In the most recent public confession of Mark Sanford, he referenced "King David." While most people thought they heard rantings and delusions of a very confused and hyperhormonal man, to a very few elite fundamentalists in this country the "dog whisper" had a far more significant and ominous meaning. What happens to Sanford may reflect the underlying power of this group of perverted fundamentalists. Tracing the path from Sanford to the "Family" might even explain some of the recent tiptoeing by the Obama Administration.
Christianity? More like heresy...By their fruits you shall know them. Jeffrey Sharlet in Harper's a few years back describes just a bit of the evil these "Christians" do:
During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand "Communists" killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise. "We work with power where we can," the Family's leader, Doug Coe, says, "build new power where we can't."
It doesn't matter what you do, if God has selected you to lead!
"King David," David Coe went on, "liked to do really, really bad things." He chuckled. "Here's this guy who slept with another man's wife—Bathsheba, right?—and then basically murders her husband. And this guy is one of our heroes."
Why is David the hero of "The Family?" Because God chose him! Morality doesn't matter.
It gets worse. Their next hero, according to Sharlet, is even worse:
Genghis was a man with a vision. He conquered"—David stood on the couch under the map, tracing, with his hand, half the northern hemisphere—"nearly everything. He devastated nearly everything. His enemies? He beheaded them."...when Genghis entered a defeated city he would call in the local headman and have him stuffed into a crate. Over the crate would be spread a tablecloth, and on the tablecloth would be spread a wonderful meal. "And then, while the man suffocated, Genghis ate, and he didn't even hear the man's screams."
And who is in the "Family?" It's existed since 1935 as a network of "God's Chosen Leaders" around the road, and currently led by Doug Coe. Not only those we know like Reps Stupak, DeMint, Doyle and Senators Ensign, Nelson, Burns and Inhoff and Brownback, and even Hillary Clinton. They organize the "National Day of Prayer" on Congressional Stationary, and house members of Congress at discount rates in a "house" that has the status of a Church--while no one investigates them. Sharlet's book is a must read for those who want to understand the underpinnings of power in this country. There's a great podcast from NPR yesterday reviewing the history at http://www.npr.org/...
Sanford has been "counseled" by his prayer partners in the Family for weeks. They are the ones keeping him in office--because God wants him there--and keeping him from reality.
And Obama? It would help his detractors (those who feel he is too cautious) to consider how much power these players actually have, and how much opposition to certain ideas (like bank regulation) is not based on registered lobbyists but by hidden (and legally protected) would be King Davids.