The Family

I’ve recently been reading about the secretive fundagelical political organization described in Jeff Sharlet’s disturbing book, The Family. Some further links are via Amicus Dei and Slacktivist.

While I have some minor quibbles with certain aspects of Sharlet’s interpretation, the evidence and conclusion are as compelling as they are depressing: the US government — of both parties — and financial elite are pervaded by a clandestine organization whose express goal is global theocracy, and whose members, lacking any moderation via the wider context of scripture or theology or the main stream of orthodoxy in the church, are, as C.S. Lewis warned, capable of blithely colluding in the worst kind of oppression and violence in the name of “the will of God”.

This seems like a startling conclusion. Surely the rather kooky fundamentalism that Sharlet describes must remain on the margins of even religious society, and sensible people remain more moderate and realistic in their goals and world view. What disturbed me most about Sharlet’s research, and went a long way in my inductive evaluation of his book, were the eerie echoes of the Family ideology and vocabulary in my own fundamentalist upbringing and indeed in the more moderate evangelical church of today — from the anti-theological emphasis on personal ecstatic experience, to the outspoken support for tyrrany and dictatorship on the part of Christians in the community I grew up in, to the pervasive ideology of the “cell group” in evangelicalism today.

Sharlet almost avoids the common anthropological error of imposing a materialist worldview on his subjects. He acknowledges that many members of the Family are sincere in their belief that their peculiar variety of Christianity would benefit people, and thus their work to spread it is a good work. However, he, along with such observers of fundagelicalism as Colby and Dennet, tends to conflate the language of “spiritual warfare” with physical militarism. There is, of course a significant stream within American fundamentalism who do conflate the two, but it is my sense from experience that the language of “spiritual warfare” is mostly used with reference to prayer against not primarily human enemies, but demonic powers who use human enemies as pawns. I think it is a mistake to see references to “spiritual warfare” as automatically militarist.

Sharlet also seems to view the Family’s opposition to Communism (and recently Islamism) and support for democracy and capitalism as merely reactionary, with the goal of maintaining existing hierarchies of power. I would tend to see both as more complex. First, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism was explicitly anti-Christian, so it would have been natural to oppose its economics along with its atheism. (Nowadays the opposition to Islamism is to an equally fundamentalist movement whose goal is likewise global theocracy; this could be seen as a natural evolutionary struggle over a niche.) As time passed, the manifest failure of Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China or North Korea to provide for the basic welfare of their citizens would have done nothing to persuade the Family of any benefit to Communism. Sharlet acknowledges the fact that there were in fact “honorable” Cold Warriors, convinced of the need to oppose the likes of Stalin or Pol Pot, even militarily if necessary. Presumably “honorable” opposition consists of a lack of religious motive, even if your enemies are explicitly anti-religious.

Second, I find Sharlet rather bemusing and unconvincing when he portrays the Family support for capitalism as motivated by the love of hierarchy, of a benevolent elite ruling over a subservient flock. This strikes me as far more characteristic of communism or socialism, where a wise elite who know better distribute society’s wealth to all. The Family ideal of divinely-inspired “servant leadership” seems to partake more of the capitalist “rags-to-riches” fairy tale, where a poor nobody is chosen by God to make lots and lots of money / run prayer meetings for the rich and powerful.

Sharlet also goes to considerable length to criticise the American habit of deposing democratically-elected leaders, without acknowledging that electing a Communist or other totalitarian is to choose to become undemocratic. This American tradition could be said to have started with Hitler.

Regardless of these minor issues of interpretation, which I suspect are the product of leftist reflexes rather than reflection, the picture Sharlet paints is otherwise convincing and disturbing.

The danger of the Family movement is two-fold: first, theocracy, especially in its peculiar anti-theological form, is dangerous ipso facto, simply in itself. Second, the romantic fascination with the redemption of the rich and powerful simply results in the Family’s members being easily and trivially duped by the worst kinds of tyrants and criminals.

C.S. Lewis said it best:

Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber barron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.¹

The Family’s peculiar perversion of Christianity makes it all the more dangerous. The essence of the Family’s theology is “Jesus plus Nothing” — that is, that a personal ecstatic experience of the presence of Jesus is all that is necessary to confirm that he (and I use the gendered pronoun deliberately) has been specially chosen by God as a leader, one of the elite of the spiritual and temporal world. Just as King David was called a man after God’s own heart despite his many sins and failures, one’s own sins and failures simply don’t matter if one has Jesus.

That this is a perversion of Christianity is obvious. King David’s story is one of repentance and consequences for sin. Christ came to the meek and lowly, constantly talked about caring for the poor and disadvantaged, and rebuked his disciples when they jostled for power. The essence of the Christian message is repentance for sin, turning away from wrong, and seeking to behave better, which in the words of the Apostle James, means “caring for widows and orphans”.

Reasonable people can debate over whether capitalism or socialism can result in better care for the poor, but when caring for the poor is at best a secondary consideration compared to the gaining of influence and power, you’ve missed the mark.

The pathetic aspect of the Family is that its fascination with the redemption of the rich and powerful leads to its members becoming willing dupes and suckers for any tyrant or oppressor who can talk the good talk. Growing up in a fundamentalist community that nevertheless had its feelers out in the wider world of politics and power, one experienced a frisson of vicarious power when a leader would “come to Jesus”. Neither prior nor subsequent behavior ever counted; murderous butchers like Liberia’s Samuel Doe or Kenya’s Daniel Arap Moi won unequivocal support and praise from the fundagelical community after once having wandered into a church service. I remember being profoundly uncomfortable while members of my church community assured Africans that apartheid South Africa was really a wonderful place to live for blacks and whites alike.

Again, this is a perversion of orthodox Christianity, which really rather suggests that one try to behave a bit more nicely after being converted.

So the litany of slaughter and oppression supported by the Family that Sharlet chronicles is all too explicable. Any tyrant who once attended a prayer breakfast in Washington would win unqualified support from Family members who could then gleefully add to their tally of the rich and powerful they had conquered for Jesus.

So where does this leave America and the world? I think that it was a good thing that the Soviet Union lost the Cold War, and I think that I would rather live in a relatively free West than in an Islamic theocracy. That these enemies have been convenient for the theocrats does not make them less dangerous. I continue to believe that the forcible democratization of Afghanistan and Iraq is better for their people and the rest of the world than the alternative — it worked in Germany and Japan, after all.

I guess I don’t quite think that America is in immediate danger of sliding into theocracy, but like Sharlet, I think that openness and transparency are essential to a democracy — which is of course the worst form of government, except for all the others — so I think that Sharlet has done Western democracy an invaluable service in exposing those who would mask their pride and power in the name of Christ.