Is Hillary Rodham Clinton a Member of The Family?

Just Google Hillary and The Family, and there is obviously a connection between them. But how much so? Is she what they refer to as "a Friend of the Family" or is she a member? And if she's a member, what "cell" is she in?

The following articles make for interesting reading:

• WHAT JOHN ENSIGN, HILLARY CLINTON & THE HONDURAN RIGHT WING HAVE IN COMMON

• Connection between Hillary Clinton and The Fellowship, The Fellowship Foundation, and The International Foundation

• Hilary's Nasty Pastorate Problem
  

• Doug Coe, the Fellowship, Hillary Clinton and Why You Should Care

And be sure to watch this:

C Street Just One Among Many of The Family's Lairs

C Street is not the only "house" operated by member of The Family. Ivanwald is another lair. Just found this... please read. It's very illuminating.

The Ivanwald - Secrets of a powerful Family

Various information on the “IVANWALD”… …..through 2008 Republicans & Democrats – even Hillary Clinton…. They’re the people behind the National Prayer Breakfast in the USA. Tony Blair: World Needs More Religion Via: Independent: February 6th, 2009 Tony Blair gave an extraordinary speech about the global importance of religion yesterday, telling an audience which included the newly-inaugurated President, Barack Obama, that faith should be restored “to its rightful place, as the guide to our world and its future.” The former prime minister also said he believed the 21st century would be “poorer in spirit” and “meaner in ambition” if it was not “under the guardianship of faith in God.” He had been invited by President Obama to lead the prestigious US National Prayer Breakfast, a spectacular event in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel. Mr Blair also managed to rain on Gordon Brown’s parade, meeting the President before any European leader. He dashed ahead of the Prime Minister and other political heavyweights, including Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Vladimir Putin, to lay on the hands and tell the President: “It is fitting at this extraordinary moment in your country’s history that we hear that call to action; and we pray that in acting we do God’s work and follow God’s will.” [end snip] MORE INFORMATION ON IVANWALD BELOW IVANWALD "Ivanwald, which sits at the end of Twenty-fourth Street North in Arlington, Virginia, is known only to its residents and to the members and friends of the organization that sponsors it, a group of believers who refer to themselves as “the Family.” The Family is, in its own words, an “invisible” association, though its membership has always consisted mostly of public men. Senators Don Nickles (R., Okla.), Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.), John Ensign (R., Nev.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), and Conrad Burns (R., Mont.) are referred to as “members,” as are Representatives Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Frank Wolf (R., Va.), Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.), Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.), and Bart Stupak (D., Mich.). Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family maintains a closely guarded database of its associates, but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities." Worse Than Fascists: Christian Political Group 'The Family' Openly Reveres Hitler Did you know that the National Prayer Breakfast is sponsored by a shadowy cabal of elite Christian fundamentalists? Jeff Sharlet's new book, "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power," offers a rare glimpse of this remarkable network, which is known variously as the Family, the Fellowship and the International Foundation. The Family was founded 70 years ago by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant evangelist based in Seattle. In 1935, Vereide said, God appeared to him in a vision and revealed where Christianity had gone wrong: preoccupation with the poor, the weak and the suffering. The down-and-out were in no position to bring about the Kingdom of God, Vereide realized. Some Christians believe that the rapture is imminent, but not the Family. They're convinced that Jesus won't return until we get our collective house in order. If they were to wait for the down-and-out to remake the world in God's image, we could be here forever. Besides, in Seattle in the 1930s, union agitators were making a play for the down-and-out. Christianity promised rewards in the hereafter, but workers in the Pacific Northwest were starting to wonder why they had to wait so long. Instead of competing for market share with the Industrial Workers of the World, Vereide sought a different niche. His new plan was to target men who were already powerful and turn them to God -- and wouldn't you know it, God hated unions, too. Through personal relationships and small group encounters, Vereide united captains of industry and politicians as a Biblical bulwark against the increasing power of organized labor. In the late 1940s, the Family helped roll back key pro-labor provisions of the New Deal. Later, the Family did its part for the Cold War by cultivating anti-communist strongmen around the world, including repressive leaders like Suharto of Indonesia and Jonas Savimbi of Angola. The roster of current and former Family members includes senators, congressmen, Fortune 500 CEOs, generals and at least one Supreme Court justice. The Family does not publish membership lists, and its members are sworn to secrecy, so a full accounting is impossible. Sen. Hillary Clinton has been involved with the Family since 1993 when, as first lady, she joined a White House prayer circle for political wives. Clinton has also sought spiritual counseling from the current head of the Family, Doug Coe. Sharlet argues that Clinton's longtime association with the Family has helped her forge working relationships with powerful religious conservatives such as Family member and anti-abortion crusader Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas. The Family nurtures the next generation of prayer warriors in suburban dormitories. Sharlet spent nearly a month living at Ivanwald, a dormitory in Virginia where sons of the Family are sent to immerse themselves in Jesus and clean the toilets of congressmen and senators. The Family also runs a house on C Street in Washington, D.C. The C Street Center has housed a number of federal legislators, including Sen. John Ensign of Nevada. Residents allege that the center is just a cheap place to live, but as an Ivanwald brother, Sharlet saw firsthand that the center is a religious community. As far as the IRS is concerned, the C Street Center is a church. Members will tell you that the Family is just a group of friends. As Sharlet discovered, 600 boxes of documents at the Billy Graham Center Archives tell a different story. AlterNet writer Lindsay Beyerstein recently sat down with Jeff Sharlet at a Brooklyn coffee shop to discuss the Family. Lindsay Beyerstein What is the Family? Jeff Sharlet: It's an international network of evangelical activists in government, military and business. The Family is dedicated to this idea that Christianity has gotten it all wrong for two thousand years by focusing on the poor, the suffering and the weak. The Family says that instead, what Christians should do is minister to the upand-out -- as opposed to the down-and-out -- to those that are already powerful. Because if they can win those people for Christ, they win the whole deal. That's what this network is dedicated to. It includes nonprofit organizations, it includes think tanks, it includes various ministries. Lindsay Beyerstein: Where did they get the idea that they should be ministering to the up-and-out? There doesn't seem to be a lot basis in Christianity for that view. Jeff Sharlet: Two places. The founder of the Family, Abraham Vereide, would describe it as his "new revelation" that came to him in the middle of the night, very literally: in a vision from God in 1935 in response to the Great Depression and, more particularly, to a series of very successful labor strikes that he saw as challenging God's sovereignty. So, God comes and gives him this new revelation to say, "This is what I really meant …" Early on, Vereide and the Family weren't actually talking about scripture, but as time went on they began invoking more and more a particular verse of Paul's Letter to the Romans, which is popular among fundamentalists, Romans:13: "The Powers that Be are Ordained of God." And it goes on to say that if you resist those powers, you're in a lot of trouble. Interpreted literally, this is the key text in authoritarian Christianity. So, that's where they're getting it. Lindsay Beyerstein: In "The Family," a lot of subjects explicitly state their admiration for Hitler and other authoritarian political figures. How much of that is admiring their style, and how much is admiring their substance? Jeff Sharlet: I'd argue that there isn't a hell of a lot of difference. I spent a lot of time living with these guys, and I remember at one point asking them, "What's the deal with all this Hitler talk?" And they'd say, "Oh, it's not the ends, it's the means." But to most of us, the means seem pretty bad, too. The means are authoritarianism. It's pretty close to the substance because it grows out of this very broad movement in the 1930s of elites concluding that democracy has run its course, that democracy was a temporary phase in world history. And so, these people were experimenting with all sorts of different alternatives. And remember, before World War II it was considered a perfectly legitimate and acceptable position to endorse fascism. Lindsay Beyerstein: When I read the book, I found myself thinking about Umberto Eco's essay, "Eternal Fascism," which provides a kind of checklist of the essential characteristics of fascism. How many of those criteria does the Family meet? Jeff Sharlet:The book I find helpful as a succinct guide to fascism is a book by historian Robert Paxton. He'll boil it down into five principles or ten principles. The Family's always hovering around 80 percent, but never all the way. And that's an important distinction to make. I think many progressives want to reduce everything bad to fascism. There's more than one kind of bad under the sun. One of the arguments in this book is that these guys aren't fascists; they're ultimately something worse. They're not fascists because they don't explicitly revere violence. Lots of violence occurs through various dimensions, but in fascism, violence is thought to have redemptive power. Lindsay Beyerstein: So, they don't literally believe in physical conflict when they describe themselves as warriors for Christ? Jeff Sharlet: Oh, no. (They think) that's fine, but they don't love violence the way that fascism did. Their leader, Doug Coe, says that the Bible is filled with mass murderers. And it is. The difference is that European fascism was based on this idea that you can only become truly human through violence. The Family will say, oh no, we're pursuing peace. Hitler wasn't pursuing peace. The goal was this constant redemptive violence. The other thing is they differ in the strictness of their nationalism. The Family is an American ideology, and it has a lot of American ideology involved, but still it was founded by a Norwegian immigrant. It's more pluralist than European fascism that was about cleansing the blood. The Family is an imperial ideology, which is why I think it's ultimately worse than fascism. Since the Second World War, fascism hasn't been a very powerful ideology, but imperialism has. Lindsay Beyerstein: What kind of empire do they envision? Jeff Sharlet: They envision the empire that we have. Doug Coe says, "We work with power where we can and build new power where we can't." Usually they can work within power. Rob Shank, another Christian right activist in Washington, says, "The Family is into living with what is." In the immediate postwar era, they were talking about Christian D-Day and Washington as the world's Christian capital. And World War Three, they were very excited about that, all full-steam ahead. But they sort of subsided and were subsumed into the American Cold War project, which ended up becoming an imperial project. Lindsay Beyerstein: What did the Family have to do with a B-movie called "The Blob"? Jeff Sharlet: The best illustration of the Family's involvement in the Cold War was something that I stumbled on by accident: The 1958 film "The Blob." It began at the 1957 National Prayer Breakfast. "The Blob" was a famous horror movie that was a metaphor for Communism. This is their imagination of how Communism spread. At the time, the American imagination couldn't grasp ideology, so it had to be an actual goo that globs more and more people and grows and becomes expansive. As I recall, they have to blow up the town at the end. The logic of "The Blob" is that we must destroy the village in order to save it. That's the logic of Vietnam. The project actually began at the National Prayer Breakfast. This filmmaker who had been making fundamentalist films, Irvin "Shorty" Yeaworth, was on the lookout for someone to make this film. (The writer) Kate Phillips was a B-movie sci-fi actress. Not a Christian Right person; (she was) there as a guest of a friend of hers. She's there at the breakfast and they become friends. They end up making this movie. "The Blob" was paralleled with this other movie. This other movie that comes out of the Prayer Breakfast is "Militant Liberty." John Groger, on Family payroll and on the Pentagon payroll, he was obsessed with making these kooky films that were almost too weird for the Pentagon, like "Operation Abolition," because it was so trippy and so bent on blaming the spread of Communism on Japanese youth culture. Lindsay Beyerstein: On Japanese youth culture? Jeff Sharlet: Don't forget, there was a pretty powerful Japanese communist movement after the Second World War. Japan would have been a communist country had it not been for us buying their political system wholesale. So, that's "The Blob." The whole approach represents their understanding of Communism and the way America responded. Tim Weiner, in "Legacy of Ashes," has a devastating critique. The real issue is incompetence -- they never understood who they were fighting. You might say, "Hey, I'm down with anticommunism" -- but they were always bent on fighting with these crazy schemes and networks. That's not the way to combat Stalinism, which is an evil ideology. It's just as true now, when I look at what the Family does today in the Central Asian Republic. The 1999 Silk Road Strategy Act, sponsored by Sam Brownback, and Rep. Joe Pitts renewed it in 2006. Combat militant Islam in Central Asia by pouring American aid into dictatorial regimes. This same kind of top-down aid. Thugs have always understood that they could use the Family. … When you see Suharto getting down on his knees and praying to Jesus with members of the Family -- he's Muslim, technically, but he's not even really that; he's a dictator. Lindsay Beyerstein: Sort of like Daniel Plainview in the movie "There Will Be Blood"? (Plainview is the cynical oil man who makes a big show of converting to Christianity at a revival meeting to consolidate his power in town.) Jeff Sharlet: Daniel Plainview had more integrity. That's a nice comparison, I hadn't thought of that. Some of these central Asian dictators are not drinking the Kool-Aid. (At some level, the Family understands.) One member says that he'd rather let in a few wolves then keep out one sheep. I just want to know: When is the sheep getting here? Because all they've got are wolves. The more interesting analysis is to view it not as cynicism but as a logical outcome of a theology that reveres power. This is not their system not working; it's their system working. Lindsay Beyerstein: Does this attitude have to do with the Family's unusual theology? In the book you say that they teach a kind of ultrasubjectivism, stripping away all history, doctrine, institutions and all rituals until "religion" is just what pops into your head. Jeff Sharlet: This is very important. It's a seductive idea for many on the left as well. These attitudes go back to 1930s. It was part of the feeling that democracy had run its course. Whenever you strip away history, you are stripping away accountability. The irony is that sometimes people on the left make the same kind of noises, like, "We're not going to get all caught up in institutions and religions" -- leaving aside the history of that rhetoric in anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism. Whenever you strip away history, you are stripping away things you wish you hadn't done, and accountability for that. When people say that "we're not going to get all caught up in the law and the rules," they mean anti-Semitism. They may not know they mean that that's the history of it. Lindsay Beyerstein: They think it's bad even to know about history? Jeff Sharlet: They just don't care. One of the ironies of this book is that now they're in my debt. I know more about the history of their movement than they do. (That's why they were so casual about what ended up in the Family's records at the Billy Graham archives.) It didn't even occur to them that anyone would find anything wrong there, including various government documents that shouldn't have been there. Lindsay Beyerstein: There's a story in the book that says a lot about how the Family operates, the one about the South African secrecy memo … Jeff Sharlet: My favorite document in the entire archives. This was, I think, sometime in the '80s, the Family was very involved in South Africa supporting a right-wing black movement lead by Mangosuthu Buthelezi. They were part of a group of white South Africans cultivating him. A Family operative wrote a letter to a colleague saying, "You've got to be very careful, those outside we don't understand. That's why we do things through networks and friendships and travel around. Never put anything too specific on paper." The guy wrote back: "I understand, I've made copies of this for all my co-workers." I don't know whether he was passive aggressive, or just dumb as a brick. Lindsay Beyerstein: In the book you say that the Family treats powerful women like Hillary Clinton as if they belonged to a kind of "third gender" that's female but not subordinate like ordinary women … Jeff Sharlet: When I was at Ivanwald, I'd see these young women as servants. They came from wealthy families. They were women who have a lot of privileges in life. You'd have expected to have gone on to great things because they started with a big push [LB Note: But the Family had them scrubbing floors and serving coffee.] Then a woman political leader would come around and it would be a whole different story. There are wives like Grace Nelson, wife of conservative Democrat Bill Nelson. Bill was an astronaut -- still has a spacesuit. He still wears it for occasions. Lindsay Beyerstein: The suit still fits? Jeff Sharlet: He's quite trim, I'll give him that. But Grace is obviously the political mover and shaker in that couple. She served on board of the Fellowship Foundation. Still, she's just the wife, secondary. Same with Joanne Kemp. Jack Kemp is a pretty aggressive leader, but it was Joanne who brought Christian ideas to Washington to start the Schaeffer Foundation nonprofit for the study of these ideas. Two ways third gender works in the Family: There are these very strong wives who oftentimes are very strong-willed people. I'm just reading Katherine Joyce's book on Quiverfull … And the other are women like Hillary Clinton, who's just a man as far as they're concerned. Lindsay Beyerstein: What's Hillary's involvement with the Family? What is she getting out of it? Jeff Sharlet: As I was researching the book, I knew Hillary had this strange connection. I didn't think much of it until I was reporting on Sen. Sam Brownback. Everyone knew I was a reporter from "Rolling Stone," probably more liberal than they were. So, a way that a lot of Family people would reach out to be friendly was to tell me that Hillary Clinton was OK with them. They'd tell me that HRC was going for regular spiritual counseling with Doug Coe. Lindsay Beyerstein: Is she still getting counseling from him? Jeff Sharlet: This was in 2005, and she refused to say anything about this. When NBC questioned her about this, her only answer was that (she's) not a member and (she) has never given Doug Coe money -- which was a strangely parsed kind of answer. Lindsay Beyerstein: The Family has some strange ideas about what it means to be chosen by God. Tell me about the incident in the book when Doug Coe's son, David Coe, dropped by Ivanwald to give the brothers instruction on chosenness. Jeff Sharlet: David Coe used to be the heir apparent in the Family. He's still involved in ministry to congressmen, and at the time he was also meeting with Hillary. He'd come around to talk to the young guys at Ivanwald to talk about his vision of Biblical leadership. One day he says to brother Beau: "Suppose I heard you'd raped three little girls, what would I think of you?" Beau, being a human being, says, "That I'm pretty bad?" But David Coe says: "No, no, I wouldn't. Because you're chosen … like King David." Lindsay Beyerstein: Does the Family have a different perspective on sexual morality than mainstream fundamentalism? Jeff Sharlet: In one sense, their sexual morality is a very restrictive, traditional, fundamentalist morality. Yet one of their major influences was Frank Buchman of Moral Re-Armament in the 1930s. He was all but "out" as gay. But he was also one of the early architects of anti-gay invective on the Christian right. He even wrote a pamphlet on how to spot gay men: their green shoes and their affection for suede. Lindsay Beyerstein: Explicit sexual confession in small groups is a big deal in the Family, right? Jeff Sharlet: Yes. I started paying attention when I visited Westmont College, a major recruiting base for the Family. Some of the professors are very concerned about the focus on small group sex confessions: Parents are spending $80,000 to send their kids to college, and they go off to become a driver for Doug Coe. Then they tell their parents that they sat in a circle and talked about masturbation. Of course, they don't do that sort of thing at the weekly prayer meeting in the Senate. Sam Brownback told me, there are two functions of sexual confession: You confess, and they help you. You say, "My girlfriend and I almost held hands the other day." And they say "Don't do it, brother!" It's also a way of creating a bond in the group: If I have had gay thoughts and I tell the group, then they have something on me. And if you say you've cheated on your wife, they have something on you. Lindsay Beyerstein: Kind of a mutually assured destruction? Jeff Sharlet: Yeah. Lindsay Beyerstein: An interesting paradox comes through in the book. The Family is both revolutionary and elitist. They see themselves as warriors fighting to remake the world, but really they are the establishment. Jeff Sharlet: All that revolutionary rhetoric serves a very status quo version of the world. The real threat of the right is not what they're going to do, but what they've done. You have to consider what happens in America, which is part of the empire, versus what happens in the rest of the world. Here, they think things should stay as they are. Like rolling back FDR's New Deal. FDR came along and said, "Let's change things." The Family said no. Lindsay Beyerstein: So, you have to consider what happens in America, which is part of the empire, versus what happens in the rest of the world. Jeff Sharlet: All that revolutionary rhetoric serves a very status quo version of the world. The real threat of the right is not what they're going to do, but what they've done. You have to consider what happens in America, which is part of the empire, versus what happens in the rest of the world. Here, they think things should stay as they are. Like rolling back FDR's New Deal. FDR came along and said, "Let's change things." The Family said no. Abroad, Suharto was supporting very violent revolution that reasserted hierarchical control. People had gotten out from under colonial yoke; if they go democratic, they might choose socialism or whatever. But Suharto came along and reasserted the hierarchy. Lindsay Beyerstein: So, the Family loves the revolutionary rhetoric, but they're really about keeping things the way they are? Jeff Sharlet: It's about the co-optation of cool by Madison Avenue. Counterculture is cool, and it's the bestselling tool ever. Capitalism has always had this understanding that we could use this counterculture rhetoric (as an alternative to communist rhetoric). In the 1950s, Eisenhower recognized that the rhetoric of communism was much more appealing to the average person than rhetoric of capitalism. "Everyone's going to share" is more appealing than "If you're lucky, you'll make a living, and if you're not lucky, it's your own damned fault and you'll suffer." So, the government in a big way turns toward the Religious Right to market capitalism. It flopped. So, they tried spreading people's capitalism by focusing on the love part. The right understood that in a way that the left doesn't. A left that organizes itself solely in a reactionary way is missing something. You can't just say: "Look, another corrupt Bush official!" No. What's needed is a much more joyful politics. [end] Q&A with Jeffrey Sharlet The writer who infilitrated a secret, power-brokering fundamentalist Christian group on his Harper's piece and the 'Brothers' By Leslie Synn – March 21, 2003 It seems like the premise for an awful B-movie thriller. A secretive religion