus Crusade), Os Guinness, and Mark Noll (a historian at Wheaton College who said, "Evangelicals can no longer consider Catholics as ogres or anti-Christs"). Catholic endorsers included six priests, three bishops, one Archbishop, and one Cardinal. By joint declaration, Robertson and friends have, in effect, declared the Protestant Reformation a tragic mistake!
- Dr. Bill Jackson, president of the Association of
Fundamentalists Evangelizing Catholics (AFEC), prepared a 6/18/99 statement on
"The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration" (EC) (see the
6/14/99 Christianity Today for the
full text of the EC). This document has been endorsed by Charles Colson, Bill
Bright, and J.I. Packer, all of whom also signed the controversial ECT documents
of 1994 and 1997; as well as endorsed by R.C.
Sproul, John
MacArthur and D.
James Kennedy, all of whom publicly [albeit weakly] challenged and
criticized them for signing the ECT documents. There are a number of helpful
statements in this latest document which deal with areas which were not fully
dealt with in the ECT documents (e.g., imputation is now dealt with favorably,
but has been consistently opposed by Roman Catholic Councils and Catechisms).
EC says, "We cannot embrace any form of doctrinal indifferentism by which
God's truth is sacrificed for a false peace." But there is certainly no
better example of "doctrinal indifferentism" than the ECT documents
themselves (James 1:8)! Because ECT I stated that "Evangelicals and
Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ," in order to be relevant the
new EC document should be submitted to the Roman Catholics who signed ECT I and
II. It is difficult to see how a person could subscribe to both ECT and EC. The
only logical conclusion is for all who signed EC to remove their names from ECT.
It also appears that the so-called "evangelical" ECT endorsers have
been "let off the hook" by former critics. We believe EC will be used
to rehabilitate those who erred in 1994 and 1997, without their having to admit
or ask forgiveness for their error. (Source: 7/15/99, Calvary
Contender.) [Other "evangelical" endorsers of EC among the 15
members of the Drafting Committee and 114 members of the Endorsing Committee include
John Ankerberg, Kay Arthur, Tony Evans, Jerry Falwell, Bill Hybels, David
Jeremiah, D. James Kennedy, Max Lucado, Woodrow Kroll, Tim & Beverly LaHaye,
Erwin Lutzer, Bill McCartney, Luis Palau, Pat Robertson, Ronald Sider,
Charles Stanley, John Stott, Joseph Stowell, Chuck Swindoll, and Ravi Zacharias;
also endorsing EC were hyper-charismatics Jack Hayford, Steven Strang, and Bruce
Wilkinson.]
However ignorant Robertson and fellow endorsers may be of all this, his participation in EC makes him a party to its consequences. It is also important to note that the EC document (which is supposed to be a definitive and comprehensive statement of the true saving Gospel of Christ) never mentions repentance for salvation, and never mentions the total depravity of man (thereby leaning towards a decisional regeneration). Moreover, the EC promotes an ecumenical unity (via "trans-denominational cooperative enterprises") with all professing believers who attest to the EC's "essentials" of the faith). But this is not the unity of the faith taught in Ephesians. While we are instructed by Scripture to be of one mind, the evangelical today scoffs at the idea of true Biblical unity based on complete agreement with, and submission to, God's holy Word. The only use of the word "unity" in the New Testament is found in Ephesians chapter four. It is a "unity of the Spirit" (v. 3), not of men. It is a "unity of faith" (v. 13) based on sound doctrine for which believers are to contend, not water down nor reclassify into essentials and non-essentials (Jude 3). No real spiritual unity can exist apart from doctrinal unity, and we are to "mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them" (Rom. 16:17).
- Robertson's endorsement of ECT and EC was not much of a surprise in
light of his 1992 exhortation to
his 700 Club audience: "It's high time the 50 million evangelicals and the
40 million Roman Catholics get together and say 'Look, Christian bashing is
over. We're not going to put up with it in America'" (11/19/92).
