The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (original 2008; edition 2009)

I wanted to finish this book, but I got too distracted with all of the fiction I want to read. Not the first time non-fiction has lost against fiction. I really enjoyed the first couple of chapters I read though! ( )

Revealing and extremely disturbing. ( )

An interesting if long-winded history of Christian fundamentalism in America and its current roots, and the origin of the National Prayer Breakfast.
( )

Several times while I was reading THE FAMILY, I wondered if Jeff Sharlet was paranoid. I've felt the increased influence of the Christian Fundamentalist movement on the United States but had never thought it was as wide-spread as he proclaimed, with active cells reaching into all three branches of government and influencing governments throughout the world. I decided to read the reviews of his book and found that many of the ones that were positive (and they were the majority) were written by people whose opinions I respect. Some of the negative ones, on the other hand, seem to have been composed by people so far to the right that I doubt if they even read the book or understood it if they did.
The Family is a group, basically started by a philosophy of an immigrant preacher from Norway in 1935. His idea was to gather a small group of powerful men sympathetic to fascism to bring those ideas into American government. Henry Ford was one of his followers. His (and later other group leaders) models were Hitler, Lenin, and Mao. It wasn't so much that they agreed with their actions but they liked the discipline they imposed and how they got their government and populations to do their bidding although he states that Hitler had a picture of Ford in his office and visa versa.
Giving themselves over to Jesus was their method and they, and their followers, even today, firmly believe the most important thing in their lives is to bring Jesus's message and actions to everyone everywhere.
The group was divided into small cells with each cell providing its members with support and reinforcement. They were interested in the elite, not the general population, though they did recruit a large number of families and offered programs to attract and maintaing their membership.
They are against government aid to people because they think that shows the recipients have forgotten that "God will provide" and expect to receive benefits from the government.
They were able to gain early success through their fight against communism. Some of their accomplishments to show we were better than the "Godless Communists" was to insert "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, placing "In God we Trust" on our coins, and instituting the National Prayer Breakfast in the halls of government in DC.
They began the home-schooling movement and provide many of the textbooks used by parents, textbooks that are skewed to present The Family's viewpoint.
They have established "faith-based" desks in many government departments.
The book names of the Presidents, Congressmen and Senators, and Supreme Court Justices, and top-level military leaders who were and are part of The Family. They supported governments throughout the world, sending US funding to them, that were ruled by some of the most ruthless murdering dictators of the twentieth century including General Suharto of Indonesia, General Costa e Silva of Brazil, Haile Selassie of Etheopia, and El Salvador. With the support of the US government, members of The Family were able get access to leaders throughout the world to try to get them to recognize the supremacy of Jesus.
After the fall of the USSR and the Berlin Wall, communism was no longer the major threat to the US. They decided the new one was sex and fought to prevent abortions and homosexuals. An example of their success was in Uganda where Congressman Joe Pitts got their government to write abstinence into their law. He redirected millions of dollars from effective sex-ed programs to programs stigmatizing condom use. College students had bonfirs to burn condoms. The result was the number of cases of AIDS, which had been the Africa's most successful country for reducing AIDS, nearly doubled. But since the country followed the evangelical playbook, it is considered a triumph the the American Family members who promoted it.
The followers of The Family truly believe they are doing Jesus's works and that they must get our government and people to follow their lead.
Since I am not an Evangelistic Christian and prefer following the dictates of my own religion, I found this book frightening. It reminded me of what they are afraid the Muslims are doing but don't see the comparison.
I gave this four stars because I think it would have been more effective (and an easier read) if he had cut back on the descriptions of many of the people mentioned. For instance, what difference does the shape of a man's fingers make?
I think it is an important book to help people understand the movement, its history, and how is has and will affect us all. ( )

An account of a fundamentalist Christian group called The Family, which is incredibly well-connected politically (they run the National Prayer Breakfast and appear to be the folks who added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and "in God we Trust" on our currency) and has an odd and sometimes difficult-to-fathom agenda. They seem to believe that Jesus supports the powerful and that their mission is to attain as much power as possible for the United States, but without any clear moral values except for those that appear to keep mainstream white males in power. I found the writing a bit hard to follow at times, and while the author did a fine job explaining who belonged to the group over the 20th century and provided some anecdotal information about specific moments where they intervened (and usually in a way I found upsetting--such as overthrowing the government of Guatemala in 1954), I found it difficult to determine exactly what this group is trying to do. They don't seem to follow the teachings of the New Testament as I've understood this book, but seem intent on calling power "Christian." I am guessing there are some very good magazine articles in here, but as a book, it was in need of a good editor. I had hoped to learn some things about a world view I find difficult to understand, but did not come away feeling particularly enlightened. ( )