organization calls itself "the Family;" it organizes members into cells and frequently expresses admiration for the management techniques of Hitler, Lenin, and the Cosa Nostra. The Family has massive real-estate and corporate holdings, its members include important business leaders, prominent members of the U.S. Congress and executive branch, and other government leaders from around the world—some of them not the nicest folks in the world. It regularly recruits up-and-comers to become members of the Family early in their careers. Former Attorney General Edwin Meese often leads prayer breakfasts in one of the Family's communal houses, in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. In 2002, Jeffrey Sharlet, an award-winning reporter and writer on religion, infiltrated the Family and spent weeks living in one of its houses with other young "brothers." Unlike in that late-night cable movie, he didn't uncover a drug-running operation or have to fight his way out of a booby-trapped headquarters. But he learned how the Family operates, what its members believe, and some of the important and powerful who are associated with the intentionally shadowy group. His 12-page expose appeared in the March issue of Harper's, and he recently spoke to mediabistro.com about the Family, his experience there, and his article. (Sharlet is the editor and co-founder of Killing the Buddha, an online magazine about religion, and the co-author of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible, which will be published next year by the Free Press.) How did you find this story? It kind of found of me. I had a brother of a friend come up to me after September 11, and he was living at Ivanwald [the Family's home for young members] at the time. I don't want to name him. He and I met with each other, and he knew I wrote about religion, and he told me about Ivanwald, and I said, "Well, I'm not a fundamentalist Christian so I don't think that I would be interested in it." He said, "Oh no, it's not for fundamentalists at all. It's totally open and you should go and check it out." So I did really go just to see what it was about. Only as time went on, did I realize that it was something different, and in that way the story found me. I didn't go in there thinking that I was going to write some big political piece; I didn't even know they were involved in politics when I went. And even when I was there and saw how involved they were and heard their strange political theology, it wasn't until I left and came upon their archives that I realized just how deep the connections were. How did you get into the Family? The only way you get in is basically through recommendations. This guy recommended me, and I should emphasize that that part was not undercover. I wanted to go and check it out, and he thought I would benefit from it and thought I was a good guy and recommended me. So I went down there, spent a day working with the guys and talking with them, and then I was taken to an interview with this lawyer and I didn't hide anything. He asked me, "Are you a journalist?" and I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Well, what do you write about?" and I said, "Well, whatever comes along." In some ways they didn't some questions so I didn't have to answer them. If they had asked, "Do you support fundamentalist theocracy," I would have said no. Would there be consequences for your friend who recommended you, if he was to be named? I don't know, but I can tell you that ever since the article has come out, a lot of people have gotten in touch with me. Some former residents of Ivanwald, who will only speak anonymously because they're afraid of retaliation. Some have already experienced retaliation, people who are still working in this world. There's a whole range of corporations associate with the Family, and you might be working for this guy who's a part of it, and he hears that you've been causing trouble and so takes action. I've received an email saying that I would be dealt with as a traitor, vaguely threatening letters. Other people have gotten in contact with me hiding the fact that they were involved with the Family. And that's why I don't want to mention my friend. They could probably figure out if they tried. But that friend was also sincerely recommending it to me. It's very easy to be at Ivanwald and not know the full scope of what's going on, and I don't want to implicate him in that. And how did you discover the larger scope of what is going on? Weren't they suspicious of your presence? I didn't hide the fact that I was Jewish. I'm Jewish, and I'm interested in Jesus. They didn't know what to make of me or do with me: "He's Jewish, he's from New York, he's a writer, and he's not very good at basketball." And then one day they had this ritual where they trick you and another guy to get down on the floor and lie on your belly to arm-wrestle, and you're arm-wrestling to prove your manhood. And you start to do it, and they all jump on you and start beating you. It's called a "Fumble". So there's 15 people beating and hitting me, and by this time I had already been there a couple of weeks and thought this place was weird. When this beating happened, I just hit back with full force because I was really scared. And they liked that, they liked the fact that I hit back. That was their idea of manliness, so after that I was okay, despite the fact that I was a Jew from New York who wrote. I started running into all these political figures there and hearing about how all these political negotiations had occurred at The Cedars, their private mansion headquarters. I was shown a video about the island of Fiji and their leader. And you can say, well, who cares about Fiji? Well, this is how they work, small country by small country. Fiji now is a theocracy. And they take credit for that. And I thought, this is quite messed up. I started asking questions, and started writing a journal of what was going on and looking around. They talk about Hitler all the time, and I asked what the deal was with that, and they said, "Oh no, it's just his leadership skills that we like." When I left, I discovered their archives and there's seventy years of the Family making friends with the world's worst and nastiest of world leaders. Was there a point where you decided that you were going to publicly write about this, and stopped asking questions that would make them doubt your agenda? I went there for personal reasons, but at that time I was already working on the book Killing the Buddha. But I knew this wasn't really for the book, but it's the kind of thing I do. I went because I thought it was interesting, for the same reason I would visit a mosque or live with a cult commune. I was open with questions at first, but as time went on, I definitely became more cautious. After a week and a half there, we were told that we were under a lockdown because an L.A. Times reporter came down to this cul-de-sac and they were very upset and they had special prayer sessions to pray against "the evil of journalists." They knew I was a journalist, but there was also this weird lack of curiosity. No one ever asked me what I had written before, and I would have gladly told them if they had. It's sort of like they've been hiding in plain sight for so long without anyone asking too many questions and the political figures are never followed up on. For instance, while I was doing my research I found profiles of National Prayer Breakfast figures like John Ashcroft, and Ashcroft has been involved since 1981. No one's bothered to find out whether the National Prayer Breakfast and its weekly prayer meetings were part of a larger organization. And I don't think Ashcroft has ever had to lie about it, because I don't think anyone's ever asked him. But what's wrong with prayer meetings? At what point do lines get crossed? Finding out more and more about the group and its subtleties—it's sort of like peeling an onion. And that's what is so disingenuous about denying that the group even exists or denying the term "Family." Because when I was there, the distinctions were clearly made. There were people who were referred to as "Friends of the Family" and people as "Members of the Family". And there are further levels. Certainly going to the National Prayer Breakfast doesn't mean anything. And at the same time you could be going to prayer groups once a week with congressmen and it's still a pretty benign thing. It is nothing more this group of guys not talking about politics but about religion and what they can learn from Scriptures, and that's kind of admirable. That's most people's level of involvement. The group talks about a core in all their documents. There are different levels of information depending on how close you are to the core. For instance, I came across Al Gore saying, "[Family leader] Doug Coe is one of my personal heroes." And I don't want to let Al Gore off the hook, but I don't think he knows the extent of what's going. And that's how they do it, to keep an access to power. They much rather have a powerful person involved than having down-theline true believers. And that's what makes them more sophisticated than the Christian Coalition. Christian Coalition—you have to sign on with the program 100 percent. This group—it's okay if you believe something different, because we have access to you now. What is the Family's take on—or remake of—Christianity? The beginning began with this vision that Christianity had wrongly focused on the "down and out." And the founder, in 1935, said that's not the point; we need to focus on the "up and out." The elite are the ones who can change the world. And this group has been at odds at times with other more traditional and conservative Christian groups because they don't really care about converting the masses. They just want to convert the leaders who will instate a Christian-led government. Does it matter whether you or I share their vision of Christ? No, not at all. As long as the leaders who support the Family are making the laws that we have to follow. So what do you think is the end result that they're after? Is it only "power" in the abstract sense? They state their goals in their private documents pretty explicitly. A world leadership led by Christ. Every single world leader and politician making every decision under Christ's will. And you could quibble over semantics, but I would say that worldwide theocracy is their goal. Leslie Synn is an editorial intern at mediabistro.com Jesus plus nothing: Undercover among America's secret theocrats By Jeffrey Sharlet And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. —Matthew 10:36 http://www.harpers.org/media/pages/2003/03/pdf/HarpersMagazine-2003-030079525.pdf This is how they pray: a dozen clear-eyed, smooth-skinned “brothers” gathered together in a huddle, arms crossing arms over shoulders like the weave of a cable, leaning in on one another and swaying like the long grass up the hill from the house they share. The house is a handsome, gray, two-story colonial that smells of new carpet and Pine-Sol and aftershave; the men who live there call it Ivanwald. At the end of a tree-lined cul-de-sac, quiet but for the buzz of lawn mowers and kids playing foxes-and-hounds in the park across the road, Ivanwald sits as one house among many, clustered together like mushrooms, all devoted, like these men, to the service of Jesus Christ. The men tend every tulip in the cul-de-sac, trim every magnolia, seal every driveway smooth and black as boot leather. And they pray, assembled at the dining table or on their lawn or in the hallway or in the bunk room or on the basketball court, each man's head bowed in humility and swollen with pride (secretly, he thinks) at being counted among such a fine corps for Christ, among men to whom he will open his heart and whom he will remember when he returns to the world not born-again but remade, no longer an individual but part of the Lord's revolution, his will transformed into a weapon for what the young men call “spiritual war.” “Jeff, will you lead us in prayer?” Surely, brother. It is April 2002, and I have lived with these men for weeks now, not as a Christian—a term they deride as too narrow for the world they are building in Christ's honor—but as a “believer.” I have shared the brothers' meals and their work and their games. I have been numbered among them and have been given a part in their ministry. I have wrestled with them and showered with them and listened to their stories: I know which man resents his father's fortune and which man succumbed to the flesh of a woman not once but twice and which man dances so well he is afraid of being taken for a fag. I know what it means to be a “brother,” which is to say that I know what it means to be a soldier in the army of God. “Heavenly Father,” I begin. Then, “O Lord,” but I worry that this doesn't sound intimate enough. I settle on, “Dear Jesus.” “Dear Jesus, just, please, Jesus, let us fight for Your name.” Ivanwald, which sits at the end of Twenty-fourth Street North in Arlington, Virginia, is known only to its residents and to the members and friends of the organization that sponsors it, a group of believers who refer to themselves as “the Family.” The Family is, in its own words, an “invisible” association, though its membership has always consisted mostly of public men. Senators Don Nickles (R., Okla.), Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.), John Ensign (R., Nev.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), and Conrad Burns (R., Mont.) are referred to as “members,” as are Representatives Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Frank Wolf (R., Va.), Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.), Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.), and Bart Stupak (D., Mich.). Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family maintains a closely guarded database of its associates, but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities. The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council, the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw attention away from the Family, and to prevent it from becoming, in the words of one of the Family's leaders, “a target for misunderstanding.” 11. The Los Angeles Times reported in September that the Fellowship Foundation alone has an annual budget of $10 million, but that represents only a fraction of the Family's finances. Each of the Family's organizations raises funds independently. Ivanwald, for example, is financed at least in part by an entity called the Wilberforce Foundation. Other projects are financed by individual “friends”: wealthy businessmen, foreign governments, church congregations, or mainstream foundations that may be unaware of the scope of the Family's activities. At Ivanwald, when I asked to what organization a donation check might be made, I was told there was none; money was raised on a “man-to-man” basis. Major Family donors named by the Times include Michael Timmis, a Detroit lawyer and Republican fund-raiser; Paul Temple, a private investor from Maryland; and Jerome A. Lewis, former CEO of the Petro-Lewis Corporation. The Family's only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast, which it established in 1953 and which, with congressional sponsorship, it continues to organize every February in Washington, D.C. Each year 3,000 dignitaries, representing scores of nations, pay $425 each to attend. Steadfastly ecumenical, too bland most years to merit much press, the breakfast is regarded by the Family as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can “meet Jesus man to man.” In the process of introducing powerful men to Jesus, the Family has managed to effect a number of behind-the-scenes acts of diplomacy. In 1978 it secretly helped the Carter Administration organize a worldwide call to prayer with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, and more recently, in 2001, it brought together the warring leaders of Congo and Rwanda for a clandestine meeting, leading to the two sides' eventual peace accord last July. Such benign acts appear to be the exception to the rule. During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most antiCommunist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand “Communists” killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise. “We work with power where we can,” the Family's leader, Doug Coe, says, “build new power where we can't.” At the 1990 National Prayer Breakfast, George H.W. Bush praised Doug Coe for what he described as “quiet diplomacy, I wouldn't say secret diplomacy,” as an “ambassador of faith.” Coe has visited nearly every world capital, often with congressmen at his side, “making friends” and inviting them back to the Family's unofficial headquarters, a mansion (just down the road from Ivanwald) that the Family bought in 1978 with $1.5 million donated by, among others, Tom Phillips, then the C.E.O. of arms manufacturer Raytheon, and Ken Olsen, the founder and president of Digital Equipment Corporation. A waterfall has been carved into the mansion's broad lawn, from which a bronze bald eagle watches over the Potomac River. The mansion is white and pillared and surrounded by magnolias, and by red trees that do not so much tower above it as whisper. The mansion is named for these trees; it is called The Cedars, and Family members speak of it as a person. “The Cedars has a heart for the poor,” they like to say. By “poor” they mean not the thousands of literal poor living barely a mile away but rather the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom: the senators, generals, and prime ministers who coast to the end of Twenty-fourth Street in Arlington in black limousines and town cars and hulking S.U.V.'s to meet one another, to meet Jesus, to pay homage to the god of The Cedars. There they forge “relationships” beyond the din of vox populi (the Family's leaders consider democracy a manifestation of ungodly pride) and “throw away religion” in favor of the truths of the Family. Declaring God's covenant with the Jews broken, the group's core members call themselves “the new chosen.” The brothers of Ivanwald are the Family's next generation, its high priests in training. I had been recommended for membership by a banker acquaintance, a recent Ivanwald alumnus, who had mistaken my interest in Jesus for belief. Sometimes the brothers would ask me why I was there. They knew that I was “half Jewish,” that I was a writer, and that I was from New York City, which most of them considered to be only slightly less wicked than Baghdad or Amsterdam. I told my brothers that I was there to meet Jesus, and I was: the new ruling Jesus, whose ways are secret. At Ivanwald, men learn to be leaders by loving their leaders. “They're so busy loving us,” a brother once explained to me, “but who's loving them?” We were. The brothers each paid $400 per month for room and board, but we were also the caretakers of The Cedars, cleaning its gutters, mowing its lawns, whacking weeds and blowing leaves and sanding. And we were called to serve on Tuesday mornings, when The Cedars hosted a regular prayer breakfast typically presided over by Ed Meese, the former attorney general. Each week the breakfast brought together a rotating group of ambassadors, businessmen, and American politicians. Three of Ivanwald's brothers also attended, wearing crisp shirts starched just for the occasion; one would sit at the table while the other two poured coffee. The morning I attended, Charlene, the cook, scrambled up eggs with blue tortillas, Italian sausage, red pepper, and papaya. Three women from Potomac Point, an “Ivanwald for girls” across the road from The Cedars, came to help serve. They wore red lipstick and long skirts (makeup and “feminine” attire were required) and had, after several months of cleaning and serving in The Cedars while the brothers worked outside, become quite unimpressed by the highpowered clientele. “Girls don't sit in on the breakfasts,” one of them told me, though she said that none of them minded because it was “just politics.” The breakfast began with a prayer and a sprinkle of scripture from Meese, who sat at the head of the table. Matthew 11:27: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” That morning's chosen introduced themselves. They were businessmen from Dallas and Oregon, a Chinese Christian dissident, a man who ran an aid group for Tibetan refugees (the Dalai Lama had been very positive on Jesus at their last meeting, he reported). Two ambassadors, from Benin and Rwanda, sat side by side. Rwanda's representative, Dr. Richard Sezibera, was an intense man who refused to eat his eggs or even any melon. He drank cup after cup of coffee, and his eyes were bloodshot. A man I didn't recognize, whom Charlene identified as a former senator, suggested that negotiators from Rwanda and Congo, trapped in a war that has slain more than 2 million, should stop worrying about who will get the diamonds and the oil and instead focus on who will get Jesus. “Power sharing is not going to work unless we change their hearts,” he said. Sezibera stared, incredulous. Meese chuckled and opened his mouth to speak, but Sezibera interrupted him. “It is not so simple,” the Rwandan said, his voice flat and low. Meese smiled. Everyone in the Family loves rebukes, and here was Rwanda rebuking them. The former senator nodded. Meese murmured, “Yes,” stroking his maroon leather Bible, and the words “Thank you, Jesus” rippled in whispers around the table as I poured Sezibera another cup of coffee. The brothers also served at the Family's four-story, redbrick Washington town house, a former convent at 133 C Street S.E. complete with stained-glass windows. Eight congressmen—including Senator Ensign and seven representatives22. According to the Los Angeles Times, congressmen who have lived there include Rep. Mike Doyle (D., Pa.), former Rep. Ed Bryant (R., Tenn.), and former Rep. John Elias Baldacci (D., Maine). The house's eight congressman-tenants each pay $600 per month in rent for use of a town house that includes nine bathrooms and five living rooms. When the Times asked thenresident Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) about the property, he replied, “We sort of don't talk to the press about the house.”