Jeff Shartel’s “The Family” came out earlier this year and seemed to become very popular about the time that the bizarre sex scandals of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Nevada Senator John Ensign were in full flower. Both men had ties to the “the House on C street” which operated as a tax protected “church” and discount living quarters for many congressmen including Oklahoma’s own Tom Coburn, Jim Inhofe, former Senator Don Nickles, and former Representative Steve Largent. The book seemed to be marketed as an expose of what was going on in the house and the shadowy secretive organization that owns the building.
I ordered the book from the library and it finally came and I finally finished reading it. It is not the expected expose but it is a very impressive book nonetheless. It is very well researched and has extensive notes detailing Sharlet’s sources. The book is almost academic in its extensive documentation.
The Family the book refers to refers to an organization now headed by Douglas Coe (helped by numerous relatives of his on the payroll) that was founded in the 1930’s by a Norwegian immigrant preacher named Abram Vereide. He had been praying for years for guidance on what to do about the Depression. Finally in April 1935 God spoke to him with the answer. What God told Abram was “To the big man went strength, to the little man went need. Only the big man was capable of mending the world.” Abram decided that rich people were rich because they were blessed by God and surely they could be convicted in their compassion and then shower benefits upon the weak. Abram was going to show them how. Abram called these men, “The up and out.”
Of course, the big men of the world liked this idea. They didn’t shower a whole lot of money down on the weak but they took pretty good care of Abram Vereide. What he did and what continues today is the a ministry to the rich and powerful based on what Shartel calls “cells.” (I might call them “small groups.” My church has a bunch of them.)
The Family, to this day, caters to the rich and powerful and engages them in “cells.” The Family doesn’t really care about the background of their members. They welcome all. Even foreign despots, even murderous foreign despots such as Siad Barre of Somalia who was in a Family small group up until he was deposed after being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens. Douglas Coe called Barre, “Brother.” Coe in general said of the dictators in his prayer groups. “I don’t want to embarrass people.” Part of what the Family tells their members is that they were elected to their positions not just by the voters but by God also and that God wants them to be where they are.
This is all great and everything but here is where the book gets all confusing. The Family, as Shartel admits is concerned mainly with US Foreign Policy. Most of Shartel’s book however is about life in the US.
The book discusses the rise of American fundamentalism and its effect on American culture, politics, and foreign policy. The author seems upset by much of what he sees and thinks it undermines our way of life. He also asserts that this is being managed by “The Family.” I share much of Mr. Sharlet’s dismay of what has happened to American life and the rise of intolerance, ignorance, and homophobia promoted by some factions of the Religious Right. I am not much into conspiracies though and having lived in small towns and watched the intramural squabbles within the various congregations in town and seen the conflicts between the Baptists, Church of Christs, and Assemblies of Gods and other congregations I just don’t believe that one organization based in Washington is calling the shots for everybody in the country.
Mr. Sharlet doesn’t seem to get that evangelical Christians are not zombies at somebody’s call to action. They are people trying to find out about life, looking for community, and trying to make the world a better place for their children. For example he seems to be totally mystified by the purity movement whereby young men and women promise to keep themselves sexually pure until marriage. I think anybody who looks around and sees the sexualization of our culture and especially its use in advertising would be concerned about its effect on their children. Now, I’ve read that statistics that those taking purity vows have their first sexual intercourse only a few months later than people that don’t. You know what, I don’t care, I’ll take those few months. Besides, I don’t worry about the averages, I think we worry about the individuals.
The book suffers from a lack of focus. It talks about “The Family” and its reach into Congress, the Defense Department, State Department, and the business world and that is very interesting, but I doubt that the Family is the only outfit in Washington pushing a point of view. He also talks about the evangelical world and megachurches and some of the famous sex scandals involving famous preachers. The book is far reaching but it is hard to assess because it tries to cover so many topics.
I usually rate books on a scale of one to four. I don’t know what to do with this book! I think it is a book worth reading, how about that!
