Pat Robertson

He married Adelia Elmer in 1954 and had four children. His son Gordon Robertson is also a broadcaster. Pat Robertson is the grandfather of several grandchildren.

He was born on March 22, 1930, into a political family in Virginia to Absalom Willis Robertson and Gladys Churchill. His father was a conservative Democratic United States Senator.

At birth he was named Marion Gordon Robertson. When he was a small child, his elder brother would pat him on the cheek and say “pat pat pat”. Thus he acquired his nickname, Pat.

He enrolled at the preparatory McDonogh School when he was 11. He later graduated from The McCallie School, Tennessee, in 1946. Eventually he earned a B.A. in History from the Washington and Lee University.

In 1948 he drafted into the Army and was promoted to first lieutenant in 1952. After this he decided to get a law degree and enrolled at Yale Law School in 1955. But he couldn’t pass the New York bar exam.

Shortly thereafter he underwent a religious conversion and realized that his true calling was not to become a lawyer. He then went to the New York Theological Seminary and received a Master of Divinity degree in 1959.

He established the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1960 which was started as a small UHF station. Several years later he bought a Leased access cable TV channel in Hampton Roads which he called CBN.

In 1966, the television program ‘The 700 Club’ premiered in the Christian Broadcasting Network and was aired on each weekday. It is one of the longest running television programs in broadcast history.

In 1970 he established the CBN University on CBN’s Virginia Beach Campus and serves as its chancellor. The institution was renamed Regent University in 1989. A major public interest law firm associated with the university, American Center for Law & Justice was also founded by him.

He is best known as the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Networking (CBN) which is a Christian oriented religious television network and production company.