- Robertson
also had a seat of honor at the Mass during Pope John Paul II's 10/7/95 visit to
New York. He also marched at the head of an ecumenical procession to the papal
altar and was seated with Protestant, Orthodox, and evangelical leaders . He
said his meeting with the Pontiff was "very warm" and, through a
personal letter hand-delivered to the pope, pledged to work for Christian unity
between evangelicals and Catholics. Robertson called the pope "a humble and
caring servant of the Lord." He said: "I believe the time has come
where he must lay aside minor differences and focus on the common ground of our
faith in the lord Jesus Christ." Robertson said of the pope: "He's got
great humility and spirituality …" The
New York Times reported Robertson saying: "We all admire the Holy
Father tremendously. We all want to build bridges with the Catholic
Church." (Source:
12/1/95, Calvary
Contender.) In his 1993 book, The Turning Tide, Robertson said (p.
279): "Pope John Paul II stands like a rock against all opposition in his
clear enunciation of the foundational principles of the Christian faith."
All this is spiritual blindness. How can Robertson say the Pope enunciates the
foundational principles of the Christian faith when he perverts the very gospel?
Is the gospel not foundational!
- In
the 2/27/86 issue of the Catholic publication Wanderer was an interview
with Robertson. When asked about the supposed miracles that have occurred at the
Mary shrine at Lourdes, Robertson gave this amazing reply: "I understand
there have been some tremendous healings. ... Again, the nice thing is that so
many Roman Catholics believe in miracles. They believe in a God who answers
prayer. Miracles are part of the warp and woof of the Church." Does Pat
Robertson really believe that it is acceptable to pray to Mary for healing and
to set up shrines in her honor?
- Robertson has exhibited many charismatic
tendencies over the years. On his 700 Club television programs, he has on more
than one occasion peered into the camera, and as if he could
see into peoples' living rooms, describing people who are being healed at that
very moment. On a program during the summer of 1976, Robertson was interviewing
charismaniac Marvin Ford, who told about his experience of dying, going to
heaven, and then returning! Ford claimed the necktie he was wearing that day
retained the aroma of heaven. He kept it so that whenever he wanted to refresh
his memory of that experience, he simply sniffed the tie. (Reported in Charismatic
Chaos, pp. 27-28.)
- Robertson, like most charismatics, claims to receive additional
revelation from God, and on a regular and consistent basis. In fact, he even
claims that God speaks to him in an audible voice. He also apparently considers
himself a prophet. But on several occasions, he has made prophecies which did
not come to pass. For example, he predicted the Tribulation would take place in
1982, then again in 1984 (cf. Deut. 18:22). Robertson says God gave him a
mission in July of 1977, not to be a religious leader, but to be an educator who
would influence the very center of our culture -- "from God's
perspective." He also claimed that God chose him "to usher in the
coming of My Son."
- Robertson also has bought into the "name
it and claim it"/"Word-Faith"
movement, which sees faith as an immutable, impersonal "law" that,
like gravity or the laws of thermodynamics, rules the universe -- a principle
that works regardless of who is exercising it, or for what purpose it is
exercised. When asked if the laws of the Kingdom work, even for non-Christians,
Robertson wrote: "Yes. These are not just Christian and Jewish ... The
laws of God work for anybody who will follow them. The principles of the
Kingdom apply to all of creation." (Emphasis added.) Applied to the
"law" of faith, that reasoning means all who claim a blessing without
doubting can have whatever they claim -- whether they are Christians or not!
(Pat Robertson, Answers to 200 of Life's Most Probing Questions
[Nashville: Nelson, 1984], p. 271.)
Going one step further than your average Word-Faith charismatic, Robertson also
said that, "Spirit controls matter ... The mind is the ultimate conduit of
the spirit. In other words, when you confess blessing, favor, victory, and
success, those things will come to you." Further, those who remain ill
or poverty-stricken demonstrate they have "failed to grasp the points we
have been making" or are "not living according to the major
principles," which Robertson refers to as "laws of prosperity."
