THE NEXT VOICE YOU HEAR

...There's nothing evil about that, but it has nothing to do with the church...

...Robertson once believed—and until 1982 publicly announced—that nuclear war was inevitable...

...Says the Reverend Charles Bergstrom of the Lutheran Council...

...Through the miracle of direct mail, they'll receive a host of new opportunities to commune with CBN...

...As he foretells in his book, The Secret Kingdom, as well as in his newsletter and broadcasts, the Soviet Union and other Middle Eastern nations will soon join forces to attack Israel, only to fall into confusion and be defeated in the wake of natural catastrophes...

...Some of Robertson's strongest critics are other religious leaders, especially those who belong—unlike the disembodied CBN—to a mainline church...

...And with Pat Robertson, you never know...

...As head of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) communications empire, he pulls in annual revenues easily topping $70 million...

...But he believes that war is imminent, and that it will fulfill the conditions for the second coming...

...Only a tiny proportion of the world's Christians subscribe to the doctrine...

...Some say his growing audience gives Robertson a potential political constituency...

...It's important, for Robertson, to create a talent pool of professional bom-agains...

...While CBN is nonprofit, subsidiaries CBN Cable and CBN Continental (which includes the broadcast stations) are for-profit enterprises, each operating securely in the black...

...A study conducted last year by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications suggested that the total numbers of regular viewers for religious broadcasting is a mere 6.2 per cent of all television watchers—and that includes everyone who watches such programs for fifteen minutes a week...

...But to him...

...I would compare the power of the evangelicals to the National Rifle Association...

...Ed Meese spoke at the dedication ceremonies...

...VIEWS REVIEWS THE NEXT VOICE YOU HEAR BY PAT AUFDERHEIDE t is one of the ironies of our high-tech society that those who hold its most selfconsciously traditionalist attitudes—the prophets of right-wing Protestant fundamentalism—use state-of-the-art broadcast media to push their point of view...

...I'm very definitely pro-Israeli," he says—not because attacks on Israel will trigger the millennium, but because "Jesus Christ was Jewish...

...As Robertson recounts in his autobiography, Shout It from the Housetops, it was saved time and again by miraculous infusions of money...

...Speculation about his political ambitions is good for his communications business...

...In Robertson's scenario, which he notes is shared by President Reagan, communism is a "way station" to the final conflagration, a symptom of the encroaching battle rather than a direct manifestation of the Devil...

...These folks think of themselves as the Christians and do not accept disagreement with their political agenda...

...On The 700 Club, Robertson reports Middle East news with an unabashed pro-Israeli perspective...

...He was one of those who set the agenda for the 1984 Republican Party platform, and last spring he traveled to Africa at Vice President George Bush's invitation...

...The broadcaster who displays the greatest skill in using television to promote his views and to expand his base beyond the true believers is Pat Robertson...

...There has to be some unifying ethic for a society...

...Among other things, he says, Robertson's call for public school prayer violates the belief of most Lutherans that prayer should be private...

...And, he adds, "usually when you find democratic regimes that are compassionate, you don't find that kind of suffering...

...This year, a $13 million library was opened...

...Operation Blessing has had no occasion to donate funds to blacks in South African homelands nor to residents of Palestinian refugee communities...

...He's been wrong before, however...

...after being elected eight times to Congress, he lost his seat in 1980...

...It keeps him in the public eye, giving him the kind of clout Presidential rumors have vested in Senator Edward Kennedy...

...The challenge took the good humor out of Robertson's demeanor...

...He fired off a letter to Norman Lear, the television producer who founded People for the American Way: "You are not merely trying to silence a member of the press," Robertson warned, "you are trying to silence a prophet of God...

...Savvy marketing placed CBN Cable in some tough-to-crack markets, including Manhattan, where the appeal of The Very Best of Groucho apparently tipped the balance...

...Lighter features may profile such guests as Donna Summer and Charlton Heston...

...God Himself will fight for me against you—and He will win...