—lived there, brothers in Christ just like us, only more powerful. We scrubbed their toilets, hoovered their carpets, polished their silver. The day I worked at C Street I ran into Doug Coe, who was tutoring Todd Tiahrt, a Republican congressman from Kansas. A friendly, plainspoken man with a bright, lazy smile, Coe has worked for the Family since 1959, soon after he graduated from college, and has led it since 1969. Tiahrt was a short shot glass of a man, two parts flawless hair and one part teeth. He wanted to know the best way “for the Christian to win the race with the Muslim.” The Muslim, he said, has too many babies, while Americans kill too many of theirs. Doug agreed this could be a problem. But he was more concerned that the focus on labels like “Christian” might get in the way of the congressman's prayers. Religion distracts people from Jesus, Doug said, and allows them to isolate Christ's will from their work in the world. “People separate it out,” he warned Tiahrt. “'Oh, okay, I got religion, that's private.' As if Jesus doesn't know anything about building highways, or Social Security. We gotta take Jesus out of the religious wrapping.” “All right, how do we do that?” Tiahrt asked. “A covenant,” Doug answered. The congressman half-smiled, as if caught between confessing his ignorance and pretending he knew what Doug was talking about. “Like the Mafia,” Doug clarified. “Look at the strength of their bonds.” He made a fist and held it before Tiahrt's face. Tiahrt nodded, squinting. “See, for them it's honor,” Doug said. “For us, it's Jesus.” Coe listed other men who had changed the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their “brothers”: “Look at Hitler,” he said. “Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden.” The Family, of course, possessed a weapon those leaders lacked: the “total Jesus” of a brotherhood in Christ. “That's what you get with a covenant,” said Coe. “Jesus plus nothing.” To the Family, Jesus is not just a name; he is also a real man. “An awesome guy,” a Family employee named Terry told the brothers over breakfast one morning. “He excelled in every activity. He was a great teacher, sure, but he was also a real guy's guy. He would have made an excellent athlete.” On my first day at Ivanwald, on an uneven court behind the house, I learned to play a two-ball variant of basketball called “bump” that was designed to sharpen both body and soul. In bump, players compete at free throws, each vying to sink his own before the man behind him sinks his. If he hits first then you're out, with one exception: the basket's net narrows at the chute so that the ball sometimes sticks, at which point another player can hurl his ball up from beneath, knocking the first ball out. In this event everyone cries “Bu-u-ump,” with great joy. Bengt began it. He was one of the house's leaders, a twenty-four-year-old North Carolinian with sad eyes and spiky eyebrows and a loud, disarming laugh that made him sound like a donkey. From inside the house, waiting for a phone call, he opened a second-floor window and called to Gannon for a ball. Gannon, the son of a Texas oilman, worked as a Senate aide33. Gannon worked for Senator Don Nickles, then the second-ranking Republican. The man who oversaw Ivanwald and interviewed us for admission was a lawyer named Steve South, who formerly had been Senator Nickles's chief counsel and was still a close associate.; he had blond hair and a chin like a plow, and he sang in a choir. He tossed one up, which Bengt caught and dispatched toward the basket. “Nice,” Gannon drawled as the ball sank through. As soon as the ball bounced off the rim, Beau was at the free-throw line, taking his shot. Beau was a good-natured Atlantan with the build of a wrestler; as a bumper he was second only to Bengt. “It's okay if you bump into the other guys, too,” Gannon told me as my turn approached. “The idea's kinda to get that tension building.” Ahead of me Beau bent his knees to take another shot. The moment the ball rolled off his fingers, Wayne, also from Georgia, jumped up and hurled his own ball over Beau's head. As he returned to earth, his elbow descended on Beau's shoulder like a hammer. “Bump that,” he said. Bump was designed to bring out your hostilities. The Family believes that you can't grow in Jesus unless you “face your anger,” and then abandon it. When bump worked right, each man was supposed to lose himself, forgetting even the precepts of the game. Sometimes you wanted to get the ball in, sometimes you wanted to knock it out. In, out, it didn't matter. Your ball, his, who cared? Bump wasn't horseplay, it was a physicalized theology. It was to basketball what the New Testament is to the Old: stripped down to one simple story that always ends the same. Bump, Jesus. Bump, Jesus. I stepped to the line and, after missing, moved in for a layup. Wayne jumped to the line and shot. “Dude!” he shouted. I looked up. His ball, meant to hit mine, slammed into my forehead. Bu-u-ump! the boys hollered. They had bumped me with Christ. Bengt bumped. Beau bumped. Gannon bumped. I was out of contention. Gannon joined me, then Beau. The game was down to Bengt and Wayne. When Wayne threw from behind Bengt, he hurled the ball with such force that it sent Bengt chasing his ball into the neighboring yard. “Tenacious Wayne!” Gannon roared. Wayne scooped up his own ball, leapt, and slam-dunked Bengt out. “That's yo motha!” he hollered. Trotting back to the court, Bengt shook his head. “You the man, Wayne,” he said. “Just keep it calm.” Wayne was ready to burst. “Huddle up guys,” said Bengt. We formed a circle, arms wrapped around shoulders. “Okay,” he said. “We're gonna pray now. Lord, I just want to thank you for bringing us out here today to have fellowship in bump and for blessing this fine day with a visit from our new friend Jeff. Lord, we thank you for bringing this brother to us from up north, because we know he can learn to bump, and just— love you, and serve you and Lord, let us all just—Lord, be together in your name. Amen.” The regimen was so precise it was relaxing: no swearing, no drinking, no sex, no self. Watch out for magazines and don't waste time on newspapers and never watch TV. Eat meat, study the Gospels, play basketball: God loves a man who can sink a three-pointer. Pray to be broken. O Heavenly Father. Dear Jesus. Help me be humble. Let me do Your will. Every morning began with a prayer, some days with outsiders—Wednesdays led by a former Ivanwald brother, now a businessman; Thursdays led by another executive who used tales of high finance to illuminate our lessons from scripture, which he supplemented with xeroxed midrash from Fortune or Fast Company; Fridays with the women of Potomac Point. But most days it was just us boys, bleary-eyed, gulping coffee and sugared cereal as Bengt and Jeff Connolly, Bengt's childhood friend and our other house leader, laid out lines of Holy Word across the table like strategy. The dining room had once been a deck, but the boys had walled it in and roofed it over and unrolled a red Persian carpet, transforming the room into a sort of monastic meeting place, with two long tables end to end, ringed by a dozen chairs and two benches. The first day I visited Ivanwald, Bengt cleared a space for me at the head of the table and sat to my right. Beside him, Wayne slumped in his chair, his eyes hidden by a cowboy hat. Across from him sat Beau, still wearing the boxers and T-shirt he'd slept in. Bengt alone looked sharp, his hair combed, golf shirt tucked tightly into pleated chinos. Bengt told Gannon to read our text for that morning, Psalm 139: “'O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.'” The very first line made Bengt smile; this was, in his view, an awesome thing for God to have done. Bengt's manners and naive charm preceded him in every encounter. When you told him a story he would respond, “Goll-y!” just to be nice. When genuinely surprised he would exclaim, “Good ni-ight!” Sometimes it was hard to remember that he was a selfprofessed revolutionary. He asked Gannon to keep reading, and then leaned back and listened. “'Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.'” Bengt raised a hand. “That's great, dude. Let's talk about that.” The room fell silent as Bengt stared into his Bible, running his finger up and down the gilded edge of the page. “Guys,” he said. “What—how does that make you feel?” “Known,” said Gannon, almost in a whisper. Bengt nodded. He was looking for something else, but he didn't know where it was. “What does it make you think of?” “Jesus?” said Beau. Bengt stroked his chin. “Yeah . . . Let me read you a little more.” He read in a monotone, accelerating as he went, as if he could persuade us through a sheer heap of words. “'For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb,'” he concluded. His lips curled into a half smile. “Man! I mean, that's intense, right? 'In my mother's womb'—God's right in there with you.” He grinned. “It's like,” he said, “it's like, you can't run. Doesn't matter where you turn, 'cause Jesus is gonna be there, just waiting for you.” Beau's eyes cleared and Gannon nodded. “Yeah, brother,” Bengt said, an eyebrow arched. “Jesus is smart. He's gonna get you.” Gannon shook his head. “Oh, he's already got me.” “Me, too,” Beau chimed, and then each man clasped his hands into one fist and pressed it against his forehead or his chin and prayed, eyes closed and Jesus all over his skin. We prayed to be “nothing.” We were there to “soften our hearts to authority.” We instituted a rule that every man must wipe the toilet bowl after he pisses, not for cleanliness but to crush his “inner rebel.” Jeff C. did so by abstaining from “shady” R-rated movies, lest they provoke dreams of women. He was built like a leprechaun, with curly, dark blond hair and freckles and a brilliant smile. The Potomac Point girls brought him cookies; the wives of the Family's older men asked him to visit. One night, when the guys went on a swing-dancing date with the Potomac Pointers, more worldly women flocked to Jeff C., begging to be dipped and twirled. The feeling was not mutual. “I just don't like girls as much as guys,” he told me one day while we painted a new coat of “Gettysburg Gray” onto Ivanwald. He was speaking not of sex or of romance but of brotherhood. “I like”— he paused, his brush suspended midstroke—“competence.” He ran nearly every day, often alone, down by the Potomac. On the basketball court anger sometimes overcame him: “Shoot the ball!” he would snap at Rogelio, a shy eighteen-year-old from Paraguay, one of several international brothers. But later Jeff C. would turn his lapse into a lesson, citing scripture, a verse we were to memorize or else be banished, by Jeff C. himself, to a night in the basement. Ephesians, chapter 4, verses 26–27: “'In your anger do not sin': Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” Jeff C.'s pride surfaced in unexpected ways. Once, together in the kitchen after lunch, I mentioned that I'd seen the soul singer Al Green live. Jeff C. didn't answer. Instead he disappeared, reemerged with a Green CD, and set it in the boom box. He pressed play, and cracked his knuckles and his neck bones. His hands balled into fists, his eyes widened, and his torso became a jumping bean as his chest popped out on the downbeat. He heard me laughing, applauding, but he didn't stop. He started singing along with the Reverend. He grabbed his crotch and wrenched his shirt up and ran his hand over his stomach. Then he froze and dropped back to his ordinary voice as if narrating. “I used to work in this pizza parlor,” he said. “It was, like, a buncha . . . I dunno, junkies. Heroin.” He grinned. “But man, they loved Al Green. We had a poster of him. He was, he was . . . man! Shirtless, leather pants. Low leather pants.” Jeff C. tugged his waistband down. “Hips cocked.” He shook his head and howled. Moonwalking away, he snapped his knees together, his feet spread wide, his hands in the air, testifying. Jeff C. figured I had a thing against Southerners. Once, he asked if I thought the South was “racist.” I got it, I tried to tell him, I knew the North was just as bad, but he wouldn't listen. He told me I could call him a redneck or a hillbilly (I never called him either), but the truth was that he was “blacker” than me. He told me of his deep love for black gospel churches. Loving black people, he told me, made him a better follower of Christ. “Remember that story Cal Thomas told?” he asked. Thomas, a syndicated columnist, had recently stopped by Ivanwald for a mixer with young congressional staffers. He had regaled his audience with stories about tweaking his liberal colleagues, in particular about when he had addressed a conference of nonbelievers by asking if anyone knew where to buy a good “negro.” Jeff C. thought it was hilarious but also profound. What Thomas had meant, he told me, was that absent the teachings of Jesus there was no reason for the strong not to enslave the weak. Two weeks into my stay, David Coe, Doug's son and the presumptive heir to leadership of the Family, dropped by the house. My brothers and I assembled in the living room, where David had draped his tall frame over a burgundy leather recliner like a frat boy, one leg hanging over a padded arm. “You guys,” David said, “are here to learn how to rule the world.” He was in his late forties, with dark, gray-flecked hair, an olive complexion, and teeth like a slab of white marble. We sat around him in a rough circle, on couches and chairs, as the afternoon light slanted through the wooden blinds onto walls adorned with foxhunting lithographs and a giant tapestry of the Last Supper. Rafael, a wealthy Ecuadoran who'd been a college soccer star before coming to Ivanwald, had a hard time with English, and he didn't understand what David had said. So he stared, lips parted in puzzlement. David seemed to like that. He stared back, holding Raf's gaze like it was a pretty thing he'd found on the ground. “You have very intense eyes,” David said. “Thank you,” Raf mumbled. “Hey,” David said, “let's talk about the Old Testament. Who would you say are its good guys?” “David,” Beau volunteered. “King David,” David Coe said. “That's a good one. David. Hey. What would you say made King David a good guy?” He was giggling, not from nervousness but from barely containable delight. “Faith?” Beau said. “His faith was so strong?” “Yeah.” David nodded as if he hadn't heard that before. “Hey, you know what's interesting about King David?” From the blank stares of the others I could see that they did not. Many didn't even carry a Hebrew Bible, preferring a slim volume of just the New Testament Gospels and Epistles and, from the Old, Psalms. Others had the whole book, but the gold gilt on the pages of the first two thirds remained undisturbed. “King David,” David Coe went on, “liked to do really, really bad things.” He chuckled. “Here's this guy who slept with another man's wife— Bathsheba, right?—and then basically murders her husband. And this guy is one of our heroes.” David shook his head. “I mean, Jiminy Christmas, God likes this guy! What,” he said, “is that all about?” The answer, we discovered, was that King David had been “chosen.” To illustrate this point David Coe turned to Beau. “Beau, let's say I hear you raped three little girls. And now here you are at Ivanwald. What would I think of you, Beau?” Beau shrank into the cushions. “Probably that I'm pretty bad?” “No, Beau. I wouldn't. Because I'm not here to judge you. That's not my job. I'm here for only one thing.” “Jesus?” Beau said. David smiled and winked. He walked to the National Geographic map of the world mounted on the wall. “You guys know about Genghis Khan?” he asked. “Genghis was a man with a vision. He conquered”—David stood on the couch under the map, tracing, with his hand, half the northern hemisphere—“nearly everything. He devastated nearly everything. His enemies? He beheaded them.” David swiped a finger across his throat. “Dop, dop, dop, dop.” David explained that when Genghis entered a defeated city he would call in the local headman and have him stuffed into a crate. Over the crate would be spread a tablecloth, and on the tablecloth would be spread a wonderful meal. “And then, while the man suffocated, Genghis ate, and he didn't even hear the man's screams.” David still stood on the couch, a finger in the air. “Do you know what that means?” He was thinking of Christ's parable of the wineskins. “You can't pour new into old,” David said, returning to his chair. “We elect our leaders. Jesus elects his.” He reached over and squeezed the arm of a brother. “Isn't that great?” David said. “That's the way everything in life happens. If you're a person known to be around Jesus, you can go and do anything. And that's who you guys are. When you leave here, you're not only going to know the value of Jesus, you're going to know the people who rule the world. It's about vision. 'Get your vision straight, then relate.' Talk to the people who rule the world, and help them obey. Obey Him. If I obey Him myself, I help others do the same. You know why? Because I become a warning. We become a warning. We warn everybody that the future king is coming. Not just of this country or that, but of the world.” Then he pointed at the map, toward the Khan's vast, reclaimable empire. One night I asked Josh, a brother from Atlanta who was hoping to do mission work overseas, if I could look at some materials the Family had given him. “Man, I'd love to share them with you,” he said, and retrieved from his bureau drawer two folders full of documents. While my brothers slept, I sat at the end of our long, oak dining table and copied them into my notebook. In a document entitled “Our Common Agreement as a Core Group,” members of the Family are instructed to form a “core group,” or a “cell,” which is defined as “a publicly invisible but privately identifiable group of companions.” A document called “Thoughts on a Core Group” explains that “Communists use cells as their basic structure. The mafia operates like this, and the basic unit of the Marine Corps is the four man squad. Hitler, Lenin, and many others understood the power of a small core of people.” Another document, “Thoughts and Principles of the Family,” sets forth political guidelines, such as 21. We recognize the place and responsibility of national secular leaders in the work of advancing His kingdom. 23. To the world in general we will say that we are “in Christ” rather than “Christian”—“Christian” having become a political term in most of the world and in the United States a meaningless term. 24. We desire to see a leadership led by God—leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit. and self-examination questions: 4. Do I give only verbal assent to the policies of the family or am I a partner in seeking the mind of the Lord? 7. Do I agree with and practice the financial precepts of the family?44. The Family's “financial precepts” apparently amount to the practice of soliciting funds only privately, and often indirectly. This may also refer to what some members call “biblical capitalism,” the belief that God's economics are laissez-faire. 13. Am I willing to work without human recognition? When the group is ready, “Thoughts on a Core Group” explains, it can set to work: After being together for a while, in this closer relationship, God will give you more insight into your own geographical area and your sphere of influence—make your opportunities a matter of prayer. . . . The primary purpose of a core group is not to become an “action group,” but an invisible “believing group.” However, activity normally grows out of agreements reached in faith and in prayer around the person of Jesus Christ. Long-term goals were best summarized in a document called “Youth Corps Vision.” Another Family project, Youth Corps distributes pleasant brochures featuring endorsements from political leaders—among them Tsutomu Hata, a former prime minister of Japan, former secretary of state James Baker, and Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda—and full of enthusiastic rhetoric about helping young people to learn the principles of leadership. The word “Jesus” is unmentioned in the brochure. But “Youth Corps Vision,” which is intended only for members of the Family (“it's kinda secret,” Josh cautioned me), is more direct. The Vision is to mobilize thousands of young people world wide—committed to principle precepts, and person of Jesus Christ. . . . A group of highly dedicated individuals who are united together having a total commitment to use their lives to daily seek to mature into people who talk like Jesus, act like Jesus, think like Jesus. This group will have the responsibility to: —see that the commitment and action is maintained to the overall vision; —see that the finest and best invisible organization is developed and maintained at all levels of the work; —even though the structure is hidden, see that the family atmosphere is maintained, so that all people can feel a part of the family. Another document—“Regional Reports, January 3, 2002”—lists some of the nations where Youth Corps programs are already in operation: Russia, Ukraine, Romania, India, Pakistan, Uganda, Nepal, Bhutan, Ecuador, Honduras, Peru. Youth Corps is, in many respects, a more aggressive version of Young Life, a better-known network of Christian youth groups that entice teenagers with parties and sports, and only later work Jesus into the equation. Most of my American brothers at Ivanwald had been among Young Life's elite, and many had returned to Young Life during their college summers to work as counselors. Youth Corps, whose programs are often centered around Ivanwald-style houses, prepares the best of its recruits for positions of power in business and government abroad. The goal: “Two hundred national and international world leaders bound together relationally by a mutual love for God and the family.” Between 1984 and 1992 the Fellowship Foundation consigned 592 boxes— decades of the Family's letters, sermons, minutes, Christmas cards, travel itineraries, and lists of members—to an archive at the Billy Graham Center of Wheaton College in Illinois. Until I visited last fall, the archive had gone largely unexamined. The Family was founded in April 1935 by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant who made his living as a traveling preacher. One night, while lying in bed fretting about socialists, Wobblies, and a Swedish Communist who, he was sure, planned to bring Seattle under the control of Moscow, Vereide received a visitation: a voice, and a light in the dark, bright and blinding. The next day he met a friend, a wealthy businessman and former major, and the two men agreed upon a spiritual plan. They enlisted nineteen business executives in a weekly breakfast meeting and together they prayed, convinced that Jesus alone could redeem Seattle and crush the radical unions. They wanted to give Jesus a vessel, and so they asked God to raise up a leader. One of their number, a city councilman named Arthur Langlie, stood and said, “I am ready to let God use me.” Langlie was made first mayor and later governor, backed in both campaigns by money and muscle from his prayer-breakfast friends, whose number had rapidly multiplied.55. As Vereide recounted in a 1961 biography, Modern Viking, one union boss joined the group, proclaiming that the prayer movement would make unions obsolete. He said, “'I got down on my knees and asked God to forgive me . . . for I have been a disturbing factor and a thorn in Your flesh.'” A “rugged capitalist who had been the chairman of the employers' committee in the big strike” put his left hand on the labor leader's shoulder and said, “'Jimmy, on this basis we go on together.'” Vereide and his new brothers spread out across the Northwest in chauffeured vehicles (a $20,000 Dusenburg carried brothers on one mission, he boasted). “Men,” wrote Vereide, “thus quickened.” Prayer breakfast groups were formed in dozens of cities, from San Francisco to Philadelphia. There were already enough men ministering to the down-and-out, Vereide had decided; his mission field would be men with the means to seize the world for God. Vereide called his potential flock of the rich and powerful, those in need only of the “real” Jesus, the “up-and-out.” Vereide arrived in Washington, D.C., on September 6, 1941, as the guest of a man referred to only as “Colonel Brindley.” “Here I am finally,” he wrote to his wife, Mattie, who remained in Seattle. “In a day or two—many will know that I am in town and by God's grace it will hum.” Within weeks he had held his first D.C. prayer meeting, attended by more than a hundred congressmen. By 1943, now living in a suite at Colonel Brindley's University Club, Vereide was an insider. “My what a full and busy day!” he wrote to Mattie on January 22. The Vice President brought me to the Capitol and counseled with me regarding the programs and plans, and then introduced me to Senator [Ralph Owen] Brewster, who in turn to Senator [Harold Hitz] Burton—then planned further the program [of a prayer breakfast] and enlisted their cooperation. Then to the Supreme Court for visits with some of them . . . then back to the Senate, House. . . . The hand of the Lord is upon me. He is leading. By the end of the war, nearly a third of U.S. senators attended one of his weekly prayer meetings. In 1944, Vereide had foreseen what he called “the new world order.” “Upon the termination of the war there will be many men available to carry on,” Vereide wrote in a letter to his wife. “Now the ground-work must be laid and our leadership brought to face God in humility, prayer and obedience.” He began organizing prayer meetings for delegates to the United Nations, at which he would instruct them in God's plan for rebuilding from the wreckage of the war. Donald Stone, a high-ranking administrator of the Marshall Plan, joined the directorship of Vereide's organization. In an undated letter, he wrote Vereide that he would “soon begin a tour around the world for the [Marshall Plan], combining with this a spiritual mission.” In 1946, Vereide, too, toured the world, traveling with letters of introduction from a half dozen senators and representatives, and from Paul G. Hoffman, the director of the Marshall Plan. He traveled also with a mandate from General John Hildring, assistant secretary of state, to oversee the creation of a list of good Germans of “the predictable type” (many of whom, Vereide believed, were being held for having “the faintest connection” with the Nazi regime), who could be released from prison “to be used, according to their ability in the tremendous task of reconstruction.” Vereide met with Jewish survivors and listened to their stories, but he nevertheless considered ex-Nazis well suited for the demands of “strong” government, so long as they were willing to worship Christ as they had Hitler. In 1955, Senator Frank Carlson, a close adviser to Eisenhower and an even closer associate of Vereide's, convened a meeting at which he declared the Family's mission to be a “worldwide spiritual offensive,” in which common cause would be made with anyone opposed to the Soviet Union. That same year, the Family financed an anti-Communist propaganda film, Militant Liberty, for use by the Defense Department in influencing opinion abroad. By the Kennedy era, the spiritual offensive had fronts on every continent but Antarctica (which Family missionaries would not visit until the 1980s). In 1961, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia deeded the Family a prime parcel in downtown Addis Ababa to serve as an African headquarters, and by then the Family also had powerful friends in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. Back home, Senator Strom Thurmond prepared several reports for Vereide concerning the Senate's deliberations. Former president Eisenhower, Doug Coe would later claim at a private meeting of politicians, once pledged secret operatives to aid the Family's operations. Even in Franco's Spain, Vereide once boasted at a prayer breakfast in 1965, “there are secret cells such as the American Embassy [and] the Standard Oil office [that allow us] to move practically anywhere.” By the late sixties, Vereide's speeches to local prayer breakfast groups had become minor news events, and Family members' travels on behalf of Christ had attracted growing press attention. Vereide began to worry that the movement he had spent his life building might become just another political party. In 1966, a few years before he was “promoted” to heaven at age eighty-four, Vereide wrote a letter declaring it time to “submerge the institutional image of [the Family].” No longer would the Family recruit its powerful members in public, nor recruit so many. “There has always been one man,” wrote Vereide, “or a small core who have caught the vision for their country and become aware of what a 'leadership led by God' could mean spiritually to the nation and to the world. . . . It is these men, banded together, who can accomplish the vision God gave me years ago.” Two weeks into my stay, Bengt announced to the brothers that he was applying to graduate school. He had chosen a university close enough to commute