Further Reading
Rosenblum, Nancy L.Membership and Morals:
The Personal Uses of Pluralism in America.
Rev. ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 2000.
Warren, Mark E.Democracy and Association.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
2001.
Timothy L. Hall
See also Feminism; Glass ceiling; Supreme
Court decisions; Women’s rights.
Robertson, Pat
Identification American television
personality and conservative political
candidate and activist
Born March 22, 1930; Lexington, Virginia
Using his prominence as the founder of the first
Christian television network and the host of a con-
servative Christian talk show, Robertson led many
conservative Christians to become involved in the
political process during the 1980’s.
Pat Robertson came to prominence as a tele-
vision personality in the United States in
the 1970’s, the decade after he founded the
Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and
began hosting its most influential television
program,The 700 Club, a Christian talk show.
In the 1980’s, Robertson, along with many
other conservative Christians, turned his at-
tention to politics. In his bookAmerica’s Dates with
Destiny(1986), he argued that America had drifted
from the Christian and moral values that had ani-
mated its founding. Two years later, Robertson made
an unsuccessful attempt to capture the Republican
nomination for president of the United States. He
lost to George H. W. Bush, who won the Republican
primary and went on to win the presidential election
of 1988. Undeterred by the loss, Robertson thereaf-
ter turned his attention to grassroots political action
by founding the Christian Coalition in 1989. The
purpose of this organization, he explained, was “to
mobilize Christians—one precinct at a time, one
community at a time—until once again we are the
head and not the tail, and at the top rather than the
bottom of our political system.”
The Christian Coalition remained active in Amer-
ican politics during the following decade. Robertson
himself continued to use his television prominence
to comment on American political and cultural af-
fairs; however, by the beginning of the twenty-first
century the influence of conservative Christians such
as Robertson in the American political process ap-
peared to have waned somewhat from its height in
the 1980’s.Impact During the first three quarters of the twen-
tieth century, conservative Christians tended to
avoid interaction with the American political pro-
cess. In the last quarter of the century, however, they
reemerged on the national political stage. Along
with televangelist Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson was a832 Robertson, Pat The Eighties in America
Pat Robertson celebrates placing second in the Iowa caucuses, ahead of Vice
President George H. W. Bush, on February 9, 1988.(AP/Wide World
Photos)