...I would not be happy living in a Christian nation as defined by Pat Robertson...

...One of Robertson's most outspoken adversaries is a fellow Southern Baptist, the Reverend John Buchanan...

...CBN started out in 1961 as a decayed UHF television station in Virginia Beach, Virginia...

...CBN's Middle East Television, located in south Lebanon, thrives with Israeli blessing, even though it broadcasts into Israel, which forbids evangelism...

...People for the American Way argued that statements on the special, such as one that Federal judges "exercise what amounts to a type of dictatorship," required response...

...Its soap opera, Another Life, ran 875 episodes and is now in rerun...

...And then Israel will be "exalted" as a primary nation in world affairs...

...As the camera moves in for a tight close-up, the Spirit alights on Robertson with perfect timing...

...The fledgling university is growing fast...

...HlfHEM KAQNINGt A anti-Sandinista documentaries get generous airtime...

...Not even the fact that Israel has one of the highest abortion rates in the world affects his support...

...Since then, Robertson has asked those who receive his newsletter to pray for Lear to "meet Jesus Christ in power and glory"—a phrase that to some Christians means "in heaven...

...Bui for Robertson, Biblical texts arc a guide to the future, and Gog and Magog are the Soviet Union...

...The belief is relatively recent, popularized in the Nineteenth Century among fundamentalists...

...I think we should engage ourselves in advocacy journalism," he says proudly...

...Buchanan is at least as concerned as Robertson about basic values...

...He served with the U.S...

...Robertson doesn't bother issuing a denial...

...V THE PROGRESSIVE / 37...

...It is a fact of life," he sighs, "thai evangelicals represent maybe 25 per cent of America [a hotly disputed figure, since the term "evangelical"' can expand to include all Christians], but in terms of the high policy councils of the nation they maybe have half a per cent representation...

...He is far more subtle...

...After reminding Lear that he was a former Golden Gloves boxer, he continued, "The suppression of the voice of God's servant is a terrible thing...

...This kind of unabashed endorsement of political involvement has raised charges that Robertson may be using CBN as a battering ram to knock down the wall of separation between Church and State...

...Others qualify that claim...

...His education, connections, and blue-blood geniality are now turned to the service of Christ every morning on The 700 Club...

...Robertson's cure is worse than the disease...

...He finds portents in the recent collapse of the Lebanese government and alleged Soviet military involvement there...

...and we feel that God's blessing is on Israel the nation...

...Robertson is a "premillennialist"—one who believes Christ will return following the defeat of Gog and Magog for a thousand-year reign of peace before the ultimate peacemaking...

...It may well be worth it, at least in the short run, for Israeli officials to countenance the evangelical who loves them...

...Now CBN includes The 700 Club, three television stations, a radio station, the CBN Cable channel, a television station in southern Lebanon, international broadcasts in more than sixty countries, a university, a worldwide charity system, and a lobbying group...

...you can't, he says, let the 6 per cent of "atheists" in the country dictate its agenda...

...indeed, money is hardly mentioned...

...one of its stars, Susan Scannel, has since moved on to Dynasty...

...One of Operation Blessing's biggest boosters is President Reagan, who has twice heralded its work...

...Important as the crusade for a more Christian America is for Pat Robertson, it's only part of a much bigger picture...

...Robertson ran afoul of the Federal Communications Commission's requirements for fair coverage of public issues when People for the American Way, an organization that targets evangelicals in its defense of free speech, challenged the 1981 special program, "Seven Days Ablaze...

...A "born-again" charismatic Christian, Robertson packages his passionate convictions with the cool of a consummate talk-show host...

...that the Founders trusted Americans to govern themselves precisely because they already shared Judaeo-Chris-tian values, and that in the postwar era, big and secular government has gone hand in hand with corruption and greed in American daily life...

...CBN Cable now counts 28.1 million potential viewers, partly through the magic of marketing...

...Buchanan knows the power of conservative evangelical clout...

