Televangelist Pat Robertson’s wife DeDe dies at Virginia home aged 94
I used to cover a lot of Pat Robertson’s anti-single blunders (you can see links to them below, under “Related Posts”). The dude is very insensitive to single adults (especially women) who are age 40 or older and would like to marry but can’t meet anyone.
Robertson used to host Christian television show The 700 Club for years, going back to the 1970s, maybe the 1960s? Pat Robertson retired from daily 700 Club hosting several months ago. He now only appears on that show occasionally.
I am sorry Robertson’s wife is dead, but… I can’t help but notice that Pat Robertson is single now.
Of course, he’s probably around age 86 or 87 at this point, so I seriously doubt he would want to date or re-marry at this point, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds himself more lonely without his spouse.
Let’s see how far his “God puts the lonely in families” quasi-platitude gets him – that is the line he almost always sputtered out any time an adult single would write to him saying,
“Look, I’ve been single for years, I’ve prayed for a spouse, but I don’t have one, what’s the deal.”
I mean, I can’t help but wonder if now that he’s single again – and he will perhaps find himself lonely, if he’s more or less shuffling around in a house by himself alone, now that his wife is deceased – will he develop more empathy for people who are single?
I think of all the single adults over the years who wrote his show for advice, because they were still single at age 35, 45, whatever age, they said God was not sending spouses, dating sites hadn’t worked – and Robertson would either give them fluffy platitudes that don’t work, or he would shame the older single ladies for being single and for admitting they were tired of being single and wanted a spouse.
I don’t know if Robertson is too old to realize now that his wife is gone how lonely or bad at times it can be to be single when you had wanted married companionship.
Maybe Robertson will experience loneliness now that his wife is gone, and maybe that, in turn, will prompt him to develop the empathy towards never-married, lonely adults who said they wanted to marry but couldn’t meet anyone.
Because, for the years I watched his show, Robertson didn’t seem to have much empathy for single adults who wrote his show saying they were tired of being single and didn’t understand why God didn’t send them a spouse. Hopefully, his now-single status will cause him to reflect on how poorly he treated other single adults previously.
(Link): Televangelist Pat Robertson’s wife DeDe dies at Virginia home aged 94
by Alyssa Guzman
April 20, 2022
Adelia ‘Dede’ Robertson, the wife of religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and a born-again Christian, died of unknown causes at 94 at her home in Virginia Beach.
Her cause of death is unknown, but her obituary thanked Trinity Hospice for the ‘wonderful care they provided to Dede during the past months.’
Robertson was born on December 3, 1927, to middle-class Christian Republicans Ralph and Florence Elmer in Columbus, Ohio. She went on to get a bachelor’s degree in Social Administration from The Ohio State University and eventually a nursing degree from Yale, where she met her husband televangelist Pat.
She also competed in beauty pageants and participated in the Miss Ohio State contest and did modeling work.
The mother-of-four also sat on the board for Regent University – which her husband founded – and the Operation Blessing International relief and Development Corporation, as well as the family business: The Christian Broadcasting Network.
Robertson became a born-again Christian several months after her husband found his faith. The couple, who met at Yale University in 1952, embarked on a journey that included living in a roach-infested commune in New York before Pat bought a tiny television station in Virginia that would become the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in 1960.
Robertson would even be named Christian Woman of the Year in 1986.
…Pat Robertson later heard God tell him to buy the small TV station in Portsmouth, Virginia, which would become a global religious broadcasting network. He ran the network’s flagship program, the 700 Club, for half a century before stepping down last fall.
‘Mom was the glue that held the Robertson family together,’ said Gordon Robertson, one of her four children, and the president and CEO of CBN. ‘She was always working behind the scenes. If it weren’t for Mom, there wouldn’t be a CBN.’
…However, in her autobiography My God Will Supply You, Robertson recalled bridling at staying at home and her husband’s refusal to help around the house.
‘I was a Northerner, and Northern men just generally help around the house a little more,’ she said. ‘I noticed the further south we moved, the less he did.’
Her attitude changed after she had her own born-again experience at a church service, she told AP: ‘I began to see how important what he was doing really was.’
Robertson said that women should not work outside the home while their children are young unless they must. She reared her kids and worked as a nursing professor after they went to school.
Her daughter Ann said: ‘My mom was a rock. She was a rock throughout our childhood. Dad had to travel a lot, but Mom was always there for us kids… that gives great security to children.’
…She also served on the board of Regent University, which her husband founded. She also had a heavy hand in the design of the theatre on campus and even choose the carpeting for the university’s chapel.
The school also renamed Regent Theatre after her in 2019, now called the Dede Robertson Theatre.
‘Robertson was an extraordinarily creative interior decorator,’ her obit said.
… She leaves behind her husband, televangelist Pat, and their four children – Timothy, Elizabeth, Gordon, and Ann – 14 grandchildren, and 23 great-grandkids.
Related:
(Link): 700 Club Host Pat Robertson to Retire From Daily Hosting Duties after 54 Years
(Link): Neither Fully Widow Nor Fully Wife – Married People Will Be Single Again
(Link): Grieving widow doesn’t need to start dating in order to heal (letter from advice column)
(Link): Sex and Alzheimer’s – Selfish, Perverted Husband Rapes His Alzheimer’s Wife
(Link): Prayer and The 700 Club – Some Observations and Suggestions
(Link): Pat Robertson’s Insensitive Response to Randy with the Unanswered Prayers
(Link): Pat Robertson’s Unrealistic, Unhelpful Advice to the Unemployed
(Link): Pat Robertson’s Too-Vague Response About Unanswered Prayer and Non-Helpful Advice About Anxiety
(Link): Women: Stop Asking Pat Robertson For Romantic Relationship Advice
(Link): Pat Robertson’s Insensitive Reply to a Domestic Violence Victim (November 2018)
(Link): Pat Robertson Says 44 Year old Never Married Woman Who Wants Marriage is “Desperate”
(Link): Pat Robertson’s Incredibly Insensitive Advice to Gail the Unmarried Woman
(Link): Joanne The Widow Lady Wants to Know Why God Didn’t Answer Her Prayer to Keep her Husband With Her
(Link): Celibate Christian Woman Asks Christian Host (Pat Robertson) Why God Will Not Send Her a Husband
(Link): Howard Married to Flirty Wife Who Had Affair – Pat Robertson’s Insensitive Advice
(Link): Pat Robertson Blames, Shames Woman Who Was Laid Off from Employment
(Link): Robertson Defends His Horrible Advice to Married Woman
(Link): Christian Host Pat Robertson: Adultery Will Send You To Hell But Pre-Marital Sex No Biggie
(Link): Pat Robertson Excuses Female Adultery – hey, we are all “sexual beings”
(Link): Pat Robertson Contradicts Himself On Healing and God’s Will
(Link): “He’s Got Muscles” – Pat Robertson Weirdness (Discussing Tebow’s Sexiness)
(Link): Christian TV Show Host Pat Robertson is Fine With Trandgenderism
(Link): Advocate of Family Values Doesn’t Uphold Family Values (Re Pat Robertson)
(Link): Creepy, Creepy and Sexist Pat Robertson
(Link): Is Pat Robertson of The 700 Club Show some kind of secret perv? He’s Creepy
(Link): Pat Robertson Expects Men to Commit Sexual Sin (and it’s not the first time)
(Link): Christian Network TBN Now Airing Secular Commercials – Their Holy Land Amusement Park Tanking
(Link): World’s Largest Christian Broadcaster TBN Pivots to News
(Link): Scandals Galore at TBN: Sexual, Financial
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