Robertson teaches that just as surely as scientific laws, these spiritual laws
govern good or ill-fortune. God's name is "like a blank check ... Use the
water in the reservoir. Remember that faith is the title deed to that pool of
power. It is all ours if we know the rules of miracles."
Robertson not only embraces this "mind over matter" philosophy of
Transcendentalism, but also appears to deny the reality of matter altogether:
"Matter is merely a form of energy. The great paradox is that what we
perceive as real and tangible is actually an illusion. The reality is
energy." All this is in keeping with the emerging worldview of what has
been called "the new paganism." (Reported in Made in America,
pp. 123-126.) (Emphasis added.) [Robertson seems to have a strange affinity to
Eastern mystical religions. In his book, Beyond Reason (p. 108),
Robertson makes this metaphysical statement: "The great paradox is that
what we perceive as real and tangible is actually an illusion." This is the
Eastern worldview, specifically Hinduism. Hindus believe in non-reality. They
call it "maya." To them, everything is an illusion.]
- Roughly 15,000 people gathered together in St. Louis, Missouri, June 21-23, to participate in Celebrate Jesus 2000 (not to be confused with an ecumenical evangelistic program operated by Mission America which has the same name). This is the sixth ecumenical-charismatic conference sponsored by the North American Renewal Service Committee. (The conferences were originally called "North American Congresses on the Holy Spirit and World Evangelization.") The first was in Kansas City in 1977 and was attended by 50,000 people. That was the first major conference to include the "three streams" of the Charismatic movement -- Classical Pentecostals, Charismatic Protestants, and Charismatic Roman Catholics. The next two meetings were held in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1986 and 1987. Then there was a conference in Indianapolis in 1990, and one in Orlando in 1995. YWAM has participated in all except the first North American (charismatic) Congress, and was right at home in that radically ecumenical environment in St. Louis.
The Executive Committee for the 2000 conference was composed of Vinson Synan (Pentecostal), Nancy Kellar (Roman Catholic nun), Jim Jackson (Christian Believers United), and Vernon Stoop (United Church of Christ pastor). There were many well-known speakers, including Jack Hayford, Pat Robertson, Stephen Hill, John Kilpatrick, Cindy Jacobs, John Arnott, Steve Strang, Richard Roberts, Michael Scanlan, Tom Forrest, Thomas Trask, and Rick Joyner (all either charismatic or Roman Catholic, or both). The stated goals of the meetings in a nutshell are threefold: (1) To promote and celebrate the Charismatic movement, (2) to promote ecumenical unity between all denominations, and (3) to further world evangelism. The grand focus, though, is ecumenical unity. These conferences present a microcosm of the end-times ecumenical movement. The fact that the error is intermingled with and glossed over with truth makes the ecumenical movement attractive to large numbers of people and extremely dangerous. (Source: "CELEBRATION JESUS 2000: END TIMES CONFUSION IN ST. LOUIS," David Cloud, Way of Life Literature.)
- Robertson was a speaker at a March 1995 "signs
and wonders" conference hosted by an Assemblies of God seminary. More than
30 workshops will addressed such issues as healing, spiritual warfare,
intercession, prayer, and worship. Other speakers included Marilyn Hickey
- Campus
Crusade founder Bill Bright fasted 40 days during the summer of 1994, during
which he claims to have received a "prophecy from God" that a mighty
revival is coming. He then issued a call for hundreds of liberals, charismatics,
and new-evangelicals to gather in Orlando 12/5/94-12/7/94 to fast and pray for
revival. An Invitation Committee made up of a hodgepodge of 72 liberals, new
evangelicals, and charismatics was formed. Included
were: Robert Schuller, Charles Colson, E.V. Hill, Jack Hayford, James Dobson,
W.A. Criswell, Charles Stanley, Paul Crouch, Luis Palau, Bill Gothard, Pat
Robertson, Kay Arthur, and Larry Burkett. CCC's Bill Bright cites "a
great sense of urgency to link arms and unitedly call upon God for help in the
spirit of King Jehoshaphat (2 Chr. 20)." This ecumenical
"linking" is in the "spirit of Jehoshaphat" indeed, but the
Jehoshaphat of 2 Chr. 18 (instead of 2 Chr. 20) where he "linked" with
wicked King Ahab and incurred the wrath of God. (Reported in the 11/15/94,
Calvary Contender.)