from the house, with a classics program he hoped would complement (maybe even renew, he told me privately) his relationship with Christ. After dinner every night he would disappear into the little office beside his upstairs bunk room to compose his statement of purpose on the house's one working computer. Knowing I was a writer, he eventually gave me the essay to read. We sat down in Ivanwald's “office,” a room barely big enough for the two of us. We crossed our legs in opposite directions so as not to knock knees. My formal education has been a progression from confusion and despair to hope, the essay began. Its story hewed to the familiar fundamentalist routine of lost and found: every man and woman a sinner, fallen but nonetheless redeemed. And yet Bengt's sins were not of the flesh but of the mind. In college he had abandoned his boyhood ambition of becoming a doctor to study philosophy: Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Hegel. Raised in the faith, his ideas about God crumbled before the disciplined rage of the philosophers. “I cut and ran,” he told me. To Africa, where by day he worked on ships and in clinics, and by night read Dostoevsky and the Bible, its darkest and most seductive passages: Lamentations, Job, the Song of Songs. These authors were alike, his essay observed: They wrote about [suffering] like a companion. I looked up. “A double,” I said, remembering Dostoevsky's alter egos. Bengt nodded. “You know how you can stare at something for a long time and not see it the way it really is? That's what scripture had been to me.” Through Dostoevsky he began to see the Old Testament for what it is: relentless in its horror, its God a fire, a whirlwind, a “bear, lying in wait,” “a lion in secret places.” Even worse is its Man: a rapist, a murderer, a wretched thief, a fool. “But,” said Bengt, “that's not how it ends.” Bengt meant Jesus. I thought of the end of The Brothers Karamazov: the saintly Alyosha, leading a pack of boys away from a funeral to feast on pancakes, everyone clapping hands and proclaiming eternal brotherhood. In Africa, Bengt had seen people who were diseased, starving, trapped by war, but who seemed nonetheless to experience joy. Bengt recalled listening to a group of starving men play the drums. “Doubt,” he said, “is just a prelude to joy.” I had heard this before from mainstream Christians, but I suspected Bengt meant it differently. A line in Dostoevsky's The Possessed reminded me of him: when the conservative nationalist Shatov asks Stavrogin, the cold-hearted radical, “Wasn't it you who said that even if it was proved to you mathematically that the Truth was outside Christ, you would prefer to remain with Christ outside the Truth?” Stavrogin, who refuses to be cornered, denies it. “Exactly,” Bengt said. In Africa he had seen the trappings of Christianity fall away. All that remained was Christ. “You can't argue with absolute power.” I put the essay down. Bengt nudged it back into my hands. “I want to know what you think of my ending.” As I have read more about Jesus, it ran, I have also been intrigued by his style of interaction with other people. He was fascinated in particular by an encounter in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 35–39, in which Jesus asks two men why they are following him. In turn, the men ask where Jesus is staying, to which he replies, “Come and see.” I am not sure how Jesus asks the question, Bengt had concluded, but from the response, it seems like he is asking, “What do you desire?” “That's what it's about,” Bengt said. “Desire.” He shifted in his chair. “Think about it: 'What do you desire?'” “God?” “Yes.” “That's the answer?” I asked. “He's the question,” Bengt retorted, half-smiling, satisfied with his inversion by which doubt became the essence of a dogma. God was just what Bengt desired Him to be, even as Bengt was, in the face of God, “nothing.” Not for aesthetics alone, I realized, did Bengt and the Family reject the label “Christian.” Their faith and their practice seemed closer to a perverted sort of Buddhism, their God outside “the truth,” their Christ everywhere and nowhere at once, His commands phrased as questions, His will as simple to divine as one's own desires. And what the Family desired, from Abraham Vereide to Doug Coe to Bengt, was power, worldly power, with which Christ's kingdom can be built, cell by cell. Not long after our conversation, Bengt put a bucket beside the toilet in the downstairs bunk room. From now on, he announced, all personal items left in the living room would go into the bucket. “If you're missing anything, guys,” Bengt said over dinner, “look in the bucket.” I looked in the bucket. Here's what I found: One pair of flip-flops. One pocketsized edition of the sayings of Jesus. One Frisbee. One copy of Executive Orders, by Tom Clancy, hardcover. One brown-leather Bible, well worn, beautifully printed on onion skin, given to Bengt Carlson by Palmer Carlson. One pair of dirty underwear. When I picked up the Bible the pages flipped open to the Gospel of John, and my eyes fell on a single underlined phrase, chapter 15, verse 3: “You are already clean.” Whenever a sufficiently large crop of God's soldiers was bunked up at Ivanwald, Doug Coe made a point of stopping by for dinner. Doug was, in spirit, Christ's closest disciple, the master bumper; the brothers viewed his visit as far more important than that of any senator or prime minister. The night he joined us he wore a crisply pressed golf shirt and dark slacks, and his skin was well tanned. He brought a guest with him, an Albanian politician whose pale face and ill-fitting gray suit made Doug seem all the more radiant. In his early seventies, Doug could have passed for fifty: his hair was dark, his cheeks taut. His smile was like a lantern. “Where,” Doug asked Rogelio, “are you from, in Paraguay?” “Asunción,” he said. Doug smiled. “I've visited there many times.” He chewed for a while. “Asunción. A Latin leader was assassinated there twenty years ago. A Nicaraguan. Does anybody know who it was?” I waited for someone to speak, but no one did. “Somoza,” I said. The dictator overthrown by the Sandinistas. “Somoza,” Doug said, his eyes sweeping back to me. “An interesting man.” Doug stared. I stared back. “I liked to visit him,” Doug said. “A very bad man, behind his machine guns.” He smiled like he was going to laugh, but instead he moved his fork to his mouth. “And yet,” he said, a bite poised at the tip of his tongue, “he had a heart for the poor.” Doug stared. I stared back. “Do you ever think about prayer?” he asked. But the question wasn't for me. It wasn't for anyone. Doug was preparing a parable. There was a man he knew, he said, who didn't really believe in prayer. So Doug made him a bet. If this man would choose something and pray for it for forty-five days, every day, he wagered God would make it so. It didn't matter whether the man believed. It wouldn't have mattered whether he was a Christian. All that mattered was the fact of prayer. Every day. Forty-five days. He couldn't lose, Doug told the man. If Jesus didn't answer his prayers, Doug would pay him $500. “What should I pray for?” the man asked. “What do you think God would like you to pray for?” Doug asked him. “I don't know,” said the man. “How about Africa?” “Good,” said Doug. “Pick a country.” “Uganda,” the man said, because it was the only one he could remember. “Fine,” Doug told him. “Every day, for forty-five days, pray for Uganda. God please help Uganda. God please help Uganda.” On the thirty-second day, Doug told us, this man met a woman from Uganda. She worked with orphans. Come visit, she told the man, and so he did, that very weekend. And when he came home, he raised a million dollars in donated medicine for the orphans. “So you see,” Doug told him, “God answered your prayers. You owe me $500.” There was more. After the man had returned to the United States, the president of Uganda called the man at his home and said, “I am making a new government. Will you help me make some decisions?” “So,” Doug told us, “my friend said to the president, 'Why don't you come and pray with me in America? I have a good group of friends—senators, congressmen—who I like to pray with, and they'd like to pray with you.' And that president came to The Cedars, and he met Jesus. And his name is Yoweri Museveni, and he is now the president of all the presidents in Africa. And he is a good friend of the Family.” “That's awesome,” Beau said. “Yes,” Doug said, “it's good to have friends. Do you know what a difference a friend can make? A friend you can agree with?” He smiled. “Two or three agree, and they pray? They can do anything. Agree. Agreement. What's that mean?” Doug looked at me. “You're a writer. What does that mean?” I remembered Paul's letter to the Philippians, which we had begun to memorize. Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be likeminded. “Unity,” I said. “Agreement means unity.” Doug didn't smile. “Yes,” he said. “Total unity. Two, or three, become one. Do you know,” he asked, “that there's another word for that?” No one spoke. “It's called a covenant. Two, or three, agree? They can do anything. A covenant is . . . powerful. Can you think of anyone who made a covenant with his friends?” We all knew the answer to this, having heard his name invoked numerous times in this context. Andrew from Australia, sitting beside Doug, cleared his throat: “Hitler.” “Yes,” Doug said. “Yes, Hitler made a covenant. The Mafia makes a covenant. It is such a very powerful thing. Two, or three, agree.” He took another bite from his plate, planted his fork on its tines. “Well, guys,” he said, “I gotta go.” As Doug Coe left, my brothers' hearts were beating hard: for the poor, for a covenant. “Awesome,” Bengt said. We stood to clear our dishes. On one of my last nights at Ivanwald, the neighborhood boys asked my brothers and me to play. There were roughly six boys, ranging in age from maybe seven to eleven, all junior members of the Family. They wanted to play flashlight tag. It was balmy, and the streetlight glittered against the blacktop, and hiding places beckoned from behind trees and in bushes. One of the boys began counting, and my brothers, big and small, scattered. I lay flat on a hillside. From there I could track movement in the shadows and smell the mint leaves planted in the garden. A figure approached and I sprang up and ran, down the sidewalk and up through the garden, over a wall that my pursuer, a small boy, had trouble climbing. But once he was over he kept charging, and just as I was about to vanish into the trees his flashlight caught me. “Jeff I see you you're It!” the boy cried. I stopped and turned, and he kept the beam on me. Blinded, I could hear only the slap of his sneakers as he ran across the driveway toward me. “Okay, dude,” he whispered, and turned off the flashlight. I recognized him as little Stevie, whose drawing of a machine gun we had posted in our bunk room. He handed the flashlight to me, spun around, started to run, then stopped and looked over his shoulder. “You're It now,” he whispered, and disappeared into the dark. [end] The Los Angeles Times, Sep 27, 2002 Showing Faith in Discretion The Fellowship, which sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast, quietly effects political change. It acts with the blessing of many in power. by LISA GETTER For the last two decades, a Virginia mansion has been a private hideaway for world leaders, members of Congress, and even pop star Michael Jackson. Located on a quiet residential street, the $4.4-million estate called Cedars sits at the highest point of the Potomac River, with spectacular views of Washington beyond the pool and tennis courts. It is owned by the Fellowship, the nonpartisan Christian group that sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast. While the annual breakfast is a widely known event attended by a succession of U.S. presidents and foreign dignitaries, the Fellowship's part in the breakfast is low-key. Most attendees think the event is sponsored by Congress or even the president. Likewise, the Fellowship's role in diplomacy and current events has remained in the shadows. That's the way the organization wants it, for philosophical and practical reasons. "If you want to help people, Jesus said you don't do your alms in public," Douglas Coe, the group's leader, said in a rare interview. A Los Angeles Times review of the Fellowship's archives, which are kept at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., and an examination of documents obtained from several presidential libraries reveals an organization that has had extraordinary access and significant influence on foreign affairs for the last 50 years. Eight members of Congress, including Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), live in a grand house on Capitol Hill, which is owned by a sister organization of the Fellowship. The house, which is registered as a church, routinely hosts gatherings for lawmakers and ambassadors. Members of Congress have traveled around the world on the Fellowship's behalf, sometimes mixing matters of state with religion. The Fellowship was a behind-the-scenes player at the Camp David Middle East accords in 1978, working with President Jimmy Carter to issue a worldwide call to prayer with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. During the Cold War, it helped finance an anti-communism propaganda film endorsed by the CIA and used by the Pentagon overseas. Last year, the Fellowship helped arrange a secret meeting at Cedars between two warring leaders, Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame--one of the first of a series of discreet meetings between the two African leaders that eventually led to the signing of a peace accord in July. Then-Sen. David Durenberger retreated to the mansion in 1986 when he began having marital problems. GOP strategist Lee Atwater came seeking spiritual guidance in 1990 when he learned he was dying. Jackson and his children stayed in October, while in town for a benefit concert for victims of last year's terrorist attacks. Jackson's visit came about as a result of a call from "a friend from the White House," Coe said. The call came from David Kuo, deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, who helped put together the United We Stand concert. When Kuo learned that Jackson needed a place to stay, he thought of Cedars. "It's a private unknown place that offers anonymity in a peaceful environment," he said. "Part of the whole Fellowship belief is you can help people who are down and out by helping people who are up and out." Coe, 73, has befriended a succession of presidents and world leaders since arriving in Washington in 1959. In April, he was invited to the White House to speak off the record with employees about prayer. Coe said the group's mission is to create a worldwide "family of friends" by spreading the words of Jesus to those in power. He believes that people of every religion--including Muslims, Jews and Hindus--are swayed by Jesus. If he can change leaders' hearts, he said, then the benefits will flow naturally to the oppressed and underprivileged. The Rev. Rob Schenck, founder of Faith and Action in the Nation's Capital, a Christian outreach center, said that "the mystique of the Fellowship" has helped it "gain entree into almost impossible places in the capital." The Fellowship also has brought controversial figures to Washington, where they have met with U.S. officials either at the prayer breakfast or other venues. Among them are former Salvadoran Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, who in July was found liable by a civil jury in Florida for the torture of thousands of civilians in the 1980s. He was invited to the 1984 prayer breakfast, along with Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, then the head of the Honduran armed forces. Alvarez, later linked to the CIA and a secret death squad, became an evangelical missionary before he was assassinated in 1989. "The people that are involved in this association of people around the world are the worst and the best," Coe said. "Some are total despots. Some are totally religious. You can find what you want to find." The Fellowship The Fellowship is a collection of public officials, business leaders and religious ministries that defies easy description. Sometimes known as the prayer group movement, its members espouse a common devotion to the teachings of Jesus and a belief that peace and justice can come about through quiet efforts to change individuals, particularly those in positions of power. Personal outreach is paramount. They also share a vow of silence about Fellowship activities. Coe and others cite biblical admonitions against public displays of good works, insisting they would not be able to tackle their diplomatically sensitive missions if they drew public attention. Members, including congressmen, invoke this secrecy rule when refusing to discuss just about every aspect of the Fellowship and their involvement in it. Jennifer Thornett, a Fellowship employee, went so far as to say that "there is no such thing as the Fellowship," even as she helped lead a group of 250 college students around Washington this month, part of a Fellowship-sponsored national leadership forum on faith and values. The group's official name is the Fellowship Foundation, though it does most of its business as the International Foundation. It is based in Arlington, in a sleepy neighborhood of upscale houses, many owned by members of the Fellowship or groups tied to it. The foundation has nonprofit status under the Internal Revenue Service code and a board of directors that includes a senator's wife, a former Air Force assistant secretary, an Education Department official and the former director of Asian affairs for the National Security Council. IRS filings show the Fellowship has an annual budget of $10 million and spends most of that on salaries, the National Prayer Breakfast, travel for Coe, members of Congress and others, upkeep of Cedars and a roster of Christian groups worldwide. Fellowship dollars have gone to an orphanage in India; a program in Uganda that provides schooling, housing and leadership to children; the Senate chaplain; a ministry dedicated to professional golfers; a development group in Peru; and a house in Washington that serves troubled children. The foundation provides Coe with a house on the grounds of Cedars, a minimal salary and annual expenses, which have ranged from $110,955 in 1995 to zero in 2000. The foundation also employs his two sons, who each earned $93,000, according to IRS filings for 2000. The Fellowship does not solicit money. A handful of wealthy backers, including Detroit lawyer and GOP donor Michael Timmis, Denver oilman Jerome A. Lewis and former Maryland investor Paul N. Temple, support the Fellowship with personal contributions. Private foundations they control also contribute hundreds of thousands yearly to the International Foundation, tax records show. Other money has come through word of mouth, stock bequests, and donations from friends, estates and even foreign governments including Taiwan, which Coe said sends about $10,000 a year to the Fellowship. He said the ambassador usually delivers the check in person. International diplomacy has been part of the Fellowship from the beginning. The group was begun by Abraham Vereide, a Methodist evangelist who feared that Socialists were corrupting municipal government in Seattle in the mid-1930s. He thought he could bring about change by organizing regular prayer groups with local business and government leaders. He took his idea to Washington, D.C., in 1942. A small group of House members began praying together. A Senate group followed. Vereide believed that the small prayer groups could be used to help establish personal contacts with leaders throughout the world. Pentagon officials secretly met at the group's Washington Fellowship House in 1955 to plan a worldwide anti-communism propaganda campaign endorsed by the CIA, documents from the Fellowship archives and the Eisenhower Presidential Library show. Then known as International Christian Leadership, the group financed a film called "Militant Liberty" that was used by the Pentagon abroad. Intimate prayer groups begun by the Fellowship still meet regularly and privately, at the House of Representatives, Senate and throughout federal agencies in Washington. President Eisenhower, persuaded by his campaign manager, became the first U.S. president to attend a prayer breakfast in 1953--part of what the Senate chaplain at the time called a "Return-to-God Movement." Every president since has made an appearance at least once, turning the breakfast into a worldwide attraction for the prayerful and political alike. Similar prayer breakfasts, begun by followers of the Fellowship and hosted by governors and mayors, are now popular throughout the U.S. The Fellowship lured Coe to Washington as Vereide's understudy in 1959. When Vereide died 10 years later, Coe essentially took over. Under Coe, the group dropped the word Christian from its official name. "Doug gives an overarching leadership to this whole vision of working with leaders," said Bob Hunter, a former insurance official in the Ford and Carter administrations who has been involved with the Fellowship for years, especially in Africa. "He has so many contacts now. Everyone knows him." Former President Bush once referred to Coe as "an ambassador of faith." If Coe is an ambassador, Cedars is his embassy. The Fellowship bought the mansion, complete with furnishings, for $1.5 million in 1978. The white-column mansion was once owned by George Mason IV, one of three men who refused to sign the U.S. Constitution and an original drafter of the Bill of Rights. Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes lived there for a stretch before the Fellowship bought it. Coe described Cedars as a place "committed to the care of the underprivileged, even though it looks very wealthy." He noted that people might say, "Why don't you sell a chandelier and help poor people?" Answering his own question, Coe said, "The people who come here have tremendous influence over kids." Private Fellowship documents indicate that Cedars was purchased so that "people throughout the world who carry heavy responsibilities could meet in Washington to think together, plan together and pray together about personal and public problems and opportunities." The Fellowship likes to embrace the fallen. One minister recalled seeing former United Way chief William Aramony at Cedars the night Aramony learned he was facing criminal charges for embezzling charity money. Coe described Cedars as a place open to anyone, including the poor, but acknowledged that the poor who most often use the estate are the young men and women from foreign countries who make the beds, tend the manicured gardens, serve gourmet meals and learn about the Fellowship. The women live in a separate house across the street. The men live in another house called Ivanwald down the block. Several years after purchasing Cedars, members of the Fellowship began buying up houses in this affluent neighborhood. "This thing grew organically," said Fellowship member Chris Halverson, son of Richard Halverson, the late Senate chaplain who was one of the Fellowship's leaders. "More and more people were needed to do the work of helping these senators." The Breakfast Today thousands of government officials, international leaders and select business executives meet on the first Thursday of every February for 90 minutes of prayer, granola, fresh fruit, bagels, pastries, coffee and juice. More than 8,000 people from 170 countries were invited to the National Prayer Breakfast this year; about 3,000 accepted. Tickets are $425. The embossed invitation comes from "members of the Congress of the United States of America." It asks guests to join the president, vice president "and other national leaders in the executive, judicial and legislative branches of our government" for a morning of prayer. Presidential seals decorate nearly everything at the event, from the podium, to the registration desk, to the official program. It's not surprising that many think it's an official government event. Kit Webb, a Virginia businesswoman, attended this year's breakfast at the Washington Hilton hotel. "It's the government leaders who invited everyone," declared Webb, as she mingled in the lobby with other guests. "It's owned by Congress." The Fellowship doesn't go out of its way to correct the record. In fact, Coe, ever secretive, goes so far as to assert that the Fellowship doesn't sponsor the event: "If the International Foundation put it on, would all these people come?" he asked. But the Foundation's role is detailed in private papers and tax records, where it informs the IRS that it "sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast," spending $742,604 to put it on in 2000. An informal congressional committee, made up of members of the House and Senate who meet once a week in small prayer groups, acts as the official host and prepares the program. Rabbi Samuel Cohon of Tucson, who attended this year's breakfast, said he was surprised at how overwhelmingly Christian it was, given its government veneer. He told his Jewish congregation he was disappointed that no other religion besides Christianity was acknowledged. "I believe that most interfaith prayer services would have been much more sensitive than this National Prayer Breakfast, under the auspices of our elected leadership, managed to be," Cohon said. The Fellowship pays for those foreign guests, particularly from poorer countries such as India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who can't afford to make it to the