The empire God built

by Alec Foege

Say the name Pat Robertson to ten different people and you will get ten different reactions. To some, he's the televangelist host of The 700 Club, expounding a fundamentalist Christian philosophy. To others, he's a member in good standing of the American aristocracy, the son of a United States Senator and a descendent of the Duke of Marlborough. To savvy businesspeople, he's the CEO of International Family Entertainment, a publicly traded company that owns The Family Channel, Mary Tyler Moore Productions, and The Ice Capades. He is a global businessman with media holdings in Asia, the United Kingdom, and Africa. He is the nation's number three cable operator, behind Ted Turner and HBO. Politicians know him as the head of the 1.7 million member Christian Coalition, widely considered to be the most powerful lobbying group in the United States. Pat Robertson is all these things and more, which makes him a media mogul of astonishing wealth, power, and influence. The Empire God Built takes