Annette wrote... But what is truly scary about all of this is the legion of his followers who await, hang on, and believe in every word he utters.
Jim wrote... Good point, but curiously I've never met anyone who follows this man. I don't even know anyone who WATCHES him. How did he get to be so "popular," especially considering so many Christians and non-Christians wish he would shut up? Aubyn writes... I have been trying to answer the question: "Just how popular is Pat Robertson?" for some time now. I suspect that the truth is somewhere in between the picture suggested by Annette and Jim. Robertson is pretty clearly nowhere near as influential in the Christian community as he once was, and the image of a "legion" of followers hanging on his word is probably an exaggeration. If you wanted to get a finger on the pulse of the conservative Christian Community you could probably take a more accurate reading elsewhere (try Dobson, who is much more savvy about what he says for public consumption). On the other hand, while some conservatives desperately try to marginalize Robertson whenever he says some particularly outrageous, the truth is that while he may not be dead center in the mainstream of the conservative Christian movement, he is far from being an outlier. My own sense is that Robertson is not that far removed from the conservative Christian center, but is just less politic in his rhetoric. One good description of this comes from a very conservative source (Bryon York at the National Review). A brief excerpt below, from a longer article at: http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200508250914.asp, published after Robertson's last outage about Chavez in the summer: "There is some truth to that [AF: The idea that Robertson is a crackpot used by the MSM to make fun of Christians], but there is also some evidence to suggest that Robertson is not quite as marginalized a figure as conservatives would like to believe. His main forum, the television program The 700 Club, is available in nearly all of the country on the ABC Family Channel, FamilyNet, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and some broadcast stations. According to Nielsen Media Research, The 700 Club, aired each weekday, has averaged 863,000 viewers in the last year. While that is not enough to call it a popular program, it is still a significant audience. It is, for example, more than the average primetime audience for CNN last month 713,000 viewers or MSNBC, which averaged 280,000 viewers in prime time. It is also greater than the viewership of CNBC and Headline News. "It's a pretty good audience," says John Green, a professor at the University of Akron who is also a fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. "He is certainly a consequential figure." But Green and others point out that, even though Robertson has a core audience of supporters, his influence which had a high point in 1988 and 1989, when he ran for president and founded the Christian Coalition is unquestionably on the wane. Figures like James Dobson have eclipsed Robertson in political influence, and popular evangelicals like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen have surpassed him in the religious world. "They are more in tune with contemporary culture, while Robertson was more in tune with what was happening with evangelicals 20 or 30 years ago," says Green." **************************************************** Aubyn Fulton, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Chair, Department of Psychology & Social Work Pacific Union College Angwin, CA 94508 Office: 707-965-6536 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***************************************************** --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