...Robertson has made a name for himself Pat Aufderheide is the Culture Editor of In These Times...

...And in terms of Reagan appointments in the first five years, there hasn't been much of a payoff...

...He interviews such figures as Senator Jeremiah Denton, General William Westmoreland, George Will, and Martin Feldstein...

...Still, Marty believes a little organized political action can go a long way...

...He's an independent religious entertainer, and most of his actions are those of a political operative...

...Every poll shows the vast majority of people want handgun control, but we won't get it, because around two million people lobby and diselect people and use direct mail...

...CBN has donated generously to the United Jewish Appeal and other Jewish charitable efforts, and has hosted its own relief efforts in Israel...

...There's no question which side The 700 Club is on...

...And it should be...

...The ninety-minute program is a kind of Good Morning, America with a Christian twist...

...Robertson argues that the Constitution never mandated a division between Church and State...

...Now he says that Middle East conflagration can happen without superpower conflict...

...The majority of Americans are Christians," he says, "[but] this is not a Christian nation...

...Make no mistake about it...

...Marines in Korea and graduated from Yale Law School before being born again and returning to school for a divinity degree...

...Robertson is planning for the long haul At his fully accredited graduate school, some 500 students take courses in public policy, communications, business studies, education, and Biblical studies...

...Jesse Jackson, Joan Mondale, and communications professor George Gerbner have all been on the show...

...A Cuban exile recounts the horrors of political repression...

...It has to...

...There is no hard sell, though...

...Last year, CBN raised some $7 million to help the relief group Americares distribute medical supplies in Central America...

...Although it carries no commercials, The 700 Club is the financial core of the CBN empire...

...Martin E. Marty, historian of American religion at the University of Chicago, further suggests that religious viewers are not easily mobilized for political action: "The Gallup polls show the bom-agains aren't necessarily taking their orders from him [Robertson...

...Viewers are urged not to give but to receive...

...Robertson has become the conservative celebrity of choice...

...In 1982, he predicted in his newsletter that the Soviet Union would attack Israel in that year...

...I think we should be a Biblically based nation," he said last March...

...Among its staple collection of reruns, Westerns (such as the current favorite, The Rifleman) and game shows are the biggest hits...

...KTLA-TV in Los Angeles agreed to air five one-half hour programs...

...You take your friend as he is," he says...

...when evangelicals targeted him for defeat...

...For most Biblical scholars, the prophecies on which the belief rests were written as encoded references to what was happening at the time of writing...

...A plunge into the political mainstream might well bring fulfillment of another long-shot prophecy...

...He counts President Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese among his friends...

...In-house program breaks, produced in CBN's up-to-date facilities, offer the opportunity to contribute by making a pledge—$10, $100, $1,000—and receive as a gift Robertson's most recent book, Answers to 200 of Life's Most Probing Questions...

...For help with their problems, they can call a toll-free number flashed on the screen and get advice from some eighty prayer counseling stations around the country...

...Robertson explains the pattern of Operation Blessing's international support simply: "Wherever there's communism you're going to find human suffering...

...His charity organization, Operation Blessing, run on an annual $30 million budget drawn directly from CBN donations, extends its help with a special sympathy for the victims of communism...

...One of the basic values of our society is diversity and plurality," he says...

...All of us believe that religions should speak to the Government," adds Bergstrom, who is executive director of the Council's governmental affairs office, "but the two things should be separate...

...His evangelizing mission on CBN is also a mission to reshape the political core of American society...

...And then come moral lectures, sometimes diagrammed on a chalkboard, and prayer...

...While The Saturday Evening Post bandies rumors that Robertson might be a Presidential candidate in 1988, White House Communications Director Pat Buchanan suggests he could replace Dan Rather in a CBS run by conservatives...

...With a cohesive global vision, a strong corporate empire, a solid and growing base of support, and a telegenic twinkle in his eye, Robertson would seem a natural candidate for political office, and such conservative leaders as Richard Viguerie would love to see him try...

