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The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power Paperback – June 2, 2009
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“Of all the important studies of the American right, The Family is undoubtedly the most eloquent. It is also quite possibly the most terrifying.” — Thomas Frank, New York Times bestselling author of What's the Matter with Kansas?
They insist they're just a group of friends, yet they funnel millions of dollars through tax-free corporations. They claim to disdain politics, but congressmen of both parties describe them as the most influential religious organization in Washington. They say they're not Christians, but simply believers.
Behind the scenes at every National Prayer Breakfast since 1953 has been the Family, an elite network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. Their goal is "Jesus plus nothing." Their method is backroom diplomacy. The Family is the startling story of how their faith—part free-market fundamentalism, part imperial ambition—has come to be interwoven with the affairs of nations around the world.
- Print length464 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial
- Publication dateJune 2, 2009
- Dimensions7.97 x 5.38 x 1.13 inches
- ISBN-100060560053
- ISBN-13978-0060560058
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“One of the most compelling and brilliantly researched exposes you’ll ever read—just don’t read it alone at night!” — Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch
“Of all the important studies of the American right, THE FAMILY is undoubtedly the most eloquent. It is also quite possibly the most terrifying.” — Thomas Frank, New York Times bestselling author of What's the Matter with Kansas?
“An astounding entrée to a fascinating Christian network unknown to most Americans. . . . A must-read for any American who wants to know who is actually pulling the strings at the highest levels of power.” — Heidi Ewing, co-director Jesus Camp
“A gripping, utterly original narrative about an influential evangelical elite that few Americans even know exists. . . . The Christian Right will never look the same again.” — Michael Kazin, author of A Godly Hero: the Life of William Jennings Bryan and The Populist Persuasion: An American History
“[Sharlet] has managed to infiltrate the most influential and secretive fundamentalist network in America, and ground his reporting in the most astute and original explanation of fundamentalism I’ve ever read. . . . Indispensable.” — Hanna Rosin, former religion reporter for the Washington Post and author of God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save the Nation
“I was once an insider’s insider within fundamentalism. Unequivocally: Sharlet knows what he’s talking about. . . . Those who want to be un-deceived (and wildly entertained) must read this disturbing tour de force.” — Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy For God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back
“Un-American theocrats can only fool patriotic American democrats when there aren’t critics like Jeff Sharlet around―careful scholars and soulful writers who understand both the majesty of faith and the evil of its abuses. A remarkable accomplishment in the annals of writing about religion.” — Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
“Jeff Sharlet provides a fascinating account of how part of American Christianity has gone off on a dangerous tangent. It should worry everyone—maybe especially those of us who understand the Gospels to be a call to help the powerless, not prop up the powerful.” — Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and The Bill McKibben Reader
“Jeff Sharlet is one of the very best writers covering the politics of religion. Brilliantly reported and filled with wonderful anecdotes, THE FAMILY tells the story of an influential group that you haven’t previously heard of, and need to know about.” — Ken Silverstein, Washington editor of Harper’s and author of The Radioactive Boy Scout
“A brilliant marriage of investigative journalism and history, an unsettling story of how this small but powerful group shaped the faith of the nation in the 20th century and drives the politics of empire in the 21st. Anyone interested in circles of power will love this book.” — Debby Applegate, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
From the Inside Flap
They insist they are just a group of friends, yet they funnel millions of dollars through tax-free corporations. They claim to disdain politics, but congressmen of both parties describe them as the most influential religious organization in Washington. They say they are not Christians, but simply believers.
Behind the scenes at every National Prayer Breakfast since 1953 has been the Family, an elite network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. Their goal is Jesus plus nothing. Their method is backroom diplomacy. The Family is the startling story of how their faith--part free-market fundamentalism, part imperial ambition--has come to be interwoven with the affairs of nations around the world.
--Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy For God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It BackFrom the Back Cover
They insist they are just a group of friends, yet they funnel millions of dollars through tax-free corporations. They claim to disdain politics, but congressmen of both parties describe them as the most influential religious organization in Washington. They say they are not Christians, but simply believers.
