Pat Robertson steps down as regular host of ‘The 700 Club’
By Scottie Andrew, CNN
Pat Robertson, famed televangelist and founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, has stepped down as host of the long-running Christian talk show “The 700 Club.”
The 91-year-old announced his departure during Friday’s edition of the series, telling audiences that the episode would be his last and that his son and current CEO of the network, Gordon, will take over as host.
Robertson, a Southern Baptist minister and staunch conservative, will still appear on monthly episodes of “The 700 Club” but plans to focus on teaching at Regent University, the Christian university in Virginia that he founded, according to the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN).
“‘Good and faithful’ doesn’t even begin to describe my father’s service to CBN for 60 years,” Gordon Robertson said in a statement to CBN. “His legacy and the example of his prayer life will continue to lead ‘The 700 Club’ in the years to come.”
Robertson founded CBN in 1960 and six years later, created “The 700 Club.” The program, initially named for its goal of 700 members whose pledges would keep the station afloat financially, became a showcase for Robertson’s political views, including his anti-LGBTQ and anti-feminism beliefs.
Robertson made a number of controversial remarks throughout his time as host of “The 700 Club,” including in 2013, when he falsely claimed that HIV-positive gay men deliberately tried to infect others with the virus. Three years prior, he suggested that the devastating earthquake in Haiti that killed hundreds of thousands of people in 2010 occurred because Haiti had entered into “a pact to the devil.”
He also interviewed several presidents on the series, most recently Donald Trump. Though Robertson backed the former president, he said in December 2020 that Trump was living in an “alternate reality” for refusing to accept his loss in the 2020 election.
The-CNN-Wire
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