Ben Kinchlow of TV’s ‘The 700 Club’ dies

New York Times News Service

The Rev. Ben Kinchlow, a Methodist minister’s son who belatedly became a believer and preached to a global congregation as a host of “The 700 Club” with fellow television evangelist Pat Robertson, died July 18 in Virginia. He was 82.

His death was announced by the Christian Broadcasting Network, which still produces the program that he co-hosted from 1975 to 1988 and again from 1992-96. CBN, which is based in Virginia Beach, did not say specifically where he died.

By his own account, Kinchlow was a black nationalist firebrand and a philanderer before he became a born-again Christian in his mid-30s, in the early 1970s. He went on to found a youth ministry and a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Killeen, Texas, about 75 miles north of Austin.

“That is the place where I saw bona fide miracles take place in the lives of people,” he recalled in an interview.

Those adolescent success stories came to the attention of Robertson, who invited Kinchlow to be a guest on his live, three-hour “700 Club” program. Imposing at 6-foot-5 and engaging as a son of the segregated South, Kinchlow was an immediate hit.

Invited a second time, Kinchlow assumed he would be interviewed as a guest again, or perhaps asked to answer phone calls from viewers seeking counseling. When the studio floor director told him, “You have only a few minutes until air, please take your seat,” he made himself comfortable in the chair reserved for guests.

The director returned a moment later.

“Please, Mr. Kinchlow,” he said, “we have a minute left before airtime, would you take your place?”

As Kinchlow recalled later on a “700 Club” retrospective, he thought “this would be a great time to ask where my place is.”

“You mean they didn’t tell you?” the director asked.

“Then,” Kinchlow said, “someone told me that Pat was in Israel and I was the host of the show. When I heard the opening song, ‘Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul,’ I thought, ‘Yes, Lord!’ “

At the time, he said, “you didn’t see a lot of African-Americans on TV,” much less hosting a program carried nationally on cable.

(The “700 Club” name was inspired by a 1963 telethon during which Robertson, CBN’s founder, asked 700 viewers to pledge $10-a-month to support the network.)

When Robertson returned from abroad, Kinchlow became a regular co-host and sidekick to Robertson on the program, executive vice president of the network, hosted CBN’s “Straight Talk” program on television and its “Taking It to the Streets” on radio, and directed the network’s Operation Blessing food and shelter relief program as well as its counseling services.

He founded Americans for Israel to promote mutual understanding between Christians and Jews, traveled worldwide as a motivational speaker and contributed commentary to WorldNetDaily, a conservative online publication.

Kinchlow, a Republican, wrote several books, including a memoir, “Plain Bread” (1985, with Bob Slosser); “You Don’t Have to if You Don’t Want To: The Marvelous Power to Choose” (1995), and “Black Yellowdogs:” (2008).

Kinchlow criticized what he called “radical environmentalists” and “militant homosexuals” (he said the gay agenda was not about civil liberties but to force Americans “to accept a particular type of bedroom behavior.” Still, he was considered an affable personality and somewhat less rigid than Robertson.

Harvey Ben Kinchlow was born Dec. 27, 1936, in Uvalde, a Texas Hill Country town of about 5,000, to Harvey and Jewell (Gofford) Kinchlow. His mother was a teacher and later principal in the all-black school he attended.

By some accounts, a great-grandfather of Ben’s was born into slavery and was a year old when his mother was freed in Mexico.