breakfast on their own. Many foreign leaders who attend the breakfast get to schmooze with members of Congress and other U.S. officials while they are in town, people they might not ordinarily have access to. Some of the leaders issue news releases back home, declaring that they have been invited to meet with the U.S. president. "I'm sure a lot of people use the Fellowship as a way to network, a way to gain entree to all sorts of people. And entree they do get," said Michael Cromartie, director of the Evangelical Studies project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative Washington-based think tank. He has attended every breakfast since 1975. Coe said the Fellowship does not help foreign dignitaries gain access to U.S. officials. "We never make any commitment, ever, to arrange special meetings with the president, vice president or secretary of State," Coe said. "We would never do it." The archives tell another story. During the Reagan era, prayer breakfast organizers made sure the president met the international leaders who were there. Among those who met with President Reagan were a controversial faith healer and spiritual advisor to the president of Zambia, a presidential candidate from El Salvador who was not favored by the U.S. administration, and the king of Tonga. "Doug Coe or someone who worked with him would call and say, 'So and so would like to have a word with the president. Do you think you could arrange something?' " said G. Philip Hughes, the executive secretary for the National Security Council in the first Bush administration. "It's an opportunity to put in a plug for something or inch a ball forward." At Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearings for incoming State Department officials last year, Sen. Bill Nelson (D- Fla.), whose wife, Grace, is on the board of the Fellowship, complained that the State Department blocked President Bush from meeting privately at the 2001 prayer breakfast with heads of state from Rwanda, Macedonia, Congo and Slovakia. "Well, if I might observe, I'm not sure a head of state ought to be able to wander over here for the prayer breakfast and, in effect, compel the president of the United States to meet with him as a consequence," replied Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.). "I mean, getting these meetings with the president is a process that's usually very carefully vetted and worked up. Now sort of this back door has sort of evolved." While none of the visiting heads of state met with Bush, Democratic Republic of Congo President Kabila and Rwandan President Kagame privately met for about an hour in the living room on the first floor of Cedars. It was the first time the two warring leaders had met face to face. They sat on salmon-colored couches across from a marbled fireplace, their aides and bodyguards banished to another room. Kabila's father, the former president, had been murdered the month before. Rwanda had 30,000 soldiers within Congo's borders. Starvation and civil war had racked Congo for three years, leaving 2 million dead and an economy in ruins as rebels tried to gain control. "It was an important meeting," said Richard Sezibera, Rwanda's ambassador to the U.S. In the months that followed, members of the Fellowship reached out to both leaders, visiting them in Africa. The two men finally signed a peace accord in July in a deal brokered by the president of South Africa--a move that could be an important step toward peace. "The fact that they met here probably saved hundreds of thousands of kids," Coe said. Douglas Johnston, who heads the International Center for Religion & Diplomacy in Washington and is a former Fellowship board member, said faith-based diplomacy is the hallmark of the Fellowship. He said the Fellowship has kept its actions low-key because people might wrongly assume it is crossing the line of church-state separation. "People forget what separation of church and state is supposed to be all about," he said. "Freedom of religion is not freedom from religion." Church and State A four-story townhouse on C Street, two blocks from the Capitol, is owned by a sister organization of the Fellowship, and is registered with the IRS and the District of Columbia as a church. It pays no taxes. Yet eight members of Congress live there. "We sort of don't talk to the press about the house," said Rep. Bart Stupak (DMich.), who lives there. The 8,000-square-foot detached townhouse has 12 bedrooms, nine bathrooms, five living rooms (including one with a big-screen TV), four dining rooms, three offices, a kitchen--and a small chapel. "The C Street property is a church," said Chip Grange, an attorney for the Fellowship. "It is zoned as a church. There are prayer meetings, fellowship meetings, evangelical meetings," he said. "Our mission field is Capitol Hill." But at least one member of Congress who lives there, Rep. Michael F. Doyle (DPa.), said he didn't know the property was registered as a church. Doyle would not comment further. "I don't discuss my personal living arrangements with the media," he said. Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), another townhouse occupant, told Associated Press in 2000 that the house was the most popular place on the Hill to watch NCAA basketball, eat takeout Chinese food and discuss public policy. The story did not mention the Fellowship. "That's my own life and my own relationships," Wamp told The Times. The house is also conveniently located for conducting faith- based diplomacy. The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the conservative Traditional Values Coalition, said he recently met with several ambassadors from West Africa at the C Street house. "It's a real hideaway for congressmen and senators and ambassadors," said Sheldon, who has been associated with the Fellowship for decades. He said the Fellowship opened the C Street house to members of Congress because "it helps them out. A lot of men don't have an extra $1,500 to rent an apartment. So the Fellowship house does that for those who are part of the Fellowship." Rent is $600 per month for each resident. Meals cost extra, but cleaning is provided by eight college-age volunteers from the Fellowship and a "house mother" who washes the congressmen's sheets and towels. Besides Stupak, Wamp and Doyle, residents include Nevada's Ensign and Reps. Ed Bryant (R-Tenn.), John Elias Baldacci (D-Maine) and James DeMint (R-S.C.). Former Rep. Steve Largent (R-Okla.) lived there until he left Congress to run for governor. The Fellowship has given C Street Center $450,000 in grants and loans since 1994, IRS records show. The group has offered financial aid to congressmen in other ways too. When the late Sen. Harold Hughes' daughter died in 1976, the Fellowship paid funeral expenses. Hughes left the Senate to become a full-time member of the Fellowship. When former Sen. Mark Hatfield needed money in the 1970s, the Fellowship loaned him thousands, gave him $10,000 as an honorarium, and arranged for a lucrative deal to rent property he owned in Oregon--arrangements later criticized by the board. "We would never do it today," said board President Richard Carver, assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. Coe, who also loaned money to Hatfield, said he has loaned money to other members of Congress, but did not recall the details. "I give or loan money to hundreds of people, or have my friends do so," he said. The Fellowship has paid for overseas trips by congressmen in its ranks, who sometimes mix diplomacy and religion during meetings with foreign heads of state. Coe has been dispatched to foreign governments with the blessing of congressional representatives. He has also helped arrange meetings overseas for U.S. officials and members of Congress. In 1979, for instance, Coe messaged the Saudi Arabian minister of commerce and asked him to meet with a Defense Department official who was visiting Riyadh, the capital. In January, Reps. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), Tony P. Hall (D-Ohio) and Joseph R. Pitts (R-Pa.) traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan on a fact-finding congressional trip, meeting with the leaders of both Muslim countries. But the men, all members of the Fellowship, discussed more than U.S. policy. "The first thing we did when we met with [Afghan] President [Hamid] Karzai and President [Pervez] Musharraf was to say, 'We're here officially representing the Congress; we'll report back to the speaker, our leaders, our committees, our government. But we're here also because we're best friends.... We're members of the same prayer group,' " Pitts recalled in a recent interview with his college alumni magazine, the Asbury College Ambassador. "We meet every week together around the teachings of Jesus and we pray together," he said. "We told them about the National Prayer Breakfast and we invited them to join us." Even in the politically sensitive environment after Sept. 11, 2001, Islamic scholars say that most Muslims would react positively to the words of Jesus-unless he was referred to as the son of God. Nevertheless, the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says he is "skeptical about religious diplomacy ... in the long run, someone is going to start trying to convert people." Elliot Mincberg, legal director of People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, said, "It would be better for a member of Congress to separate those roles." Coe said he too would rather that members of Congress who travel overseas keep their public lives distinct from the work they do on behalf of the Fellowship. "I think you need to keep the two hats separate," he said. But he dismisses concerns about the Fellowship's heralding of Jesus. "Religion is divisive. The ideas of Jesus are cohesive," Coe said. "That is the single most important thing I've learned in the last 50 years." Some of the members of Congress most active in the Fellowship overseas also are key members of official congressional committees that oversee the State Department and foreign aid. Wolf is chairman of the House appropriations panel that oversees the State Department budget. Pitts is a member of the House International Relations Committee. Max Kampelman, a former ambassador who is now chairman of the American Academy of Diplomacy, says proselytizing can backfire by antagonizing the other party. "I don't feel that is an effective diplomatic tool," he said. But in his book "Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft," former Fellowship board member Johnston argues that the absence of religion in international diplomacy has led to "uninformed policy choices." The book argues, for instance, that the U.S. failed to see the importance of Islamic clerics in countries such as Iran, which hampered foreign policy decision-making in the Middle East. The book was inspired by the Fellowship and its back-channel diplomacy. In an illustration of the group's unusual diplomatic status, Johnston describes how members of the Fellowship traveling in Somalia in 1981 met with its president, who told them he was willing to meet with the president of Kenya "in the spirit of Christ" to avoid bloodshed. They recounted the story to Air Force Gen. David Jones, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a Fellowship member, when they returned. Sometime later, the Somali president paid an official visit to Jones at the Pentagon. Jones invited him to a Fellowship breakfast, attended by some members of Congress, Coe and other Defense Department officials. Again, they encouraged him to meet the Kenyan president. "You must go. What if the meeting could take place in secrecy? What if separate helicopters could bring each of you to an American aircraft carrier for a rendezvous at sea? No one would have to know about it," Jones said at the breakfast, Johnston wrote. Within a month, the two presidents met--albeit without help from the U.S. military. Such private missions trouble some watchdogs. "You're combining on some level religion and politics," said Chuck Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington. "When our most powerful and senior officials are operating abroad, under an aegis that is something other than their government titles, they are somehow less than accountable. That is valuable for a citizen to know." While in Congress, Hall traveled to Lebanon, Greece, Britain, Slovenia, Japan and India on trips paid for by the Fellowship. Hall said he met with "mostly ordinary people" overseas, though as a courtesy, he often called on heads of state and the U.S. ambassador in that country. He said if the conversation turned to politics, he tried to turn it back to Jesus, and the idea of praying for those in power to become better people by loving God. "When a personal bond is formed, then you're able to work on issues like human rights and hunger," said Hall, who resigned his congressional seat this month to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on hunger issues. The president of the Fellowship board also stepped down to work with Hall in his new job in Rome. "There's nothing sinister here, no dark secrets," Hall said. "It's the exact opposite of what Washington is about." • Times researchers Janet Lundblad and Robert Patrick contributed to this report. [end] American Affairs Silent but deadly By Josh Nathan-Kazis The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet Harper, 464 pages, $25.95 There is perhaps no more shocking revelation in "The Family," Jeff Sharlet's new expose of Christian fundamentalism in America, than the one that implicates Senator Hillary Clinton, the could-have-been Democratic nominee for president, in what she might call a vast right-wing conspiracy. At a luncheon at a private mansion near Washington in 1993, Clinton became acquainted with the Christian evangelical organization led by a man named Doug Coe. This much is public information. What?s less known is that Coe's organization is so secret that it lacks a formal name. Sometimes known as the Fellowship, other times as the Family, the group has roots that run deep among Washington's power brokers. Associates include Senator Sam Brownback, former U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft and Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O'Connor. Eight American congressmen pay below-market rents to live in houses owned by the organization, and 3,500 politicians and business leaders from around the world join the president of the United States to pay their respects to it each year at the National Prayer Breakfast, its sole public event. Since her relationship with the Family began, Sharlet says that Clinton has worked on legislation with members of the group, including an anti-sex trafficking law whose main effect was to fund pro-abstinence efforts, and a law that may allow individual pharmacists to refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions. It was legislation, Sharlet writes, "dedicated less to overturning the wall between church and state than to tunneling beneath it." Christian fundamentalism in America has two faces. There are the Christians of the mega-churches, led by pastors like Jerry Falwell and Ted Haggard, culture warriors obsessed with abortion and homosexuality. Sharlet argues that these populist figures are balanced by an elite strain of Christian fundamentalism, embodied today by the Family. Its members believe that God effects His will through politicians and business leaders, and so they minister directly to the powerful, organizing prayer cells in government offices and boardrooms in Washington and beyond. The cells work quietly, through the system, to promote a Christian fundamentalist agenda. The long-term goal, says Sharlet, is to project America's power across the globe as a vehicle for Jesus. Sharlet's best material describes his infiltration of Ivanwald, a home the Family runs to groom young men for leadership roles within the organization. Ivanwald is in Arlington, Virginia, just next door to the mansion where Hillary Clinton first came in contact with the organization. It's like a frat house-without the sex, drinking or TV. Instead of girls, the guys talk about God's awesome power. Sharlet, a journalist, says that he went to Ivanwald while doing research on his previous book, an edgy survey of American religion called "Killing the Buddha: A Heretics Bible." He says he knew nothing of the Family, writing, "I thought Ivanwald would simply be one more bead on my agnostic rosary." The men living there were aware of his work, and of his mixed religious heritage (Sharlet has a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother). They didn't seem to mind, and were eager to see him become a believer- in their language, to see him broken by God. So, he moved in, participating in their Bible study sessions and doing chores alongside them. It soon became clear that this wasn't some isolated group of novitiates. There were politicians and ambassadors meeting next door, congressmen serving in a building a few miles away, and audiences with major evangelical figures. One of these figures was Doug Coe, the Family's publicity-shy leader. In a lecture on leadership for the men of Ivanwald, Coe invoked Hitler, saying that the Fuehrer truly understood the meaning of unity and the power of a small, like- minded clique. Elsewhere, Coe invokes Mao, Castro and the mafia's use of cellbased organizational structures. The references are used to help to explain the Family's core tactic of creating small prayer cells among elected officials and other powerful men. Sharlet writes that the idea was that, "deals and alliances that could not be achieved through the clumsy machinations of legislative debate would instead radiate quietly out of political cells." Members' high political and social stature meant that publicity was a hindrance, so in 1966 Coe decreed that the organization would operate in secret. There's a thin line between reverence for the organizational stratagems of Hitler and reverence for his purposes, of course. Sharlet argues that Coe & Co. cross this line with abandon. As he traces the Family's history from its founding in the 1930s to today, he shows how it has consistently operated toward antidemocratic ends with sympathies and rhetoric bordering on the fascistic. The organization that would become the Family first came into being in the midst of the labor unrest that plagued the Western seaboard in the 1930s. Abraham Vereide, the Norwegian immigrant preacher who founded the group and led it through its early years, became convinced that Christianity could play a role in the normalization of labor relations. He brought together a group of business leaders to talk about a strong, robust Christianity that would beat back the rising disorder. Before long, a union leader began attending. He began to feel a deep connection to the businessmen, finally announcing that he had realized that if every businessman was devoted to Christ the way these men were, "there would be no more need for a labor union." Then he asked for and received forgiveness for his part in the strikes. Sharlet reports that Vereide would repeat this story over and over throughout his life, calling it the first success of his great vision. If the labor man's proclamation sounds a lot like an argument for the sort of vertical unions instituted in Spain during the Francoist period, it won't come as a surprise that Vereide's prayer groups bred support in the pre-War era for American pseudo-Fascist groups like Seattle's New Order of Cincinnatus, and that Vereide himself ministered to Henry Ford, the Fascist sympathizer and anti-Semite. 'That despot?' Sharlet's most damning revelations, however, concern the Family?s post-War relationships with dictators in Ethiopia, Brazil, Uganda and elsewhere, conflating American interests with the will of God. Coe met with emissaries from the Haitian government in the early days of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier's rule, later dispatching a mission of Family members, including two sitting U.S. senators, to set up prayer cells in the Haitian parliament, and helping direct aid to the bloody dictatorship. Sharlet describes deep connections between the Family and the Suharto regime in Indonesia, which murdered over 600,000 of its citizens during its three decades in power. The Family had members in Suharto's cabinet and parliament, and Suharto met with the Family's prayer cell in the U.S. Senate. "If I told you who has participated-you would not believe it," says Coe. "You'd say, "You mean that scoundrel? That despot?" But Coe isn't concerned with the sins of the elite. If God has chosen the powerful, who can question them? Writes Sharlet, "Elite fundamentalists ... did not care much about sin; they cared about salvation, a concept they understood in terms of nations, not souls, embodied by the rulers to whom God had given power." This is Christianity stripped down to its barest, most brutal core. Coe calls it "Jesus plus nothing." If it all sounds like a wacky conspiracy theory, Sharlet's book nonetheless appears thorough and well documented. He had access to the Family's archives (which have since been sealed), and his book's notes demonstrate that serious research was conducted on those files. The history is skillfully related, particularly the chapter that traces the theology of the Family to the 18th-century preacher Jonathan Edwards, whose fiery exhortations launched America's Great Awakening. The book does lose focus in its last third, as the narrative wends its way through chapters on homeschooling and life among the followers of Ted Haggard in Colorado Springs, which feels thinly connected to the core argument. Still, "The Family" is a compelling read. As the Bush era comes to a fitful close, and the American presidential elections approach, the Christian evangelical movement that brought the Republicans to power in 2000 is, to all outward appearances, losing its political influence. The strange spectacle of the past eight years, in which fire-breathing preachers from Colorado Springs and Lynchburg appeared to be crafting American policy, looks to be over. But Sharlet's book puts an end to any such thoughts. Hillary Clinton?s involvement with the Family draws into question the nature of the difference between the two American parties, and the extent to which the election in November could significantly effect the growing role of religion in Washington. Haggard and Falwell themselves have both already left the stage. But it may be that the future of their cause doesn't rely on the political influence of their successors reaching the peaks they achieved in 2000. If Hillary Clinton will work with the Family, populist evangelical pastors don't need to be able to rally support for a senator like Sam Brownback. Clinton and Brownback represent very different political positions, of course, but, writes Sharlet, "in the geometry of power politics, the Family knows, they are on the same plane, and the distance between them is shrinking. "You can almost hear his sigh. "This is an awful tight space into which to fit a democracy." Josh Nathan-Kazis is the editor of New Voices, an independent magazine for American Jewish college students (newvoices.org). He lives in Brooklyn. Haaretz Books Supplement, September 2008 All in The Family The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power Jeff Sharlet (Harper Collins, 2008, $25.95 cloth.) Reviewed by Frederick Clarkson Jeff Sharlet’s new book The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, is in the best tradition of American investigative journalism. Sharlet, a scholar of religion based at New York University, writes with insight, verve and, thankfully, none of the bogus punditry and bad sociology that often passes for informed discourse about the contemporary role of religion in public life. His refreshing narrative style is as engaging as his groundbreaking information. The story begins when Sharlet is invited to join a Christian community in Virginia, (suburban Washington D.C., really), called Ivanwald. It turns out to be an entry level training facility for a network of what Sharlet calls “elite fundamentalists” that operates partly in the open, but mostly behind the scenes of power for much of the American Century —and into the present day. The Family takes us down some familiar roads of American history, bringing fresh perspectives on such influential evangelists as Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, and Billy Graham. We also gain significant new understandings of contemporary political leaders including Senators Sam Brownback and Hillary Clinton as well as former Senator Dan Coats, (Republican of Indiana), John Ashcroft, and Jack Kemp; and religious right leaders Bill Bright, Ted Haggard, and Chuck Colson. Sharlet explores the role of a distinct “elite fundamentalism” through our history and culture, and illustrates how it currently operates at top levels of American business, government, and the military. This may come as a shock to those for whom overt fundamentalism in the federal government was not apparent before the administration of George W. Bush. But Sharlet demonstrates its role during the Cold War and since. We learn for example, of how “charitable choice,” the legislative precedent for George W. Bush’s “faith-based initiative,” stemmed from ideas incubated by The Family, and was sponsored by Family members, Republican Senators John Ashcroft and Dan Coats—with an assist from Family associate Senator Hillary Clinton. Originally called The Fellowship, now The Family, the organizational roots of this elite fundamentalism was a powerful corporate clique, founded in Seattle in the 1930s as a virulently anti-labor group backed by local big business leaders. Now The