"A Christian Looks
At the Religious Right"
Book Review:
New World Order by Pat Robertson
Word Publishing, Dallas Tx. 1991.
Pat Robertson’s work, NEW WORLD ORDER, is a catch all for conspiracy theories. It combines the paranoia of the Old Right with modern versions. A summary of Robertson’s book is found on page 177 of the writing in which Pat says a conspiracy has existed in the world working through Freemasonry and a secret Order of the Illumaniti, a group combining Masons and Jewish Bankers. In Pat’s understanding, there is no more "monstrous evil" than bringing church going men into the Masonic lodges. 184 This occult organization recruited Marx and Lenin and setup world Communism. Secret banking forces in America were behind the Communist take over of Russia. The ultimate objective of this group is to set up a One World Order in which the United States must be dismantled. This Globalists movement is fed by the American media and human sexuality movements. This New Age religion is making its way into American education.143 Near the end of the work, Pat asks the question of the reader, "Are these the ravings of a lunatic?" 266 Rev. Robertson has thus left us a question to reply to.
Certainly the proposals Robertson raises are not new to the American Right and one can find just about any of these theories amidst the Militia, John Birch Society and other fringe groups in the Right. Pat takes the movement a step further with his apocalyptic binge. He seeks to mix his religious views on the pessimistic outcome of the world into his politics. Pat claims the Supreme Court forbade children to pray in the public schools. This is part of the atheism and anti religious movement of people like Americans United for Separation of Church and State and People for the American way among others. 233
The book is a mixture of praise and assault on President George Bush. Bush popularized the modern New World Order movement. ix The U.S. Right often lists the Bush family involvement in a secretive Yale University society. Bush is also a known member of two organizations Pat believes are organized to destroy the Western World. The groups are the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. 33 Pat calls Bush an honorable man who none the less has been duped by these one worlders. 92
Robertson was accused of anti semitism after the book was published. Researchers found some of his sources were anti semites who blamed Jews for world problems. Pat denied the charges. He writes that Communism comes from German-Jewish intellectuals. 17 He stops short of David Duke who claims Communism is a Jewish organization, but the links with Jews through the terms "International Bankers" is obvious.
Conspiracy theories are so plentiful in the book they are hard to keep up with. The Soviet coop when Gorbachev took over was orchestrated by these insiders. xi European countries will form a United States of Europe. 3 This will be a fulfillment of Biblical warnings about a demonic plot. John Lennon wrote about this movement in his song "Imagine" in which he visions the world as one.
5 The Rothschild family, a Jewish Banking family popular with world conspiracy writers, is behind this world plot working for generations behind the scenes. 7 East coast money families like the Morgan's, Rockefellers and Carnegies have gotten to the power structures of the nation and work with this unfolding. The idea being eventually to have a world court made up of world citizens to sit in judgment on U.S. citizens. 8 This Illuminati group is a demonic New Age religion using international banks and giant corporations to do their bidding. 9 Pat mentions the group at least 19 times in the book. He even believes this group set up the Gulf War.
10 John Birch Society folk still believe the last several world wars were established by secret societies with a hidden agenda. It is fascinating to think a man who almost became President believes American servicemen of the last century fought in wars simply to advance a secretive agenda of a global conspiracy!
Saddam Hussein was a mere pawn in this global chess game manipulated by insider U.S. forces. 11 It was actually insiders, Pat believes, who sent American youth off to fight in the deserts of Iraq with a demonic objective.
Powerful economic forces have manipulated Africa into poverty. This was done to further the greedy self interests of investors. All the way from the Wall Street financed fall of the Czar to South Africa, international economists have pulled the strings of world governments. 31 Even Jimmy Carter was tricked by the Trilateral Commission into bringing one of the insiders to be his national security adviser. Robertson acknowledges that Carter, Woodrow Wilson and his friend, George Bush, might have been tricked by this secret society unwittingly. None the less, they are engaged in its outcome. 37 Of course, the United Nations figures in with this plot. 54 The U.N. has been a huge boogey man with the U.S. Right for decades. At Christian Coalition National meetings, calls to abolish the U.N. usually bring shouts of acclamation with fervor.
The government in America is secretly working to merge the interests of the U.S. with the Soviet Union through the U.N. 58 Conspiratists I have listened to have suggested the U.N. has already set up an army to take over the U.S. This is not surprising for a man who believes World War I and the election of Woodrow Wilson was conspired by these evil forces.
Pat’s paranoid suspicions go so far as to claim that actually, right-wing monopolistic capitalists have joined with left-wing Bolsheviks to formulate this takeover. 71 How people of such economic positions have joined forces with the diverse world governments to manipulate history might seem far fetched to the reader.. Not to Robertson.
With McCarthy type zeal, Pat often comments on secret Communist plots. He claims that insider government leaders have pushed foreign policy in the U.S. toward the Soviet Union. He even suggests this started with New Deal domestic programs. 74 Although Pat’s Senator father pulled strings to keep him out of combat in Korea. Pat believes these insiders would not allow America to win the war in Viet Nam and kept MacArthur from defeating the Chinese. Instead, Truman fired MacArthur to further the secret plot. 78 The 700 Club host went on to claim the CIA misled the nation about Soviet military strength to sabotage our economy . 81
For a man who once ran for President, it is strange he believes U.S. elections are a done deal. Robertson even believes this fraternal order controls elections in the nation! 96 David Rockefeller selected Carter for President by Pat’s research. 103 Meanwhile, the wealthy Rockefeller assists world tyrants who grind the poor into the earth. 115 Spies, like Alger Hiss, and others, did more than promote Communism. They were behind the secret plot. 97 Republican Robertson blows the whistle on his fellow party by revealing that Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Nixon and John Mitchell were part of the secret government coop.
Jimmy Carter wept that he could not pick some of Pat’s recommendations for national service. He could not do this because the appointment process was out of Carter’s hands with the powers behind the scenes. 105 Even though controlled by this order, Carter is blamed for desiring to give Nicaragua to the Communists. 107
U.S. public money is now controlled by foreign interests, the book tells us. 130 Since the Rockefellers control the press, you won’t find out about this, and great statesmen, like Pat, are branded "ill-informed, right-wing, fundamentalist reactionaries." 136 Even tax-exempt foundations , which are supposed to help the needy, are actually attacking the Constitution and Judeo-Christian America. 141 John Dewey, a common right wing target, is credited with using public education to dismantle the value system of the nation. 164 This one world order will set up a religion that forbids Christians to speak out against pedophilia. 212 Already the liberal press in the nation has taken away the right for Christian people to run for office, according to the author. 243
The work has few religious references and mostly reflects Pat’s political theories. He does advance the idea that Satan is behind this one world government program and knows that it means the destruction of the United States to bring about his goal. 256 Thus, Satan’s international money interests would be allowed to control foreign policy. 261 Listed in the Bibliography is the right wing Heritage Foundation, the John Birch Society and various other right wing apocalyptic sources.
Back to the original question as to whether this work is the efforts of a raging lunatic? If Robertson is right, this secret plot has been kept from historians, journalists, religious leaders and politicians for over 200 years. From Woodrow Wilson to the Bush family, American presidents were duped by this order into doing their secret will. Yet Pat alone knows the truth. I guess the reader must decide if Jimmy Carter and George Bush were raging lunatics who missed the obvious conclusion of history that only Pat Robertson comprehended.
Don Wilkey