From a transcript of the November 7, 1990, 700 Club, a religious television talk show broadcast on the Christian Broadcasting Network. The following exchange, between Pat Robertson and co-host Sheila Walsh, took place after CBN reported on a fire that had destroyed much of Universal Studios the night before. In 1988 Universal distributed The Last Temptation of Christ, which, according to the news report, “many Christians asked [the studio] to yank.”

sheila walsh: When something like this happens, people wonder about the judgment of the Lord. Does this fit into that category?

pat robertson: Well, it could have been an accident. It could have been an overloaded electric circuit. It could have been arson. It could have been anything—that’s what most people would say.

I had a man—he happened to be a horse trainer from Kentucky—he came to me on Monday. He said, “I’ve got to talk to you; I’ve heard from the Lord.”

“All right,” I said. “What did the Lord tell you?”

The man said, “God is going to judge the entertainment industry in Hollywood that has been spewing out things around the world that have been corrupting the lives of people. It will be destroyed and will not rise again.” He said that on Monday. There’s a fire on Tuesday. It’s interesting that Universal—they produced The Last Temptation of Christ, which many of us thought was blasphemous in the extreme—finds this kind of activity taking place. I don’t have any revelation personally, but it is certainly something one should consider.