Family is headquartered on Washington, D.C.’s Embassy Row. The Family rarely steps out of the shadows. One very public event is an annual breakfast designed to appear as benign as one of the thousands of other staged photo opportunities with presidents and their White House guests. This is the National Prayer Breakfast that The Family has hosted at the White House since the Eisenhower Administration. Prepublication publicity about Sharlet’s book has focused on the peculiar role of Senator Hillary Clinton in the group. But true to the Family's culture of secrecy, she has yet to explain her involvement, the current political fashion of discussing one’s faith journey, notwithstanding. Sharlet reports that she is not a “member,” but is a longtime participant in a Family-sponsored prayer cell, with the wives of other leaders such as Susan Baker, wife of former Secretary of State, James. Sharlet names other “associates,” including former Republican Senators Don Nickels of Oklahoma and Strom Thurmond, of South Carolina. Prepublication publicity about Sharlet’s book has focused on the peculiar role of Senator Hillary Clinton in the group. The roles of secret societies in shaping political pressure blocs, from the Masons to Opus Dei, may or may not be benign, but due to their secretive nature (and especially when they have powerful and ambitious members), they are naturally the subject of speculation and unfortunately, conspiracy theory. Sharlet’s book, however, is based on unique first-hand experience that led him to seek out and access the archives of the The Family stored at Wheaton College. When the Family realized what Sharlet was up to, they slammed the door shut. But Sharlet made the most of the opportunity to detail and document the history and inner workings of the group, its role at top levels of American society, and its extraordinary global reach. Sharlet mines the boxes of files to tell the story, for example, of how soft outreach by Family members opened a remarkable series of doors for the Somali dictator General Said Barre during an American proxy war with the Soviet Union. “In 1981, Family members made contact with Said on behalf of his then-enemy, Kenyan dictator Daniel arap Moi—a brutal American ally—whom Siad agreed to meet.” The end result: “The United States nearly doubled military aid to the regime, pouring guns into a country that before the decade was out would achieve a unity not seen since, when nearly everyone— politicians, warlords, children—united in opposition to Siad.” He fled in 1991, but as Sharlet observes, not before he "scorched as much of his enemy’s land as he could... three hundred thousand died in the famine that followed. It is considered Siad's legacy. It was also the Family's gift to Somalia.” Sharlet shows how The Family’s highly elastic fundamentalist theology boils down to one idea, which members describe as “Jesus plus nothing.” Which is to say that the person of Jesus is all that matters. Not coincidentally, the leader of The Family, Doug Coe, is said to have the closest relationship to Jesus of all of its members, whose respective closeness to Jesus may be measured in concentric circles of closeness to Coe. It could be that Coe is the most important Religious Right leader you have never heard of, but his influence is often acknowledged, if not always noticed. Time magazine in 2005 named him one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in the country. Coe and his emissaries introduce a particular persona of Jesus to “key men” with whom they may open various business relationships, sometimes backdoor diplomatic or military channels. Even barbaric military dictators are introduced to Jesus and invited to pray with a designated Family liaison, as in the case of Gen. Siad. They don’t really care about whether he is a Christian or ever becomes one; because it is all about power and power relationships of a kind that are greased by amoral rationalization and turning blind eyes to horrendous crimes — such as the Indonesian genocide on East Timor, which was conducted even as the Family developed relationships with General Suharto, and played an intermediary role with the U.S. government similar to that in the case of General Siad. Sharlet views the considerable behind-the-scenes clout of Chuck Colson as epitomizing the underestimated power of The Family. Colson’s work, Sharlet writes, “is shot through with a cagey regard for Plato’s ‘noble lie,’ by which the elite must govern masses who don’t know what's good for them, and a reverence for ‘leadership’ as a semimystical quality bequeathed to a small elect who already posses the kind of confidence others might call arrogance." Their form of fundamentalism, Sharlet says, has promoted “foreign policy on a near constant footing of Manichean urgency for the last hundred years; ‘free markets’ imprinted on the American mind as some sort of natural law; a manicdepressive sexuality that puzzles both prudes and libertines throughout the rest of the world; and a schizophrenic sense of democracy as founded on individual rights and yet indebted to a higher authority that trumps personal liberties.” Elite fundamentalism, he concludes, is "certain in its entitlement, responds in this world with a politics of noblesse oblige, the missionary impulse married to military and economic power. The result, he writes, is “the soft empire of America that...recruited fundamentalism to its cause even as it seduced liberalism to its service....” Sharlet warns that "Secular democracy, such as it is, faces no serious challenge. Nor, for that matter, does the elite fundamentalism that has coexisted alongside it for the last seventy years, ensuring that the United States was never fully secular, nor democratic." The effect, Sharlet summarizes, is the “center slouches rightward, and the faithful forget that anyone ever dreamed otherwise.” Frederick Clarkson is a member of the editorial board of The Public Eye and editor of Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America, forthcoming from IG Publishing. 1. The Family: Power, Politics and Fundamentalism's Shadow Elite Google Books Result Preview it here: http://books.google.com/books?id=NVmcx-8zdGEC&printsec=frontcover A journalist's penetrating and controversial look at the untold story of Christian fundamentalism's most elite organisation: a self-described 'invisible' global network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. They are the Family fundamentalism's avant-garde, waging spiritural war in the halls of American power and around the globe. They consider themselves the 'new chosen': congressmen, generals and foreign dictators who meet in confidential cells, to pray and plan for a 'leadership led by God', to be won not by force but through 'quiet diplomacy'. Jeff Sharlet is the only journalist to have reported from inside its walls. THE FAMILY is about this other half of American fundamentalist power - not its angry masses, but its sophisticated elites. In public, they host Prayer Breakfasts; in private they preach a gospel of 'biblical capitalism', military might and a global American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin and Mao as leadership models, the Family's current leader, Doug Coe, declares, 'We work with power where we can, build new power where we can't'. Part history, part investigative journalism, THE FAMILY is a compelling account of how fundamentalism came to be interwoven with American power and the no-holds-barred economics of globalisation. No other book about the Right has exposed the Family or revealed its far-reaching impact on democracy, and no future reckoning of fundamentalism will be able to ignore it. The Family: Power, Politics and Fundamentalism's Shadow Elite By Jeff Sharlet Published by Univ. of Queensland Press, 2008 ISBN 0702236942, 9780702236945 454 pages http://books.google.com/books?id=NVmcx-8zdGEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Ivanwald Book Excerpt: The Family COMMENTARY: A journey beneath the secret fundamentalism at the heart of American power. By Jeff Sharlet May 20, 2008 [The following is an excerpt from The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, by Jeff Sharlet (HarperCollins, June 2008)] Not long after September 11, 2001, a man I'll call Zeke came to New York to survey the ruins of secularism. "To bear witness," he said. He believed Christ had called him. He wandered the city, sparking up conversations with people he took to be Muslims—"Islamics," he called them—knocking on the doors of mosques by day and sliding past velvet ropes into sweaty clubs by night. He prayed with an imam (to Jesus) and may or may not have gone home with several women. He got as close as possible to Ground Zero, visited it often, talked to street preachers. His throat tingled with dust and ashes. When he slept, his nose bled. He woke one morning on a red pillow. He went to bars where he sat and listened to the anger of men and women who did not understand, as he did, why they had been stricken. He stared at photographs and paintings of the Towers. The great steel arches on which they'd stood reminded him of Roman temples, and this made him sad. The city was fallen, not just literally but spiritually, as decadent and doomed as an ancient civilization. And yet Zeke wanted and believed he needed to know why New York was what it was, this city so hated by fundamentalists abroad and, he admitted after some wine, by fundamentalists—"Believers," he called them, and himself— at home. At the time Zeke was living at Ivanwald. His brothers-in-Christ, the youngest eighteen, the oldest in their early thirties, were much like him: educated, athletic, born to affluence, successful or soon to be. Zeke and his brothers were fundamentalists, but not at all the kind I was familiar with. "We're not even Christian," he said. "We just follow Jesus." I'd known Zeke on and off for twelve years. He's the older brother of a woman I dated in college. Zeke had studied philosophy and history and literature in the United States and in Europe, but he had long wanted to find something . . . better. His life had been a pilgrim's progress, and the path he'd taken a circuitous version of the route every fundamentalist travels: from confusion to clarity, from questions to answers, from a mysterious divine to a Jesus who's so familiar that he's like your best friend. A really good guy about whom Zeke could ask, What would Jesus do? and genuinely find the answer. His whole life Zeke had been searching for a friend like that, someone whose words meant what they meant and nothing less or more. Zeke himself looks like such a man, tall, lean, and muscular, with a square jaw and wavy, dark blond hair. One of his grandfathers had served in the Eisenhower administration, the other in Kennedy's. His father, the family legend went, had once been considered a possible Republican contender for Congress. But instead of seeking office, his father had retreated to the Rocky Mountains, and Zeke, instead of attaining the social heights his pedigree seemed to predict, had spent his early twenties withdrawing into theological conundrums, until he peered out at a world of temptations like a wounded thing in a cave. He drank too much, fought men and raged at women, disappeared from time to time and came back from wherever he had gone quieter, angrier, sadder. Then he met Jesus. He had long been a committed Christian, but this encounter was different. This Jesus did not demand orthodoxy. This Jesus gave him permission to stop struggling. So he did, and his pallor left him. He took a job in finance and he met a woman as bright as he was and much happier, and soon he was making money, in love, engaged. But the questions of his youth still bothered him. Again he drank too much, his eye wandered, his temper kindled. So, one day, at the suggestion of an older mentor, he ditched his job, put his fiancée on hold, and moved to Ivanwald, where, he was told, he'd meet yet another Jesus, the true one. When he came up to New York, his sister asked if I would take him out to dinner. What, she wanted to know, was Zeke caught up in? We met at a little Moroccan place in the East Village. Zeke arrived in bright white tennis shorts, spotless white sneakers, and white tube socks pulled taut on his calves. His concession to Manhattan style, he said, was his polo shirt, tucked in tight; it was black. He flirted with the waitress and she giggled, he talked to the people at the next table. Women across the room glanced his way; he gave them easy smiles. I'd never seen Zeke so charming. In my mind, I began to prepare a report for his sister: Good news! Jesus has finally turned Zeke around. He said as much himself. He even apologized for arguments we'd had in the past. He acknowledged that he'd once enjoyed getting a rise out of me by talking about "Jewish bankers." (I was raised a Jew by my father, a Christian by my mother.) That was behind him now, he said. Religion was behind him. Ivanwald had cured him of the God problem. I'd love the place, he said. "We take Jesus out of his religious wrapping. We look at Him, at each other, without assumptions. We ask questions, and we answer them together. We become brothers." I asked if he and his brothers prayed a great deal. No, he said, not much. Did they spend a lot of time in church? None—most churches were too crowded with rules and rituals. Did they study the Bible in great depth? Just a few minutes in the morning. What they did, he said, was work and play games. During the day they raked leaves and cleaned toilets, and during the late afternoon they played sports, all of which prepared them to serve Jesus. The work taught humility, he said, and the sports taught will; both were needed in Jesus' army. "Wait a minute," I said. "Back up. What leaves? Whose toilets?" "Politicians," he said. "Congressmen." "You go to their houses?" "Sometimes," Zeke answered. "But mostly they come to us." I was trying to picture it—Trent Lott pulling up in a black Lincoln, a toilet badly in need of a scrub protruding from the trunk. But what Zeke meant was that he and his brothers raked and polished for politicians at a retreat called the Cedars, designed for their spiritual succor. "Really?" I said. "Like who?" "I can't really say," Zeke answered. "Who runs it?" "Nobody." "Who pays?" "People just give money." Then Zeke smiled. Enough questions. "You're better off seeing it for yourself." "Is there an organization?" I asked. "No," he said, chuckling at my incomprehension. "Just Jesus." "So how do you join?" "You don't," he said. He smiled again, such a broad grin. His teeth were as white as his sneakers. "You're recommended." "Cowboy Christians", "Baba lovers," and naked pagans Zeke recommended me to Ivanwald, and because I was curious and had recently quit a job to write a book about American religious communities, I decided to join for a while. I had no thought of investigative reporting; rather, my interest was personal. By the time I got there, I'd lived for short spells with "Cowboy Christians" in Texas, and with "Baba lovers," America's most benign cultists, in South Carolina, and in Kansas with hundreds of naked pagans. I thought Ivanwald would simply be one more bead on my agnostic rosary. I thought of the transformation Ivanwald had worked on Zeke, and I imagined it as a sort of spiritual spa where angry young men smoothed out their anxieties with new-agey masculine bonding. I thought it would be silly but relaxing. I didn't imagine that what I'd find there would lead me into the heart of American fundamentalism, that a spell among Zeke's Believers would propel me into dusty archives and the halls of power for the next several years. I had never thought of myself as a religious seeker, but at Ivanwald I became one. Since then, I've been searching, not for salvation, but for the meaning behind the words, the hints of power, that I found there. Zeke was gone by the time I arrived. He had returned to finance, a path the brothers approved of, and to his fiancée, whom they did not—she was a graduate student and a free-spirited Scandinavian who loved to party. Jeff Connally, one of the Ivanwald house leaders who picked me up at Union Station in Washington one April evening, told me he thought Zeke might have made the wrong choice. Zeke's fiancée did not obey God. She was, he said, a "Jezebel." Jeff was a small, sharply handsome man with cloudy blue eyes above high cheekbones. When he said "Jezebel," he smiled. Jeff had come with two other brothers: Gannon Sims, the Baylor grad, and Bengt Carlson, the other house leader, a twenty-four-year-old North Carolinian with spiky brown eyebrows. In the car, after a long silence, he said, "Well, I think you're probably the most misunderstood Ivanwalder ever." "Yeah?" I said. "I didn't really know how to explain you to the guys," Bengt went on. "So I just told him we got a new dude, he's from New York, he's a writer, he's Jewish, but he wants to know Jesus. And you know what they said?" "No," I answered, my fingers curling around the door handle. "Bring him on!" My three new brothers laughed, and Gannon's Volvo eased down tree-lined streets, each smaller and sleepier than the last, until we arrived at the gray colonial that was to be my new home. Bengt showed me my bunk and two drawers in a bureau and a cubbyhole in the bathroom for my toiletries. One by one, a dozen men drifted by in various states of undress, slapping me on the back or the ass or hugging me, calling me "brother." Someone was playing the soundtrack to Hair. One man crooned the words to "Fellatio," but then he said he was just kidding, and another switched out Hair for Neil Young's "Keep On Rockin' in the Free World." Pavel the Czech winked. Ready for bed, the men introduced themselves. From Japan there was Yusuke, a management consultant studying Ivanwald in order to replicate it in Tokyo; from Ecuador, a former college soccer star named Raf, a Catholic who was open about his desire for business connections. From Atlanta there was thick-necked Beau and bespectacled Josh, best friends who'd put off their postcollege careers; from Oklahoma, Dave, a tall, redheaded young man with a wide, daffy smile on a head of uncommon proportions. "Our pumpkin on a beanpole," one of the brothers called him, a "gift" to our brotherhood from former representative Steve Largent, who Dave said had arranged with Dave's father for Dave to be sent to Ivanwald to cure him of a mild case of college liberalism. Before the lights went out after midnight, they came together to pray for me, Jeff Connally's voice just above a whisper, asking God to "break" me. Dave, already broken, mumbled an amen. The Family is in its own words an "invisible" association. Ivanwald, which sits at the end of Twenty-fourth Street North in Arlington, was known only to its residents and to the members and friends of the Family. The Family is in its own words an "invisible" association, though it has always been organized around public men. Senator Sam Brownback (R., Kansas), chair of a weekly, off - the- record meeting of religious right groups called the Values Action Team (VAT), is an active member, as is Representative Joe Pitts (R., Pennsylvania), an avuncular would-be theocrat who chairs the House version of the VAT. Others referred to as members include senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Steering Committee (the powerful conservative caucus co-founded back in 1974 by another Family associate, the late senator Carl Curtis of Nebraska); Pete Domenici of New Mexico (a Catholic and relatively moderate Republican; it's Domenici's status as one of the Senate's old lions that the Family covets, not his doctrinal purity); Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa); James Inhofe (R., Oklahoma); Tom Coburn (R., Oklahoma); John Thune (R., South Dakota); Mike Enzi (R., Wyoming); and John Ensign, the conservative casino heir elected to the Senate from Nevada, a brightly tanned, hapless figure who uses his Family connections to graft holiness to his gambling-fortune name. "Faith-based Democrats" Bill Nelson of Florida and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, sincere believers drawn rightward by their understanding of Christ's teachings, are members, and Family stalwarts in the House include Representatives Frank Wolf (R., Virginia), Zach Wamp (R., Tennessee), and Mike McIntyre, a North Carolina Democrat who believes that the Ten Commandments are "the fundamental legal code for the laws of the United States" and thus ought to be on display in schools and court houses. The Family's historic roll call is even more striking: the late senator Strom Thurmond (R., South Carolina), who produced "confidential" reports on legislation for the Family's leadership, presided for a time over the Family's weekly Senate meeting, and the Dixie-crat senators Herman Talmadge of Georgia and Absalom Willis Robertson of Virginia—Pat Robertson's father— served on the behind-the-scenes board of the organization. In 1974, a Family prayer group of Republican congressmen and former secretary of defense Melvin Laird helped convince President Gerald Ford that Richard Nixon deserved not just Christian forgiveness but also a legal pardon. That same year, Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist led the Family's first weekly Bible study for federal judges. "I wish I could say more about it," Ronald Reagan publicly demurred back in 1985, "but it's working precisely because it is private." "We desire to see a leadership led by God," reads a confidential mission statement. "Leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." Another principle expanded upon is stealthiness; members are instructed to pursue political jujitsu by making use of secular leaders "in the work of advancing His kingdom," and to avoid whenever possible the label Christian itself, lest they alert enemies to that advance. Regular prayer groups, or "cells" as they're often called, have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family's use of the term "cell" long predates the word's current association with terrorism. Its roots are in the Cold War, when leaders of the Family deliberately emulated the organizing techniques of communism. In 1948, a group of Senate staffers met to discuss ways that the Family's "cell and leadership groups" could recruit elites unwilling to participate in the "mass meeting approach" of populist fundamentalism. Two years later, the Family declared that with democracy inadequate to the fight against godlessness, such cells should function to produce political "atomic energy"; that is, deals and alliances that could not be achieved through the clumsy machinations of legislative debate would instead radiate quietly out of political cells. More recently, Senator Sam Brownback told me that the privacy of Family cells makes them safe spaces for men of power—an appropriation of another term borrowed from an enemy, feminism.5 "In this closer relationship," a document for members reads, "God will give you more insight into your own geographical area and your sphere of influence." One's cell should become "an invisible ‘believing group' " out of which "agreements reached in faith and in prayer around the person of Jesus Christ" lead to action that will appear to the world to be unrelated to any centralized organization. In 1979, the former Nixon aide and Watergate felon Charles W. Colson—born again through the guidance of the Family and the ministry of a CEO of arms manufacturer Raytheon—estimated the Family's strength at 20,000, although the number of dedicated "associates" around the globe is much smaller (around 350 as of 2006). The Family maintains a closely guarded database of associates, members, and "key men," but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities. "The Movement," a member of the Family's inner circle once wrote to the group's chief South African operative, "is simply inexplicable to people who are not intimately acquainted with it." The Family's "political" initiatives, he continues, "have always been misunderstood by ‘outsiders.' As a result of very bitter experiences, therefore, we have learned never to commit to paper any discussions or negotiations that are taking place. There is no such thing as a ‘confidential' memorandum, and leakage always seems to occur. Thus, I would urge you not to put on paper anything relating to any of the work that you are doing . . . [unless] you know the recipient well enough to put at the top of the page ‘PLEASE DESTROY AFTER READING.'" "If I told you who has participated and who participates until this day, you would not believe it," the Family's longtime leader, Doug Coe, said in a rare interview in 2001. "You'd say, ‘You mean that scoundrel? That despot?' " A friendly, plainspoken Oregonian with dark, curly hair, a lazy smile, and the broad, thrown-back shoulders of a man who recognizes few superiors, Coe has worked for the Family since 1959 and been "First Brother" since founder Abraham Vereide was "promoted" to heaven in 1969. (Recently, a successor named Dick Foth, a longtime friend to John Ashcroft, assumed some of Coe's duties, but Coe remains the preeminent figure.) Coe denies possessing any authority, but Family members speak of him with a mixture of intimacy and awe. Doug Coe, they say—most people refer to him by his first and last name—is closer to Jesus than perhaps any other man alive, and thus privy to information the rest of us are too spiritually "immature" to understand. For instance, the necessity of secrecy. Doug Coe says it allows the scoundrels and the despots to turn their talents toward the service of Jesus—who, Doug Coe says, prefers power to piety—by shielding their work on His behalf from a hardhearted public, unwilling to believe in their good