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Over the past three weeks, Rachel Maddow has repeatedly had Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family as a guest on her show to discuss the unfolding revelations surrounding the secretive elite fundamentalist organization and it's Washington safe house on C Street. In doing so, Maddow has repeatedly hammered away at the point that what's involved here is far more than just standard-issue rightwing hypocrisy about sex. It's about the very essence of conservative belief in an unelected elite that is destined to rule without any accountability to those it would rule over.
This is the very antithesis of what America is supposed to be all about. And yet these people are part of a wider movement that is tirelessly trying to rewrite American history to make us believe that America was founded by people like them, to be a nation ruled by people like them, when nothing could be further from the truth. This false teaching of theirs is very much an example of mythos over logos, a system of meaning that is impervious to fact or logic.
On Thursday, July 9, Maddow and Sharlet discussed just how radically outside the mainstream The Family is-not just the mainstream of American political thought, but outside the mainstream of Christianity as well-fundamentally opposed to it, in fact:
SHARLET: What makes it a little bit different than other Christian conservative organizations-two things. You said that it's secretive. Indeed, the leader of the group describes it, he says, "The more invisible you can make your organization, the more influence it will have."
And the other thing is the nature of the influence they want to have. I got to sit in on a spiritual counseling session between the leader of the family and Congressman Todd Tiahrt on the C Street house. I actually, met Senator Ensign there.
As the leader of the family was counseling Congressman Tiahrt, who had this very standard issue, bill of issues related to the Christian right, and he said, you've got to have a bigger vision of what we're talking about here. He described-he called it "Jesus plus nothing." And he said it's sort of a totalitarian idea of Christianity and he gave his examples of men who he believed, understood the way power should wielded. He actually gave his examples, Hitler, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden and Lenin.
Sure! What God-fearing Christian doesn't look up to Hitler, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden and Lenin?
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MADDOW: Wow. When I-when I read your book, "The Family," when it first came out in hardback, Jeff, I-my notes on, I write notes in the fly leaf about I'm thinking about it. And my notes about it, I went back and looked for that. It was essentially to promote-its role (ph) is promoting American power worldwide, unfettered capitalism, no unions, no programs to help poor people-all with this idea that godly, powerful rich men should get at many resources as possible personally and they should just privately help everyone else. That was the impression that I was left with.
Was I close?
SHARLET: That's dead on the money. The Family-again, it's the oldest Christian conservative organization in Washington. And it goes back 70 years when the founder believed that God gave him a new revelation, saying that Christianity had gotten it wrong for 2000 years, and that what most people think of as Christianity is being about, you know, helping the weak and the poor and the meek and the down and out.
He believed God came to him one night in April of 1935 and said, what Christianity should really be about is building more power for the already powerful and that these powerful men who are chosen by God can then-if they want to dispense blessings to the rest of us, through a kind of trickle down fundamentalism.
So, Jesus loved the money-changers. It was that rag-tag bunch of disciples he had that he really loathed! Riiiiiiight!
Talk about taking Jesus' name in vain! This is the most blasphemous outfit you are ever likely to meet. They make devil-worshippers seem downright orthodox. At least they know who they are praying to!
MADDOW: Well, do you see a connection between that larger sort of power theology and the fact that neither John Ensign nor Mark Sanford for that matter is also affiliated with the group, aren't quitting despite these scandals?
Is there something about this type of theology that tells these guys, "Hey, don't worry about the affair, you know? Big picture, you're good. Stay where you are. It's important for you to stay in power"?
SHARLET: Yes. No. I think actually Governor Sanford made it very clear when he cited King David as an example of the reason why he wasn't going to be resigning office. And that just struck a bell with me, because I-the King David story is the core teaching of the Family. When I first heard it, I was living with the Family.
One of the leaders in the Family was explaining why King David was important. And he says, it's not because he was good man, it's because he's a bad man. You know, seduced another man's wife. He actually had the husband murdered.
And he wants to explain why this was a model-and he says to one of the men in the group, he says, "Suppose I heard you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?" And this guy, being a human being, says, "You would think I was a monster." Well, the leader of the Family says, "No, not at all, because you're chosen. You're chosen by God for leadership, and so the normal rules don't apply."
Again, presumptuously identifying oneself with King David-when there are far, far more Biblical examples of wealthy and powerful men brought down by their arrogance-is nothing but an example of idolatry. An organization that makes this a core part of its practice, a core part of its mythos, can only be considered an idolatrous cult.