Behind the scenes at every National Prayer Breakfast since 1953 has been the Family, an elite network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. Their goal is "Jesus plus nothing." Their method is backroom diplomacy. The Family is the startling story of how their faith—part free-market fundamentalism, part imperial ambition—has come to be interwoven with the affairs of nations around the world.
About the Author
Jeff Sharlet is a visiting research scholar at New York University's Center for Religion and Media. He is a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone, the coauthor, with Peter Manseau, of Killing the Buddha, and the editor of TheRevealer.org. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial (June 2, 2009)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 464 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0060560053
- ISBN-13 : 978-0060560058
- Item Weight : 12.3 ounces
- Dimensions : 7.97 x 5.38 x 1.13 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #71,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Jeff Sharlet is the New York Times and national bestselling author of THE FAMILY and C STREET, and executive producer of the 2019 Netflix five-part documentary series based on them, THE FAMILY. His newest book is THE UNDERTOW: Scenes from a Slow Civil War (W.W. Norton, March 2023). His other books include THIS BRILLIANT DARKNESS, SWEET HEAVEN WHEN I DIE, and RADIANT TRUTHS. With Peter Manseau he wrote KILLING THE BUDDHA and edited BELIEVER, BEWARE. Of SWEET HEAVEN WHEN I DIE, The Washington Post writes, "This book belongs in the tradition of long-form, narrative nonfiction best exemplified by Joan Didion, John McPhee [and] Norman Mailer… Sharlet deserves a place alongside such masters.” An article for GQ that became the beginning of THIS BRILLIANT DARKNESS won a National Magazine Award, and excerpts from C STREET were honored with the Molly Ivins Prize, the Thomas Jefferson Award, the Outspoken Award, and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association's prize for feature writing. Barbara Ehrenreich called THE FAMILY "one of the most compelling and brilliantly researched exposes you'll ever read."
Sharlet is the Frederick Sessions Beebe '35 Professor in the Art of Writing at Dartmouth College, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and editor-at-large for VQR. He has been a frequent commentator on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show," "All in With Chris," and NPR's "Fresh Air." He has received grants and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, the Blue Mountain Center, The Nation Institute, and other organizations. His writing on music has twice been featured in the annual BEST MUSIC WRITING volume.
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The Family believes that God has chosen the wealthy as favored, and that Jesus has a special message reserved for the powerful alone. Because of the success of the wealthy elite, they are the only ones who can be entrusted to run the world for God. Because of this divine edict, the elite are to be followed without question. This is the social order that the Fundamentalist and Evangelical faiths are striving to create. If you are not a servant, you are a rebel to be crushed. The faith of the Family believes that disobedience causes poverty, and even goes as far as to believe that the poor spiritually unfit to vote.
To achieve the aims of building their empire, the Family utilizes its power political and corporate contacts to entrench themselves in the highest levels of society. The Family has crafted a Fundamentalist organization based on previous efforts deemed as successful. The Nazi party's organization is greatly heralded. Stalin is envied for his ability to grip power so securely. Indeed, the Family structures itself into `cells', in an effort to capture the essence of the Communist spread across the world. The Family sees no harm in emulating the tactics of dictators. After all, it was God's design will that placed these men in power. This is also the reasoning on why the Family has chosen to engage with the likes of mass murders such as Pinochet, Suharto, and countless other despots. An example of this flawed logic; Abraham Vereide, founder of the Family, befriended the Lutheran pastor named Gustav Gedat. Gedat was a Nazi who was prosecuted by Germany in WWII for not believing that the Aryans were a master race. Gedat's argument was simple, he did not believe in a master race... just in a master class chosen by God to rule the rest of the world. This is the ideology the Family follows.