intentions. In a sermon posted online by a fundamentalist website, Coe compares this method to the mob's. "His Body"— the Body of Christ, that is, by which he means Christendom--"functions invisibly like the mafia. . . . They keep their organization invisible. Everything visible is transitory. Everything invisible is permanent and lasts forever. The more you can make your organization invisible, the more influence it will have." For that very reason, the Family has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, National Leadership Council, the Fellowship Foundation, the International Foundation. The Fellowship Foundation alone has an annual budget of nearly $14 million. The bulk of it, $12 million, goes to "mentoring, counseling, and partnering with friends around the world," but that represents only a fraction of the network's finances. The Family does not pay big salaries; one man receives $121,000, while Doug Coe seems to live on almost nothing (his income fluctuates wildly according to the off - the- books support of "friends"), and none of the fourteen men on the board of directors (among them an oil executive, a defense contractor, and government officials past and present) receives a penny. But within the organization money moves in peculiar ways, "man-to-man" financial support that's off the books, a constant proliferation of new nonprofits big and small that submit to the Family's spiritual authority, money fl owing up and down the quiet hierarchy. "I give or loan money to hundreds of people, or have my friends do so," says Coe. Each group connected to the Family raises funds in dependently. Ivanwald, for example, was financed in part by an entity called the Wilberforce Foundation. Major evangelical organizations such as Young Life and the Navigators have undertaken the support of Family operatives, and the Family has in turn helped launch Christian conservative power houses such as Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship, a worldwide ministry that has declared "civil war" on secularism, and projects such as Community Bible Study, through which a failing Texas oilman named George W. Bush discovered faith in 1985. The Family's only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast, which it established in 1953 and which, with congressional sponsorship, it continues to organize every February at the Washington, D.C., Hilton. Some 3,000 dignitaries, representing scores of nations and corporate interests, pay $425 each to attend. For most, the breakfast is just that, muffins and prayer, but some stay on for days of seminars organized around Christ's messages for particular industries. In years past, the Family organized such events for executives in oil, defense, insurance, and banking. The 2007 event drew, among others, a contingent of aid-hungry defense ministers from Eastern Europe, Pakistan's famously corrupt Benazir Bhutto, and a Sudanese general linked to genocide in Darfur. Here's how it can work: Dennis Bakke, former CEO of AES, the largest independent power producer in the world, and a Family insider, took the occasion of the 1997 Prayer Breakfast to invite Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, the Family's "key man" in Africa, to a private dinner at a mansion, just up the block from the Family's Arlington headquarters. Bakke, the author of a popular business book titled Joy at Work, has long preached an ethic of social responsibility inspired by his evangelical faith and his free-market convictions: "I am trying to sell a way of life," he has said. "I am a cultural imperialist." That's a phrase he uses to be provocative; he believes that his Jesus is so universal that everyone wants Him. And, apparently, His business opportunities: Bakke was one of the pioneer thinkers of energy deregulation, the laissez- faire fever dream that culminated in the meltdown of Enron. But there was other, less-noticed fallout, such as the no- bid deal Bakke made with Museveni at the 1997 Prayer Breakfast for a $500-million dam close to the source of the White Nile—in waters considered sacred by Uganda's 2.5-million–strong Busoga minority. AES announced that the Busoga had agreed to "relocate" the spirits of their dead. They weren't the only ones opposed; first environmentalists (Museveni had one American arrested and deported) and then even other foreign investors revolted against a project that seemed like it might actually increase the price of power for the poor. Bakke didn't worry. "We don't go away," he declared. He dispatched a young man named Christian Wright, the son of one of the Prayer Breakfast's organizers, to be AES's in- country liaison to Museveni; Wright was later accused of authorizing at least $400,000 in bribes. He claimed his signature had been forged. "I'm sure a lot of people use the Fellowship as a way to network, a way to gain entrée to all sorts of people," says Michael Cromartie, an evangelical Washington think tanker who's critical of the Family's lack of transparency. "And entrée they do get." The president usually arrives an hour early, meets perhaps ten heads of state— usually from small nations, such as Albania, or Ecuador, or Benin, that the United States uses as proxies in the United Nations—without publicity, and perhaps a dozen other useful guests chosen by the Family. "It totally circumvents the State Department and the usual vetting within the administration that such a meeting would require," an anonymous government informant told a sympathetic sociologist. "If Doug Coe can get you some face time with the President of the United States, then you will take his call and seek his friendship. That's power." The president always speaks last, usually to do no more than spread a dull glaze of civil religion over the proceedings. For years, the main address came from Billy Graham, but now it's often delivered by an outsider to Christian conservatism, such as Saudia Arabia's longtime ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, or Senator Joe Lieberman, or, as in 2006, Bono. "This is really weird," said the rock star. "Anything can happen," according to an internal planning document, "the Koran could even be read, but JESUS is there! He is infiltrating the world." Too bland most years to merit much press, the breakfast is regarded by the Family as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can "meet Jesus man to man." In the process of introducing powerful men to Jesus, the Family has managed to affect a number of behind-the-scenes acts of diplomacy. In 1978 it helped the Carter administration organize a worldwide call to prayer with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. At the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast, Family leaders persuaded their South African client, the Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, to stand down from the possibility of civil war with Nelson Mandela. But such benign acts appear to be the exception to the rule. During the 1960s, the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most oppressive regimes in the world, arranging prayer networks in the U.S. Congress for the likes of General Costa e Silva, dictator of Brazil; General Suharto, dictator of Indonesia; and General Park Chung Hee, dictator of South Korea. "The Fellowship's reach into governments around the world," observes David Kuo, a former special assistant to the president in Bush's first term, "is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp." In 1983, Doug Coe and General John W. Vessey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , informed the civilian ambassadors of the Central American nations that the Prayer Breakfast would be used to arrange "private sessions" for their generals with "responsible leaders" in the United States; the invitations would be sent from Republican senators Richard Lugar and Mark Hatfield, and Dixie-crat John Stennis, the Mississippi segregationist after whom an aircraft carrier is now named. The Family went on to build friendships between the Reagan administration and the Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, found liable in 2002 by a Florida jury for the torture of thousands, and the Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, who before his assassination was linked to both the CIA and death squads. El Salvador became one of the bloodiest battlegrounds of the Cold War; U.S. military aid to Honduras jumped from $4 million per year to $79 million. In Africa, the Family greased the switch of U.S. patronage from one client state, Ethiopia, to another that they felt was more promising: Somalia. "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe explains, "build new power where we can't." Former secretary of state James Baker, a longtime participant in a prayer cell facilitated by Coe, recalls that when he visited Albania after the collapse of Eastern Europe an communism, the Balkan nation's foreign minister met him on the tarmac with the words, "I greet you in the name of Doug Coe." Coe's status within Washington has been quantitatively calculated by D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist who traded on his past work with evangelicals as a pollster—and his sympathetic perspective—to win interviews with 360 evangelical elites. "One in three mentioned Coe or the Fellowship as an important influence," he reports. "Indeed, there is no other organization like the Fellowship, especially among religious groups, in terms of its access or clout among the country's leadership." At the 1990 National Prayer Breakfast, President George H. W. Bush praised Doug Coe for what he described as "quiet diplomacy, I wouldn't say secret diplomacy." Bush was apparently ignorant of one of the nation's oldest laws, the Logan Act, which forbids private citizens to do just that lest foreign policy slip out of democratic control. Sometimes Coe's role is formal; in 2000, he met with Pakistan's top economic officials as a "special envoy" of Representative Joe Pitts, a key power broker for the region, and when he and Bush Senior hosted an off-the-record luncheon with Iraq's ambassador to the United States in the mid- 1980s, he may also have been acting in some official capacity. Mostly, however, he travels around the world as a private citizen. He has prayed with dictators, golfed with presidents, and wrestled with an island king in the Pacific. He has visited nearly every world capital, often with congressmen at his side, "making friends" and inviting them back to the Cedars, the Family's headquarters, bought in 1978 with $1.5 million donated by (among others) Tom Phillips, then the CEO of arms manufacturer Raytheon, several oil executives, and Clement Stone, the man who financed the campaign to insert "under God," into the Pledge of Allegiance. Coe, who while I was at Ivanwald lived with his wife in an elegantly appointed carriage house on the mansion's grounds, considers the mansion a refuge for the persecuted and the afflicted: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas retreated there when Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment; Senator David Durenberger, a conservative Catholic, boarded there to escape marital problems that began with rumors of an affair and ended with Durenberger's pleading guilty to misuse of public funds; James Watt, Reagan's anti-environmental secretary of the interior, weathered the controversy surrounding his appointment in one of the Cedars' bedrooms. A waterfall has been carved into the mansion's broad lawn, from which a bronze bald eagle watches over a forested hillside sloping down to the Potomac River. The mansion is white and pillared and surrounded by magnolias, and by red trees that do not so much tower above it as whisper. The Cedars is named for these trees, but Family members speak of it as a person. "The Cedars has a heart for the poor," they like to say. By poor they mean not the thousands of literal poor living in Washington's ghettos, but rather the poor in spirit: the senators, generals, and prime ministers who coast to the end of Twenty-fourth Street in Arlington in black limousines and town cars and hulking SUVs to meet one another, to meet Jesus, to pay homage to the god of the Cedars. There they forge relationships beyond the "din of the vox populi" and "throwaway religion" in favor of the truths of the Family. Declaring God's covenant with the Jews broken, the group's core members call themselves the new chosen. The brothers of Ivanwald were the Family's next generation, its high priests in training. Sometimes the brothers would ask me why I was there. They knew that I was "half Jewish," that I was a writer, and that I was from New York City, which most of them considered to be only slightly less wicked than Baghdad or Paris. I didn't lie to them. I told my brothers that I was there to meet Jesus, and I was: the Jesus of the Family, whose ways are secret. The brothers were certain that He had sent me to them for a reason, and perhaps they were right. What follows is my personal testimony, to the enduring power of this strange American god. Secrets of a powerful Family • • Ian Munro, New York June 14, 2008 Behind closed doors: Writer Jeff Sharlet believes insidious activities by The Family are undermining American democracy. Photo: Michael Nagle FROM Barack Obama's incendiary pastor, to Mitt Romney's Mormonism, to Mike Huckabee's southern Baptist roots, religion is the constant in America's choosing of a president. Racism, sexism, health policy, the economy and Iraq have had their moments, but religion renews itself with every fresh controversy. Even John McCain, relatively secure as presumed Republican candidate, has jettisoned a preacher whose endorsement became politically untenable. Yet the most influential and enduring religious force in the country - elitist Christian fundamentalism - is mostly unsighted and rarely remarked upon, according to writer Jeff Sharlet. Overt fundamentalists, the Bible thumping televangelist populists, are the antithesis of the secretive network he has identified and that is known variously as The Fellowship and The Family. The Family organises Washington politicians into intimate "prayer cells", influences foreign policy, inspired the creation of the president's Annual Prayer Breakfast in 1953 and sponsored President George Bush's faith-based policy of transferring social welfare responsibilities to religious groups in 2001. It has actively narrowed debate, limiting what change might be possible. "The Family is an international network of evangelical elites, in government, military and business, dating back 70 years, organised around this one central idea, which was that Christianity for 2000 years got it wrong," Sharlet says. "Christianity, in theory anyway, was about the poor, the weak, the suffering, the down-and-out, and the idea of the founder of this network was that God was more interested in those whom he called the up-and-out: the wealthy, the powerful, those with status. (They rely) on this very literal reading of a verse from Paul's letter to the Romans: 'The powers that be are ordained of God.' They take that very literally. If you have power that's because God wants you to have power." It is essentially a conservative concept, defensive of the status quo and a marked contrast with another American contribution to Christian thought, black liberation theology. The Family worships a "manly Jesus" for whom the compassion of the Sermon on the Mount was an aberration. It might be tempting to dismiss The Family as just another product of the home of conspiracy theories had not the man at the head of the network, Doug Coe, been attested to by presidents such as George Bush, Bill Clinton and George Bush snr, and the group referred to guardedly by Ronald Reagan: "It is working precisely because it is private." Sharlet offers a roll-call of, mostly Republican, senators who have been or are members, and notes that while Hillary Clinton is not a member, she has prayed with Coe and is considered a "friend" of The Family. The bigger problem, however, is that The Family is so deeply embedded in Washington that Clinton is not unusual in holding even her casual link to the group, he says. When a Time magazine reporter who was researching the most influential religious figures in the country approached Sharlet for his opinion, Sharlet suggested the reporter ask around Congress about Coe. The reporter, who had not previously heard of Coe, learned enough to label him "The Stealth Persuader". Sharlet, a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone magazines, encountered the group by accident seven years ago when he was reporting on fringe religious groups and was invited to one of its residential centres, called Ivanwald, in Virginia. Those with whom he stayed at Ivanwald were caretakers of The Family headquarters known as The Cedars, where meetings of congressmen, businessmen, ambassadors and foreign leaders were held. While he was there, Sharlet was told that Megawati Sukarnoputri visited The Cedars in her time as Indonesian president. He later discovered a cache of documents, more than 600 boxes of papers archived and forgotten, which unlocked the network's history. His work has resulted in his book The Family. Its central finding is that American fundamentalism has two movements, and that the most influential is the least visible. There is the public face, the popular image of sweating, impassioned televangelists, and there is the private one comprising the exclusive world of The Family. "There's sort of a trickle-down fundamentalism that begins with the elites and winds up in the mass movements," he says. "Ever since the 'Scopes Monkey Trial' of 1925, the media has been declaring Christian fundamentalism dead every few years, and it just keeps coming back. The press can see religion when it's working class and poor; it has a much harder time seeing it when it's infused at the top levels." Sharlet says The Family facilitated aid and links to US industry for dictators such as Papa Doc of Haiti, Siad Barre of Somalia and Indonesia's Suharto. It finds "friends" in Congress for powerful foreigners and influences foreign policy. Coe annually subverts normal vetting procedures for foreign leaders by arranging for them to meet the President at the annual prayer breakfast, Sharlet says. In short, The Family is a secretive, undemocratic organisation that is prepared to aid and abet dictators. Since it works on the inside, there is no need for fulminating at the pulpit. Sharlet quotes Coe as saying in a rare interview: "We work with power where we can, build new power where we can't." Sharlet says the push for a "government led by God" is done through secret alliances and in defiance of democratic processes. "I think it's dangerous. In some ways I resist calling it a left-right issue - although they do tend to be right-wingers - so much as an issue of open democracy, of transparency. "They use this pretentious phrase of bringing politicians together to make decisions 'beyond the din of the vox populi', the voice of the people. At its worst it's cynical cronyism. "What The Family does when it says it is going to get beyond politics is try to shut down the debate." Coe preaches submission, and approvingly cites Hitler and Mao. "There's this constant thread and reverence for what essentially is an authoritarian concept of God, that what matters most in one's concept of God is obedience," Sharlet says. "When I was living with those guys in Ivanwald, you literally turn over decisionmaking in every aspect of your life. Not just these grand issues of what am I going to do with my life, but should I date this woman?" It was The Family's conceit that it thought it could recruit Sharlet, half-Jewish and a leftish journalist, to its distinctive ways. A bit like Groucho Marx - who did not want to join any club that would have him as a member - Sharlet was amazed to find himself in their company at Ivanwald, where he lived for a month in an all-male, no-drinking, no swearing, armwrestling dormitory. Had they only Googled me, he says, they'd have realised what an unpromising prospect they had. In his background, however, were hints of fertile ground for The Family. Sharlet's parents separated when he was two, but he remained close to his Jewish father even as he was raised by his mother, Nancy. His mother was Pentacostal, a member of that fevered troop of Christians inclined to talking in tongues, although she was not so inclined. She had family among Tennessee hillbillies, but after her separation from Sharlet's father, she stayed around New York State in a town that, Sharlet says, was unusually anti-Semitic. Nancy Sharlet was something of a hippie, sampling from numerous religions so that her son grew up surrounded by questions of faith. Catholics would come to pray at their home at noon, and a couple of hours later a Buddhist nun would arrive. It seemed that he was immersed in the entire panoply of religion, with his mother drawn to whichever service had the best music. Sharlet's father might have interested The Family. Robert Sharlet was an academic and a specialist in Soviet politics. As a Sovietologist he served as an adviser to the CIA. "I think the Family liked the fact I was Jewish. Having a Jew pray to Jesus shows the power of Jesus. They liked the fact I was a journalist and they liked the fact my father was a consultant to the CIA," Sharlet says. An uncle, also Jeff Sharlet, served in Vietnam as a translator and intelligence officer in 1962-63 and became a critic of the war. He died of cancer, aged 27, having been exposed to a precursor of Agent Orange. He has inspired Sharlet's next major book, covering GI anti-war movements. It is a joint project with his father, who has done much of the research tracking down veterans. But first, Sharlet, 36, has another job, having been commissioned to write the story of the evolution, or devolution, of Pete Seeger's song If I Had a Hammer. "It's telling the decline of the American left through the story of that song. When it was first performed there was a huge anti-communist riot in response to it," Sharlet says. Recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary, it became a civil-rights anthem. "Today, it's a kids' song and there's a hokey-pokey dance you do to it. "It's a completely depoliticised song now. The original was not so. Pete Seeger was not just a communist, he was a Stalinist." Sharlet lives in New York, a place of infinite wickedness to The Family, a fact that may also have enhanced his appeal to them as a reform project. Despite Hillary Clinton's involvement with The Family, Sharlet says he voted for her. "Her involvement is not huge, but that it's there at all is tremendously significant for the relationship of religion and politics in America. The idea that a group with ideas this eccentric and explicitly anti-democratic (exists) suggests something about the unwillingness of politicians who ought to know better to even challenge that establishment," he says. He hopes one of the results of the book's publication is that newly elected members of Congress will not be blind to the network they are asked to join when invited to one of Coe's prayer cells. But sitting in a cafe in Brooklyn's Carroll Gardens district on the eve of the book's launch, he was not expecting a big splash. The Family will try to roll with the punch. They are in power, but they are soft-spoken. And unique to religion in America, invisible by design. The Australian connection JEFF Sharlet found an Australian association to The Family in his initial contact with the network: one of his fellow inhabitants at Ivanwald, who is unnamed in the book, said he was there on the recommendation of (now former) Liberal federal MP Bruce Baird. The Family's links to Australia appear to run much deeper, however. Australia has had a national prayer breakfast for more then 20 years, and the documents unearthed by Sharlet tell of a delegation of US congressmen in 1966 meeting "leaders in the Australian Parliament" to discuss breakfast groups. Earlier still, in 1963, an Australian parliamentary group was reported as communicating regularly with a US Senate group. Another reference, in an undated telegram believed to have been sent around 1980, identifies a former immigration minister in the Fraser Government, Michael MacKellar, as an Australian contact for The Family's leader, Doug Coe. And the Australian ambassador to the US immediately after World War II, former Labor MP Norman Makin, is identified in a 1948 newsletter as a key speaker to a meeting of the group, which was then known as the National Committee for Christian Leadership. A 1949 reference notes "Ambassador Makin starting groups there". In a very different way, Australia's ties to the group extend to its creation. In the fear and uncertainty that the Great Depression wrought on 1930s America, The Family was created following industrial violence centred on the San Francisco waterfront. Leading striking workers was a Melbourne-born militant, Harry Bridges, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World. "The Family really begins when the founder (Abraham Vereide) has this vision, which he thinks comes from God, that Harry Bridges, this Australian labour organiser who organised really the biggest strike in American history, a very successful strike, is a Satanic and Soviet agent," Sharlet says. Vereide began by uniting a group of business leaders that tied his vision of Christianity to what became a political machine. "This is one of the interesting things," Sharlet says. "American elite fundamentalism begins not around an issue of abortion, sexuality or anything like that, but against organised labour." The Family, by Jeff Sharlet, is published in Australia by Queensland University Press. RRP $34.95 

