Jeff Sharlet has written a very provocative book entitled The Family: The secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.It is about the powerful "Family" or "Fellowship" of politicians, corporate tpyes, and other "big men" who pray together and consider themselves brothers.
They claim to have no political agenda, but they are almost all conservatives with a few token liberals for window dressing. They have a network of houses and compounds, and there is a famous house in Washington, DC where some members of Congress live.
These people rarely come to the surface, except at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, which they sponsored since 1953. It is difficult to measure their power because they keep a low profile. This book provides many examples of ways in which they have influenced other governments.
Probably most readers know about The Family so my comments will be somewhat impressionistic.
Sharlet calls these people "fundamentalists." Maybe that term fit their founder, Abram Vereide, in some ways. That term has a very precise religious meaning, and does not really fit today's family.
Some, like Jimmy Carter, have used the word in a broader sociological context, and Martin Marty has sometimes done the same. That is how the word should be taken.
Today's Family is run by Doug Coe, clearly one of the most powerful men in America. He is not into having people attend churches or subscribing to creeds. For him, it is all about submitting to Christ. Coe would not change our institutions, but he thinks they should be run by men who submit to Christ. It is a sort of mild dominionism.
These people take very seriously the medieval idea that God anoints rulers. That explains, in part, the support they have given a number of bloody dictators, including some non-Christians like General Shuarto.
The brothers of The Family are about wielding power and influencing people who have it, the "big men." They patiently spend years cultivating these big men. They see Christ as the ultimate strong, forceful male and frequently quote His words about bringing the sword and resultant conflict. It is not the gentle Christ of the beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount.
Vereide was strongly anti-union, pro-laissez faire capitalism, and fiercely anti-Communist. Coe has less to say against unions and cultivates conservative union leaders. HE identifies empire and free enterprise with America's core role in the world. Hence, they are somehow Christ's program.
Some years ago, I acquired a seven volume set by an eminent conservative Protestant theologian. As I read the volumes, I kept wondering if I was reading a mix of politics and sociology. The same is true of The Family. They have all the cultural concerns of the old ,evangelical America that has been slowly fading since the 1920s. But their real passion is for market capitalism and the American empire.
When I finished the seventh volume, I was unable to find where the theology was. Sharlet tried to trace The Family back through the Second Great Awakening and all the way back to Jonathan Edwards. Those links are not that solid. The Family members pray, but it is hard to find any serious religious thought or theological literacy here. What we have is social movement taking on religious clothing. That, of course is natural.
Medieval weavers presented their discontent over wages as a religious movement. Post-Civil War southern frustrations presented themselves as the religion of the lost cause.
The thought crossed my mind that some sort of ecclesiastical structure and authority might be needed as a yardstick with which to measure what is religion. But then I looked at the American Catholic Church. A substantial part of it stumbled into becoming a religious adjunct of the Republican Party. Today, some bishops are more occupied with politics than religion and are busy attacking liberal health care proposals. One even put out disingenuous guidelines that made it almost impossible to air Obama's address to school children in the schools.
Sharlet presents a great deal of information that is worth mulling over and rereading.
This diary might address this topic again in the future.