Amicus Dei

It reads in part like a Cold War spy novel, but unfortunately The Family by Jeff Sharlet is not fiction.  Rather, The Family, subtitled The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, tells the story of how one quasi-evangelical organization clandestinely infiltrated the halls of power in Washington, D.C. and beyond.  It is the story of raw politics wrapped in a blanket of evangelical piety that is at times both fascinating and disturbing.

The author, Jeff Sharlet, knows the Family better than most outside the elite Washington set — Sharlet spent a month in 2002 living in one of the Family’s many residences, Ivanwald.  While there, Sharlet was privy to confidential Family documents and met with the head of the Family, Doug Coe.  In 2005, Coe was named one of the 25 most influential evangelicals by Time magazine, joining the ranks of more widely-recognized figures like Chuck Colson (a Family member and product); James Dobson; and others.

The Family, Sharlet says, “is a story about two great spheres of belief, religion and politics, and the ways in which they are bound together by the mythologies of America.” And quite a story it is, too.  Sharlet remembers his days living at Ivanwald where he heard Adolf Hitler often referred to as an example of effective leadership.  When Sharlet questioned members of the Family about this fascination with Hitler, he was told Hitler and other dictators were a “model of intimate relationships.”  Sharlet wondered, as I do, if the Family couldn’t find someone more worthy of comparison with Jesus as a leader.

Founded in the 1930s by Abraham Vereide and a group of Seattle businessmen, the first meeting of the group which would later become the Family was for prayer, and to break a dockworker labor strike.  Vereide, or Abram as he was called, saw the American way of life and the Christian message as virtually interchangeable.  Recounting a revelation, Abram would tell how God spoke to him with “The Idea” of working with men of power — business leaders, politicians, and powerbrokers in society.  Abram believed, based on Romans 13:1, that God established men of authority.  In other words, if a man was in a position of authority, God had put him there, and Abram was to work with him regardless of his character, morals, or actions.  If he befriended these powerful men, the benefit would be a trickle-down of blessings on the common people.  After all, working with poor people hadn’t really changed the world much.  The rich and powerful were the place to start, according to Vereide.

Vereide began prayer meetings with these powerful leaders, and quickly found himself the welcomed guest of businessmen and politicians on the national, as well as local level.  These prayer cells were patterned on the cells of communist organizations, whose politics Abram despised, but whose organization and commitment he admired.

But, Sharlet doesn’t just focus on the founding work of Abraham Vereide. He flashes back to the 1700s to Jonathan Edwards, and later, Charles G. Finney, both of whom fostered the antecedents of modern evangelicalism.  Edwards did so with his soft-spoken but terrifying sermons, and his fascination with the extreme religious experiences of his followers.  Finney’s revivalism produced the “anxious bench,” where penitent sinners would weep for forgiveness and salvation in response to his preaching. Those precursors of modern evangelical life shifted the American gospel, according to Sharlet, paving the way for men like Abraham Vereide and his successor, Doug Coe, and the organization known as the Family.

Under Coe’s leadership, the Family submerges, goes underground, to increase its influence and avoid scrutiny as it curries favor with politicians both American and international.  That some of those politicians were ruthless dictators like Indonesia’s Suharto, or Somalia’s Siad Barre, or Nicaragua’s Somosa seemed to be of little concern to the Family or to Coe.  Coe once said, when explaining why the Family did not object to the inhumanity of some of its friends, “I don’t want to embarass anyone.”  Presumably, Coe didn’t want to use his influence to save the hundreds of thousands slaughtered by Suharto, or Barre, or Somosa either.

Sharlet writes with a captivating clarity, weaving the story of the organization from the Family’s own records housed at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College.  Once accessible to anyone, more recent documents are now off-limits to researchers because of Sharlet’s articles and the inquiries of several international reporters, according to Sharlet.  Secrecy creates the impression the Family has something to hide, which Sharlet’s critics say they don’t.

Sharlet is careful not to sound shrill as he reports on the connections the Family has made.  He notes particularly ministers of defense from developing countries who attend the National Prayer Breakfast for the purpose of meeting influential members of Congress.  Sharlet cites several instances of increased foreign and military aid after connections are made by the Family.  Sharlet provides copious endnotes to support his reporting on the Family and their affairs.  A comprehensive index allows quick access to subjects and individuals of interest to the reader.  It is evident Sharlet has done his homework over the five years he spent researching and writing the book, and it shows in the book’s meticulous detail.

Does Sharlet get it all right?  I’m not sure about all the details, but at times the book seems to gather up the whole of evangelicalism under the suspicion of one part of it, the Family.  But perhaps this is Sharlet’s way of pointing out that evangelicalism’s unquestioning embrace of all who bathe their work in the name of Jesus ought to be re-examined.  For the most part, Sharlet’s book is a stunning expose’ of the blurring of power politics and a reinvented gospel fostering an Americanized-version of Jesus.

If there is any comfort to be taken from the saga presented in The Family, it might be that they don’t appear to be succeeding. Two of their members, Senator John Ensign of Arizona, and Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina recently made the news because of their marital infidelity.  Ensign’s unfaithfulness occurred with one of his staff members, the wife of his chief of staff.  Senator Tom Coburn, another Family member, is said to have tried to help Ensign by suggesting that his chief of staff and his wife be “made whole” financially.  Coburn has denied suggesting any such thing, but the Senate Ethics Committee may investigate the whole sorry mess.

Governor Mark Sanford, of course, kept the nation riveted with his disappearance to walk the Appalalchian Trail, which apparently extends all the way to Argentina, where he went to see his “soul mate.”  On his return, and with endless discussions of his affair, Sanford likened himself to King David in the same terms that Sharlet had heard the Family use during his stay at Ivanwald.  If the Family is no more successful at international intrigue than they are at raising the moral bar in Washington, we need not fear a far-right theocracy anytime soon.  Of course, that’s the cynical view, and I acknowledge it as such.  The Family is far from being a bunch of clowns, even if there are a few in their midst.

Jeff Sharlet has done evangelicals a favor by showing us that in the case of the Family, the emperor really is naked.  The argument which forms the basis for the Family — that men of authority are there because God placed them there — is a poor exegetical attempt to justify amoral power politics.  If Jesus were to have adopted the philosophy of the Family, he would have worked with Herod, and he would have taken Pontius Pilate to lunch.  And, when Satan tempted Christ by offering him raw political power, Jesus would have jumped at the chance because, as Doug Coe says, “we work with power where we can [and] build new power where we can’t.”

(I purchased my own copy of The Family, and have received no inducement to read or review the book.  I requested an interview with Jeff Sharlet, which he provided, and you can read my questions and his responses at my other blog, Confessions of a Small-Church Pastor. )