Pat Robertson, who influenced Christian conservatives, dies at 93

Pat Robertson, a Baptist minister with a passion for politics who brought together Christian conservatives in a powerful constituency that helped Republicans win both houses of Congress in 1994, died Thursday at his home in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He was 93.

His death was announced by the Christian Broadcasting Network, which Mr. Robertson founded in 1960.

Mr. Robertson built an entrepreneurial empire based on his Christian faith that included a university, a law school, a long-range cable channel, and more. The product of a family with politics in his veins, he also ran a serious but unsuccessful campaign for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination, resign as a Baptist minister despite criticism of the mixing of church and state.

The loss did not dampen his political enthusiasm; he went on to found the Christian Coalition, which fueled the conservative faith-based political revival of the 1990s and beyond.

Whether in the pulpit, on the stump, or in front of a television camera, Mr. Robertson could display the gentle manner of a friendly local minister, chuckling softly and with an almost perpetual twinkle in his eye. But he was also given statements that his detractors saw as bizarrely wrong and dangerously inflammatory.