C Street Scandal, the Media, the Future of the Family: An Interview with Jeff Sharlet

[Shallah Kali]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/1867/c_street_scandal,_the_media,_the_future_of_the_family:_an_interview_with_jeff_sharlet?page=entire

In this exclusive Religion Dispatches interview, Jeff Sharlet, author of 2008’s The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, talks about The Family and its summer of scandal, the organization’s tarnished present and future possibilities, and why the mainstream media had such a difficult time dealing with the group’s unusual political/religious beliefs.

First off, tell us three critical things we should know about The Family?

Jeff Sharlet: The Family is the oldest and arguably most influential religious conservative organization in Washington, a “brotherhood” comprised mostly of politicians such as Senator Jim Inhofe, Senator Tom Coburn, Senator Sam Brownback, Senator Jim DeMint, and, now infamously, Senator John Ensign, Governor Mark Sanford, and former congressman Chip Pickering, all of whom turned to The Family to help cover up sex scandals this past summer. The reason you may not have heard about the group is that it doesn’t want you to hear about it—“the more invisible you can make your organization,” preaches leader Doug Coe, “the more influence it will have.” They’re not the only group in Washington that keeps a low profile, but it’s the nature of their influence that’s really noteworthy: some congressmen call it simply personal and thus private, but nearly 600 boxes of documents stored at the Billy Graham Center Archive reveals decades of intense political work around foreign and economic affairs.

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The bad news is that this is a very, very hard story for mainstream media to handle for the following reasons: 1. It’s weird, and contrary to conventional wisdom, and most reporters shy away from the strange; 2. It’s intellectually challenging, since to understand what’s going on one has to not only follow the money but also the ideas that make the Family different than other movements; 3. The press is religiously illiterate; 4. The Family doesn’t operate along traditional partisan lines, the only schematic of power a lot of political reporters are trained to understand.

Here’s one more possibility: most reporters are not only religiously illiterate, they’re Constitutionally confused. That is, they revere the First Amendment, but they don’t bother to think too deeply about the delicate balance between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Respecting a politician’s freedom of religion doesn’t mean ignoring his religion—it means asking smart, sometimes tough questions about its role in his political life.

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The Family would say that it doesn’t do policy, and in the strictest sense, that’s correct. For years, the confidential memos the Family prepared for members of Congress involved with the group emphasized that the “prayer cells” were not to take action as prayer cells. Rather, boilerplate at the top of every memo read, action should grow out of the relationships formed there. Which is to say, the Family provides a “worldview,” fundamentalism re-tooled for the needs of power, and the relationships. What you do next is up to you. That said, the Family does not connect with “people’s day-to-day concerns”; they don’t care much about the public. But in terms of worldview and action and relationships: “biblical capitalism,” laissez-faire, guides the general view of health care (see, for instance, the work of Senator Chuck Grassley and Senator Mike Enzi, two Family men involved in scuttling health care) and the economic crisis (three of the four senators who’ve voted against all five appropriations bills actually live at C Street: DeMint, Coburn, and Ensign). Afghanistan is a trickier issue. In general, the Family has always fallen on the side of hawkishness and expansionism; but I think some of the wise men of the group see the practical folly of Afghanistan. It’s hard to miss.

Read the rest at http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/1867/c_street_scandal,_the_media,_the_future_of_the_family:_an_interview_with_jeff_sharlet?page=entire

[dmr]

1. Good article.

I've got Sharlet's book, but haven't had time to read it. Right now I'm reading 'Crazy For God' by Frank Schaeffer.

I'm really trying to find understanding as to who and what moves these people.

They are an inconsistent lot (inconsiderate at times, too).

Edit: spelling

[starroute]

2. Is the Family why Jim DeMint is going to Honduras?

I've certainly picked up hints of them being involved in right-wing Latin American politics. Nothing that I've been able to pin down, but I've got a strong suspicion that DeMint's strangely intensive fondness for the Honduran coup is part of it.

[KoKo]

3. K&R! I'm glad to see a REDUX of this. New stuff after the story went off to neverland.