Pat Robertson’s son Gordon, who is also the CEO of the Christian Broadcasting Network and the heir to his father’s political and media empire, told the conservative NewsMax.com President Obama was raised a Muslim and hoped his conversion to Christianity will inspire other Muslims to convert during an interview with his father:
Turning his attention to matters of faith intertwined with politics, Robertson said President Barack Obama goes out of his way to downplay America’s Christian origins. But attacking Obama on that front in an effort to defeat him in 2012 would be the wrong approach, he said.
“I don’t know if people should rise up against that or just say, ‘Beat him in relation to his policies,’” Robertson said during the Newsmax interview, in which he also shared the floor with his son Gordon, who is CEO of CBN and co-host of the “700 Club.”
Gordon interjected: “Obama’s father was a Muslim, and he [Obama] became a Christian convert. More recently he has celebrated his faith and become far more public in it. I think he’s feeling the need to be more vocal: ‘I am a Christian.’
“He was raised Muslim and has come out and said, ‘I want to be a Christian.’ That’s something we ought to explore. Could that have influence within the Muslim world to get others to question and look to Christianity?”
The problem is, Obama was not raised a Muslim.
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post‘s Fact Checker writes, Obama’s father (who left when he was two years old) was an atheist and his mother was not religious. While he became a Christian in his 20s, he had never practiced Islam. According to his campaign’s Fight the Smears, “Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim, and is a committed Christian. Further, this myth perpetuates unfortunate falsehoods about the Muslim-American community that are offensive to people of all faiths.”