[Another three-day "Fasting & Prayer" conference was held in 11/95
in Los Angeles; it attracted 3,500 "evangelicals" and charismatics.
The Invitation/Host Committee for this event included most of those listed
above, plus Dick Eastman, Chuck Smith, Bill McCartney (Promise Keepers), Tim and
Beverly LaHaye, Shirley Dobson, Paul Cedar (E-Free), Ted Engstrom (World
Vision), Joseph Stowell (Moody), and Joseph Aldrich (Multnomah). A third
conference was held 11/14/96-11/16/96 in St. Louis. New additions to the Host
Committee included Max Lucado, Henry Blackaby, Loren Cunningham (YWAM), Greg
Laurie, Dennis Rainey, Randy Phillips (Promise Keepers), Josh McDowell, D. James
Kennedy, Howard Hendricks, and Neil Anderson. (Conferences have been held every
year now, but there is an uncertain future with Bill Bright's planned retirement
(August, 2001) from Campus Crusade.)]
- Promise
Keepers is the gigantic new (1991) "men's movement" among
professing evangelical Christians. Its roots are Catholic and charismatic to the
core. PK's contradictory stand on homosexuality; its promotion of secular
psychology; its unscriptural feminizing of men; its depiction of Jesus as a
"phallic messiah" tempted to perform homosexual acts; and its
ecumenical and unbiblical teachings should dissuade any true Christian from
participating. Promise Keepers is proving to be one of the most ungodly and
misleading movements in the annals of Christian history. Nevertheless, Robertson
is a promoter of this ecumenical, charismatic, psychologized men's movement. --
In Robertson's 4/95 "Christian America Newspaper," there was a full
page promotion for Promise Keepers
- In his book, The Secret Kingdom (which is merely
warmed-over Postmillennialism), Robertson claimed God gave him a revelation of
eight Universal Laws, and that God is bound by these laws and has no choice but
to obey them. Robertson calls this the "Law of Reciprocity." (This is
very similar to the claims of the Rosicrucian cult, which claims that by acting
upon those immutable laws, one can have what he believes and imagines into
existence. This is a foundational principle of all occult religion, including
witchcraft.) Robertson speaks of the universality of the "eight laws,"
and that his solutions could "save our world." He calls for an
International Year of Jubilee where all of the world's debts would be cancelled
as the start of a new worldwide economic system. He paints a picture of a better
world -- a utopia on earth brought about by man's own efforts rather than by the
return of Jesus. He proclaims that the Church is going to take control of the
world in order to hand it over to Jesus when He returns.
- The major thrusts of Robertson's books are disturbing to many of those
aware of the strategies of the New
Age Movement. There are disturbingly strong parallels between them and
Rosicrucianism, Theosophy (including Alice Bailey's teachings [the
"mother" of the New Age Movement]), and even those of Russian
occultist George Gurdjieff. Robertson's Law of Reciprocity sounds amazingly like
Gurdjieff's "Law of Reciprocal Maintenance." Such parallels take on
deep significance to the Christian when one considers Robertson's claim that God
chose him and CBN "to usher in the coming of my Son." They take on
even deeper meaning when one considers the frequency with which the 700 Club has
featured New Age activists (see below).
