People know Dr. Robertson for the media that's shown outside that people see on television or through tapes and other things, but I don't think people realize the extent of the quality of his work. He was ahead of the game. Today, what's normal, he was doing two decades ago. Interactive television is now the new thing, right? iPods, iPads and smart phones. He was doing interactive TV before the word interactive existed for television because people were able to call in. You could call in for prayer and you could call in for information. He figured that out really. He was a pioneer in a way that most people don't recognize. Today we kind of take it for granted but he was way ahead of the curve.
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Dr. Robertson was in tune with God at a level where "I've got to start a college. I just got to do it. And I've got to do ministry all over the world. And I've got to bring excellence to the world, because that's who my Christ is."
And so, he was driven and driven and driven. But if you ask him, he'll probably tell you he was having fun, because that's part of this. You're driven but it's also a privilege and you understand it to be and it's humbling and it's fun.****
No matter what situation you're in, there's always going to be someone who is needs a brotherly or sisterly hand. And when you do it, you do it for the sake of doing it and you tell them, "I do this because God loves me." And the reality is that the more humbled you are, when you do that, the greater blessing it will be to another because it's usually like, "Well, how could you do this for me? You're suffering all these things." And that's how we spread the Word. We don't have to hit people over the head and tell them, "This is a spiritual law, believe it or die. I think it's easier to sell them on, God loves you and because God loves you, I will do this for you. And I will suffer for you because God or Christ has suffered for me." It's very incarnate.
And when you do things incarnate, it's easy to translate God's love. And Pat Robertson did a lot of that, it's just not known. That work he did isn't known. What he's known for is being in front of the television and making statements about how the world needed to be. A lot of people don't know all the things he did for hundreds of people, the thousands of people behind the scenes where no one will ever know unless they come out and they tell you now.
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I highly believe in his position on how our church needs to respond to the public's fear and how the church of Christ needs to be very careful that we not be eradicated from the public square, that we not be just moved out of culture. He believed that Christ was part of our culture and we have that right in this country, in a democracy, to have that space. I'm still with him on that.
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We had some common interests, our love for Israel, and we talked about that, and the need to find ways to make things better for Israel and the chosen people.
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Our love for the Hispanic community in the United States, a lot of people don't know that necessarily, but Dr. Robertson always had a concern about Hispanic people in this country, and how to integrate them from poverty, those that are in poverty.
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Those of us who are from the evangelical tradition see him as a pioneer, as a man who moved forward, a man of conviction and values and who moved forward and tried to implement those values for our country and for the world, and as an innovator -- a person who could see what others couldn't see.
And that's what innovators do. They can see what others don't see and then do something about it and implement something on that vision. So that's how I'll always see him. Others will see him as a controversial person. I don't think he was that controversial. There were times when he was controversial because we needed to rub against certain standards that are being set that we don't necessarily agree with.
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So the public square fight in America is the fight for the future of America. At the same time, there's a bigger fight in the world, where our brothers and sisters face death because they're believers in Jesus Christ.