...To CBN mailing listees, however, he explained that the station was "going to help usher in the second coming of Christ...

...These days, perhaps twenty-three million viewers tune in to religious television programs that span a rainbow of styles and convictions but most often purvey an ultracon-servative mix of gospel and politics...

...But when asked, Robertson just smiles and says, "I like what I'm doing now very much...

...Robertson's apocalyptic beliefs color his political agenda...

...CBN Cable, on the face of it, looks like an unlikely weapon in the fight for a moralized polity...

...Unlike the other four of the top five cable channels, CBN Cable is offered free to cable operators, and the deal is usually sweetened with subsidies for ad costs, preproduced television and radio spots, and promotional items...

...The channel downplays its Christian element—public relations director Earl Weirich spends some of his time trying to get the tag "religious" off the cable listings—in part because it might inhibit advertisers, but also because two-thirds of CBN Cable's twenty-four-hour programming day is not religious...

...On The 700 Club, viewers learn that the Department of Education should be abolished, that Reagan should support strict constructionist and Christian Supreme Court appointees, and that the Government should grant aid requests to Israel...

...If they do, they'll become part of the CBN family on a huge mailing list...

...trouble in the Middle East is explained with reference to the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Robertson views both as a terrorist organization and a Soviet front...

...He told his viewers that "the answer is to reestablish the Biblical morality, and of course it's going to touch politics...

...They realize that our purpose is to bring peace to the Middle East," explains Robertson...

...His horror stories focus on liberal Supreme Court decisions, regulatory agencies, and Great Society legislation...

...Not all guests are conservative, and not all agree with him...

...In 1982, after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, he encouraged viewers to urge Reagan to support the invasion...

...The 700 Club is also the major soapbox within CBN for Robertson's sermons to a morally sick America...

...Often compared with Dick Cavett and Phil Donahue for his thoughtful demeanor and grasp of a broad range of social issues, Robertson hosts the daily 700 Club (named for an original group of 700 backers) in a style aimed at the same demographic segment that watches Donahue...

...The Israeli government has, in turn, been generous to Robertson...

...in political circles...

...Robertson avoids political coalitions of evangelical broadcasters such as the Religious Roundtable, and that makes some of his peers wary...

...He remembers how television eroded his parish's community life in the 1950s...

...Bui it's the great outreach hope of CBN—the first part of the operation to break beyond the narrow sector of dedicated religious television watchers...

...Robertson has both experience and family connections to draw on...

...But both Robertson and Ben Kinchlow, who heads the project and co-hosts The 700 Club, argue there is no political bias...

...As Jerry Falwell recently told the News and Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, "Pat Robertson is at least as political as I am, maybe a little more...

...CBN News, headed by James Whalen, the former editor of the Washington Times (affiliated with the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church), provides mini-documentaries to illustrate the message...

...In 1961, few would have guessed he would head a broadcast empire, or be meeting with heads of state, or be handing out degrees at his own university...

...Viewers tend to be older, lower in income and education, more likely to be rural and conservative than the average viewer...

...Robertson himself analyzes such knotty problems as the national deficit before se-gueing into a feature on someone—say, an anorectic or an adulterer—whose life has been transformed by Christ...

...Articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post drew attention to the fact that some of the supplies were transported on Navy ships, and some went to areas controlled by the anti-Sandinista contras...

...Certainly the religious Right has had unprecedented influence recently in the Republican Party...

...Robertson has taken CBN beyond words into action with the Freedom Council, a grass-roots organization founded in 1981 to lobby state legislatures and Congress, urging return of prayer and Bible reading in schools, a ban on abortions, support for religious schools, and purification of libraries stocked with "secular humanist" texts such as evolutionist biology books...

...On one show last May, he said American public schools were teaching children "a collectivistic philosophy that will ultimately lead toward Marxism, socialism, and a communistic type of ideology...

...He is the descendant of a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the son of a conservative Virginia Senator...