Unlike logos, mythos is extremely maleable, even though it may present itself as totally fixed and unshakable. There is no underlying structure of necessity, as with logic, to keep it in line. If you change the details of a mythic tale, then you change its implications. Or you can simply change the interpretation. This has happened countless times with countless different religions over the years.
And so here you have this group that explicitly teaches that they both exempt from God's law and they are its ultimate enforcers!
Clearly, logos plays no role whatsoever in their livers.
On the Friday, July 10 show, Sharlet described in more detail their practice of working in secret, and how private, hidden money transactions--like the bribes in the Ensign case--are a routine part of how they do business in the shadows:
SHARLET: As David Coe-one of the leaders of the group, the son of the man we just saw, and also John Ensign's spiritual counselor we now know-as David Coe explained it to me a few years ago, if money moves around behind the scenes through what they call the man-to-man financial method, then we are able to sort of maintain this veneer of privacy, and that this is very important, because when you're dealing with members of the Family, these guys have been chosen by God for leadership and what the Family is going to do is in some ways almost play the role of consigliores, as fixers for these guys.
So, when I heard about the Ensign money, that makes sense as a kind of thing that they might be comfortable with. But you've got to pull it out into sort of a broader picture. Doug Coe, the leader of the group has said, he said, "I loan or give money to all sorts of people or I have my friends do so."
Now, Coe takes no salary many years. All of the money is sort of moving through this man method and when you apply that overseas-as they do-you start to see what the idea of this is. They believe in something called "biblical capitalism," and biblical capitalism is the way they're going to bring the gospel to the already powerful. Where the money goes they believe God goes.
MADDOW: So, biblical capitalism, this idea of the man-to-man financial method, which is one of the more awkward terms of a summer full of awkward terms. That-it's not just part of the way that they exert power. That is part of their theology, that's part of the way they understand how they are, their version of Christianity at least.
SHARLET: Absolutely yes. It's a theological position.
And when they call themselves a Christian mafia and talk about sort of avoiding institutionalization, talk about avoiding, you know, the books and records and all of that kind of stuff-all of this stuff allows them to avoid accountability. What they see it as is avoiding the building up of an edifice.
There is a level in which they're almost antichurch. They don't like an organized church because it's too democratic. They like this sort of behind-the-scenes elite approach....
It's not that he's a neo Nazi of some sort. It's that they fetishize strength. They look for the leader who they believe is chosen by God. Evidence is his power, his wealth, and his willingness to align himself with their version of American power.
The dictator Suharto in Indonesia was one such. They organized meetings for him with American defense contractors, with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the secretary of defense, and most notably, since Indonesia is a major oil producing company with American oil executives, who described their meetings in memos of Congress as great moments of spiritual honesty between themselves and the dictator.
Let me repeat that: "great moments of spiritual honesty between themselves and the dictator."
Classic!
It bears noting that the way The Famile actually operates is virtually indistinguishable from the way that the non-existent Bavarian Illuminati is alleged to operate. Yes, projection, once again.
Immediately after the above, there's this, clarifying exactly what these people should be obligated to do:
MADDOW: Jeff, briefly, we're just about out of time-but religion is obviously a private matter in this country. Do you think that the members of Congress who belong to this religious group should feel compelled to tell the country more about the group? Do you feel that would be appropriate?
SHARLET: I think when you have-when you have members of Congress who are looking to a particular religious group for a sense of authority, which is explicitly antidemocratic, that explicitly fetishizes strength and dictatorial power, if they want to do that, that it's their choice. But I think they owe it to their constituents to say, "Here is why I have chosen to leave the mainstreams of American religion and affiliate myself with this sect that is so unorthodox and so really brutal in its theology."
To me, that seems like the least they could do. But they're balling their eyes out right now about the very thought of anyone asking them anything. I think I've never seen so many anti-choice Republicans kick up such a long-lasting storm over the right to privacy before. Have you?
This is what we need to do--drag them out into the sunlight, sort of like vampires, and see how long they last. Let them explain to their constituents about how God has chosen them, just like he chose bin Laden.
Yeah. That's the ticket. I'm sure it will go over very well in Nevada. Or South Carolina. Or just about anywhere, really. Because, you know, we're such a Christian nation. And these guys, well, they've been chosen by God. So what's not to like?
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