[According to the CBN movie, "For I have Chosen You," the prophecy
that God chose CBN and Pat Robertson to "usher in the coming of My
Son" came through Herald Bredesen. This allegedly took place at a
charismatic-style prayer meeting. In 1982, Pat Robertson solicited donations in
closed circuit television telecasts to groups gathered in hotels and other
meeting spots around the United States. At that time, Pat Robertson was
soliciting donations for his Middle East television station. One of the reasons
he gave these audiences for wanting money was that Jesus had appeared to him in
a vision and told him that he had been appointed a modern day John the Baptist
to "usher in" His coming. Further, he says that Jesus specifically
told Robertson He wanted him to get the first television shots of His return to
earth. (Robertson says that when the Bible says "every eye shall behold
Him," it means "on television.") Robertson's scenario fits
closely those given by many major New Age writers; e.g., The Armageddon
Script by Peter LeMesurier, The Book of Co-creation--The
Book of Revelation by Barbara Marx Hubbard; The Externalisation of
The Hierarchy by Alice Bailey; and The Reappearance of the Christ
by Benjamin Creme. (From "Special Report on Pat Robertson," Constance
Cumby's New Age Monitor, 1987.)]
- The 700 Club has often given New Age interests a significant platform.
(Robertson himself sometimes calls God "The Initiator" and teaches the
doctrines of "God Immanent" and "God Transcendent," all
common New Age terminology). Some of the prominent New Agers and/or New Age
organizations that have appeared on the 700 Club include Norman Cousins, Jeremy
Rifkin, Herbert Benson, John Naisbitt, Alvin Toffler, Amory and Hunter Lovins,
Curtis Sliwa, the Buckminster Fuller Institute, and Mother Earth News. [Also
appearing have been promoters of questionable, even obviously New Age-oriented
theologies, including Richard Foster (of Renovaré), Bruce Larson (who claims Carl
Jung, an occultist and anti-Christian, is one of his heroes), Robert
Schuller, and Denis Waitley.] Holistic health doctors have been featured.
They in turn promoted "Wellness Centers." A 7/82 program gave advice
on what one could do until he or she could reach the "Wellness Center"
-- "adopt a technique of visualization."
One wonders how many people became involved with Amory and Hunter Lovins or with
Jeremy Rifkin as a result of their favorable treatment on Robertson's programs?
(Rifkin has boasted to interviewers that Robertson's program has been one of his
chief entry points to the Evangelicals.) How many people adopted a
"visualization technique"? How many became involved with Holistic
Health through "Wellness Centers" because the 700 Club promoted them?
How many young people joined Sliwa's Guardian Angels? (More shocking still, the
700 Club celebrated "International Forgiveness Week" in 1985an old
time Lucis Trust project! What a spectacle -- the Lucis Trust, Tara Center, and
the 700 Club all celebrating International Forgiveness Week, all at the same
time!) [From "Special Report on Pat Robertson," Constance
Cumby's New Age Monitor, 1987.]
- Although claiming to be premillennial in his eschatological beliefs, and
not expecting some reconstructed utopia on earth, Robertson is very much Reconstructionist/Dominion
Theology in practice. [Reconstructionism is dedicated to a social
gospel/activism agenda that proposes to impose Biblical standards (e.g., Old
Testament law) on unbelieving peoples and institutions, so that Christ is then able
to return and take-over the Kingdom.] Robertson has deep Reconstructionist
political ties, as well as makes available his 700 Club cable television program
to Reconstructionist leaders Rousas Rushdoony and Gary North. Moreover,
reconstructionists often cite Robertson's creation of the television network and
the founding of (neo-evangelical) Regeant University (formerly CBN University)
as a model of effective Christian organization.
In fact, in an 8/17/92 Christianity Today letter to the editor,
well-known Christian Reconstructionist Gary DeMar wrote: "I was a bit
confused when Pat Robertson claimed that he doesn't 'agree with
Reconstructionism' but does believe that 'Jesus is the Lord of all the world ...
of the government, and the church, and business, and, hopefully, one day, Lord
of the press.' This is the heart and soul of Reconstructionism. Robertson says
he wants 'the church to move into the world.' Reconstructionists have been
saying this and getting criticized for it for over 30 years. At the very least, Pat
Robertson, as I've always suspected, is an operational Reconstructionist."
(Emphasis added.)
