In a statement Thursday, the Christian Broadcasting Network said Robertson died at home on June 8, surrounded by family.
The son of a powerful U.S. senator, Robertson grew up around politics. But his roots were in the white evangelical Christian church, as an ordained pastor. In 1960, he founded the Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN, in Virginia, holding telethons to pay the bills. The network and its programs would eventually spread around the world.
CBN’s success spurred Robertson to found a Christian in college, now known as Regent University, in Virginia Beach in the late 1970s. A decade later, he set his sights higher, making a run for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination as both a social and fiscal conservative.
Though his campaign was unsuccessful, it elevated Robertson’s profile among politically engaged white evangelicals. The following year, Robertson founded the Christian Coalition in an effort to mobilize those voters.
Robertson was well known for making outrageously controversial statements. Here are two examples.
On feminism, which he apparently did not approve of:
“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
On tornadoes:
“If enough people were praying, (God) would’ve intervened. You could pray. Jesus stilled the storm. You can still storms.”