This is the Family's dream for the world. Complete dominance by the power elite. Using propaganda and vast sums of unending corporate money, the Family has crafted a Fundamentalist and Evangelical base of some size. The followers are brainwashed in an ideology that reinforces submission and obedience to the few. This base believes that the divine give righteousness to their cause, and will rise against all opposition. The Fundamentalist sect are managed by the power elite in a manner that keeps them ignorant of the realities of the world, through homeschooling and texts that edit out all but the truth the Family chooses. According to the Family, this is the natural order for the world. This is a unique form of fascism; for fascism is something the family admires as well. The realities of the world are of no concern to the power elite, because they will be the ones who suffer least in the world they are attempting to create. This is not a conspiracy; this is a glimpse of the future. And sadly, it is a glimpse of our past.
Whoever is in power will write tomorrow's history. This is a fact we must accept. Seeing the world without illusion is the only way one can hope to overcome tyrannies like this. Sadly, those who have written the history of these people have sanitized the facts, as they always must. This leads the author to jump between facts, which lost me at times. Within three pages, one could have bounced from many a topic. I assumed this was due to the lack of research material, but the result is one having to wonder what skew was placed on the topic. This will give ammunition to those who disagree, either by design or indoctrination. This is the primary weakness of this work. These people and their followers will assail any who oppose, and they have the virtue of writing history going for them.
Sharlet begins this history of American fundamentalism with the revivalist preacher Jonathan Edwards and the 1st Great Awakening sweeping through the frontiers of the Massachuttes colony in the 1730s. Sharlet paints a grim tableau where Edwards coldly hoovers over the bed of an emaciated young devotee literally starving for her god's sustenance as he clinically studies the evitable outcome as a manifestation of his god's will. Sharlet returns to these two personalities repeatedly throughout the book and uses this as the epitome of the godly interpreting Romans 13 as justification for a host of villainy to further the Family's aims.
The Family, also known as the Fellowship, owes its foundation to Abraham "Abram" Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant and Methodist preacher, who drifted across America until ending up in Seattle as the Great Depression wore on. Here, amid the tumultuous struggles between labor and capital, he started realizing his vision by abandoning any pretext of Good Works, administering to the sick and needy, and concentrating salvation exclusively on the rich and powerful. Suppression of strikes became his primary perseveration during WWII, quietly grooming Robert Taft to pass the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 as a move to restore the primacy of capital. The godlessness of communism was the next bogeyman for the Family to pour all efforts and wiles against. Emulating the enemy, the Family organized itself into nondenominational prayer cells to combat the machinations of the enemy, that is funnel bibles, guns and money to brutal dictators who worshipped capital and mercilessly hated needy dissenters within and without their borders. But what does the Family do once the communist threat of the Soviet Union collapses under its own weight? How about a nice marriage, of course! The divorce of the 1st Amendment and finally the happy union of church and state...
Sharlet goes to some lengths to portray fundamentalist Christians not as weird fringe dwellers but as mainstream power players, and implores the reader not to dismiss them out of hand. This book is not so much a plan of action to repel the fundamentalist push, but more a clarion call to become aware and wary of this still potent movement.
About the book: I read the first edition HarperCollins octavo hardback with paper boards and a thick, glossy dust jacket. The front board carries the publisher's imprint. Many pages had a slight but annoying blotchy discoloration sprinkled across them. There are 37 pages of notes and an index. I referred to the notes throughout my reading as they provide not only sources but anecdotal and further illumination of the subject. I read the hell outta this book and it held together nicely.
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Thus we have allowed religion to claim as its exclusive dominion areas of experience which should rightly belong to all mankind –and which we should feel unembarrassed about reappropriating for the secular realm. Early Christianity was itself highly adept at appropriating the good ideas of others, aggressively subsuming countless pagan practices which modern atheists now tend to avoid in the mistaken belief that they are indelibly Christian.
The challenge facing a sceptical based culture is how to reverse the process of religious colonization: how to separate ideas and rituals from the religious institutions which have laid claim to them but don’t truly own them.
In the words of the great Orwell, those who control the past control the future, and those who control the present control the past
Be patient with the author, but this is a MUST READ!












