Pat Robertson steps down as host of long-running ‘700 Club’

NORFOLK, Va. Pat Robertson, who turned a tiny Virginia television station into a global religious broadcasting network, is stepping down after a half-century running the “700 Club” on daily TV, the Christian Broadcasting Network announced today.

Robertson, 91, said in a statement that he hosted the network’s flagship program for the last time today, and that his son Gordon Robertson will take over the weekday show starting Monday.

“I will no longer be the host of the ‘700 Club,’” Robertson said on the show, although he vowed to return from time to time, if he’s had a “revelation” he needs to share. “I thank God for everyone that’s been involved. And I want to thank all of you.”

Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network started airing on Oct. 1, 1961 after he bought a bankrupt UHF television station in Portsmouth, Virginia. The “700 Club” began production in 1966.

Now based in Virginia Beach, CBN says its outreach extends to more than 100 countries and territories in dozens of languages through TV and video evangelism, online ministry and prayer centers. The “700 Club” talk show can be seen in the vast majority of U.S. television markets.

“Pat Robertson had an enormous impact on both American religion and American politics,” said John C. Green, an emeritus political science professor at The University of Akron.

One of Robertson’s innovations with the “700 Club” was to use the secular talk-show format, which was a break from more traditional broadcasts of revival meetings or church services.

“Here’s a well educated person having sophisticated conversations with a wide variety of guests on a wide variety of topics,” Green said. “It was with a religious inflection to be sure. But it was an approach that took up everyday concerns.”

Robertson attracted a large audience and went on to have several U.S. presidents as guests, including Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, the network said.

Robertson was the son of a U.S. senator and received a law degree from Yale. He ran for president in 1988 and also founded the Christian Coalition, galvanizing American evangelicals into a conservative political force.

“He opened up a path that many people have followed,” Green said. “Surveys show that lots and lots of people view — in one format or another — religious broadcasting these days. But in politics, I think what he did was help cement the alliance between conservative Christians and the Republican Party.”

As “700 Club” host, Robertson sometimes found himself in hot water for his on-air pronouncements. In 2005, he called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town not to be surprised if disaster struck them because they voted out school board members who favored teaching “intelligent design.”

But Robertson also called for ending mandatory prison sentences for marijuana possession convictions. He later said…