The Nation - News from Sept. 30, 1987

Television evangelist Pat Robertson said that he is resigning as a Southern Baptist minister and cutting ties to his broadcast empire as he prepares to run for the Republican presidential nomination. In a statement from his headquarters in Chesapeake, Va., Robertson called the decision to leave the ministry “one of the most painful I have ever been required to make.” Robertson said he would resign as chairman and chief executive officer of the Christian Broadcasting Network and CBN Continental Broadcasting Inc. Robertson began the Christian Broadcasting Network with $70 in 1960, and built it into the nation’s fifth-largest cable network, reaching an estimated 37 million households.