All in The Family

According this article, the following are among members of The Family or are considered Friends of the Family:

• George Allen (R-VA)
• William Armstrong (R-CO)
• Roy Blunt (R-MO)
• Sam Brownback (R. Kans.)
• Conrad Burns (R., Mont.)
• John Chafee (R-RI)
• Lawton Chiles (D-FL)
• Dan Coats (R-IN)
• Tom DeLay (R-TX)
• Jim DeMint (R., S.C.)
• Jeremiah Denton (R-AL)
• Pete Domenici (R-NM)
• Robert Dornan (R-CA)
• Mike Doyle (D. Penn.)
• Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.)
• David Durenberger (R-MN)
• John Ensign (R., Nev.)
• Tom Feeney (R-FL)
• Bill Frist (R-TN)
• Al Gore, Jr. (D-TN)
• Phil Gramm (R-TX)
• Charles Grassley (R., Iowa)
• Tony Hall (D-OH)
• Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
• James Inhofe (R., Okla.)
• Roger Jepsen (R-IA)
• Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
• Richard Lugar (R-IN)
• Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
• Zell Miller (D-GA)
• Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) (Nelson's wife Grace serves on the Fellowship Foundation's Board of Directors)
• Don Nickles (R., Okla.)
• Sam Nunn (D-GA)
• Charles Percy (R-IL)
• Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.)
• Larry Pressler (R-SD)
• Jennings Randolph (D-WV)
• Rick Santorum (R-PA)
• Bart Stupak (D., Mich.)
• John Stennis (D-MS)
• Strom Thurmond (R-SC)
• Paul Trible (R-VA)
• Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.)
• J. C. Watts (R-OK)
• Curt Weldon (R-PA)
• Jerry Weller (R-IL)
• Frank Wolf (R., Va.)

C Street: The Compelling New Soap Opera Airing Now on Your Cable News Networks

Since the presidential election, I'd lost my need of staying on top of the news cycles.... particularly with the death of Michael Jackson, who conveniently died the day before my family and I left for a vacation in the Pacific Northwest in a rented house that did not include television. Being holed up for a week with my nose happily buried in the Twilight saga, I was hoping to be spared all the ad nauseam Jackson coverage.

So I was tuning out the news altogether for awhile. Once home, when not reading, working or doing the "mom thing," I caught up with all the programs filling up the memory on my DVR. But then last night I finally emptied out the DVR and today I found myself checking in with Rachel Maddow to see what was going on in the strange world of politics these days.

Unlike Anderson Cooper (apparently he and Michael were tight, so I'll cut him a little slack), Rachel did not disappoint. Wow. Obviously I have a lot of catching up to do. Sure, I was aware of the whole Ensign scandal. That happened before we left for vacation. I found it moderately entertaining but not enough to hold my attention long.

Slightly more entertaining were the adventures of Governor Sanford. I have to admit, I was disappointed to learn the reports of him hiking in the Appalachian Mountains on National Hike Naked Day weren't true. It was only a tad consoling to learn he probably was indeed naked... just in Argentina rather than the Appalachian Trail.... and probably engaged in some activity other than hiking.

But now we're really getting to the good stuff.... The real "meat of the bone," if you will. This C Street story is like something out of a Dan Brown novel. I mean, if it's true that "The Family" has been operating this "house" slash "church" as a "safe haven" for congressmen as a means for the religious right to gain more influence and control over high ranking government officials.... Yikes!

If you've been living in a box -- or a vacation rental with no TV like me -- here's what's happening: A group referred to as "The Family" owns a boarding house in Washington DC for right wing, Christian congressman. But it's more than a house. Previously a convent, as far as the IRS is concerned, it's a church (convenient tax exemption) and they counsel the residents, hold prayer meetings, etc.

OK, so far, nothing wrong going on here. Just men (maybe women, but I'm guessing mostly men) with a common faith and common career paths living in harmony as roommates. But when you dig deeper, it becomes much more tawdry... if not down right sinister.

The Family known by several different names including The Fellowship, is a highly secretive organization that was 1935 in opposition to FDR's New Deal. It's much like any other, run of the mill secret society in that its members are required to take oaths upon entering the flock, they gradually climb there way up the organization to ranks referred to as "cells," and they vow to keep each other secrets.... all secrets.... ANY secrets.

One has to wonder what types of "favors" such an organization asks of it's members in return for that level of discretion. It just so turns out, among those residing in and being counseled by the C Street "church" were/are John Ensign, Mark Sanford and Rep. Charles Pickering. All three have been caught cheating on their wives.

Aside from the obvious, other secrets that were being kept in The Family were the fact that Ensign and his parents tried to pay off his former mistress and her husband with close to $100K in "severance pay" and that they sent another member, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to "intervene" on Ensign's behalf. The Family has been described by many as a sort of Christian Mafia.

But it isn't just what they expect in return for keeping the sordid secrets of their members that alarms me. It's what they teach. According to Jeff Sharlet of Harper's Magazine, who spent a year inside the organization (how he managed that I still have no idea), The Family teaches it's members that they were not chosen by their constituents in an election process. Rather, they were chosen by God. And because they were "chosen," they are above everyone else. Any sins they commit are totally irrelevant. Morals and values are only for the "little people."

In his book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, Sharlet recounts a particular meeting where David Coe, the son of The Family's current leader, addresses a group of members on this very subject. Coe uses the adulterous affair of King David and killing sprees of Genghis Khan to illustrate to the group that the sins of these great men didn't matter to God because they were "chosen." The only thing that mattered then was they were doing God's work, and that is still the only thing that matters.

The implication here is that even something as serious as murder is a matter The Family is willing to keep to themselves. In fact, Sharlet mentioned in a recent interview with Rachel Maddow that The Family is "very involved with a lot of the death squad leaders in Central America." What other actions might The Family consider to be "acceptable" and "necessary" in their mission to "do God's work."

This recent development in the news cycle initially left me amused, but that amusement is quickly turning into intense suspicion and fear.

Pagans are Charitable People, Too

A local Christian charity for the homeless has parked someone with a collection jar outside my local Target and the grocery store I frequent every single day for almost a year now. After giving something the first four or five times I saw them, I thought enough was enough.

I still give on a regular basis through other channels.... I give to charities online, I donate all of our unwanted items to Disabled American Veterans or sometimes even the Salvation Army.... This year alone I've donated half a dozen gift baskets already for silent auctions raising money for various groups, including animal shelters, battered women shelters, the school my children attend, etc.

There is just something about not being able to go shopping on a weekly basis without being solicited by the same group over and over again, both as I'm going in and as I'm coming out of the store that irritates me.

But when I have one or more of my children with me, I make it a point to give something and use it as an opportunity to teach them about the homeless and the many issues that cause these unfortunate people to become homeless in the first place, such as drug abuse.

So the last time I was at Target I had my youngest child with me, who is now six. I already knew from entering the store that someone would be waiting to solicit us as we came out, so just before I pushed our cart through the exit door, I paused to dig some cash out of my wallet. Then I handed it to my son and told him he could put it in the collection jar. Of course, he asked why and that's when I intended to begin my lesson on charity, the homeless, etc., but before I could get a word in, a lady sitting on the bench next to us (whether genuinely waiting for someone or just perched there so she could prosyletize to everyone leaving the store, I'm not sure) chimed in, "Because if you do, God will bless you."

"Here we go..." I thought, as I bit my tongue. I already knew this particular charity waiting for us outside was a Christian-based organization. That's cool with me. I don't care who I donate money to as long as I know it's going towards a good cause. And I know this particular charity ministers to all those they help, but I don't need them to save my soul. Or my son's. We're good, thanks.

To keep a retort from escaping my lips, I just tried to tell myself that when this woman speaks of "God" it could mean my god, too. After all, I believe essentially all "Gods" are merely interpretations of "The One." So I kept that little mantra playing in my head as I my son and I proceeded out the door and I watched him one by one put each bill through the slot of the collection jar.... the whole time the woman with the jar (a separate woman) cooing to him and thanking him. And, when he was finished, she said -- of course-- "God Bless You."

Every single time I donate to a Christian charity I go through the same internal struggle: Should I -- better yet "need" I -- explain to these people that I don't donate so their god will bless me. I donate because I care. I don't do it to save my soul. I do it to put food in the mouths and clothes on the back of those less fortunate than I.

Should I explain to them that I am NOT a Christian nor have any interest in becoming one? Should I mention that I am (horror of all horrors) an atheist-sympathizing Pagan?

Should I simply strike up a deal with them: I won't try to convert them to Paganism as long as they stop trying to convert me to Christianity... a kind of "I won't proselytize if you don't" pact? Or maybe I could tell them I'll give them the money only on the condition they don't mention "God."

And sometimes I think of returning their blessings with a simple, "And may the Goddess bless you."

How badly do I need to prove to these well-meaning Christians that even those who don't follow their god can be philanthropic? Each time, I ask myself, "How important is it for me, at this particular moment in time, in this particular setting, to attempt to dispel the myths clouding this person's perspective?" Or more to the point, "How much time do I have right now to get into this with them?"

I go through a very similar self-dialogue every time a group of them show up at my front door armed with their Bibles and literature. I've even thought about printing some literature of my own I can trade with them.

Sometimes I decide it is, indeed, important to "counter-preach" -- for the sake of promoting religious tolerance and stamping out ignorance. But on this particular day, I choose to say nothing and return to the lesson I had originally intended to teach... the one to my child about giving some of what we have to lose less fortunate. And more importantly, that we don't do it to save our souls.... we do it to save their lives.

Fox News: Where Ignorance is a Virtue

I stumbled across an article on Faux News via the Google News page about how Miss California lost because of her opinion on gay marriage. Perhaps. But, who cares. It's a freakin' beauty pageant for Goddess' sake!

But Faux News fans are all in a high speed wobble over it. The comments are hysterical... in more than one sense of the word. (Fox fans, you can look up the definition here). They are completely oblivious over how ignorant her answer was and have convinced themselves her loss is due entirely to her opinion on gay marriage.

Of course, it has nothing to due with the fact that she tried to claim "we live in a land where people can choose gay marriage." or "but in MY country..." as if those who support gay marriage live in some other country.

Does Alaska still want to succeed? Because I'd be more than willing to let them as long as they take all the Fox people with them. I'd even give 'em Texas, too... as long as they keep Bush and we enforce very strict border control.

My Favorite Quote from the Inauguration Address

"To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.... we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

- Barack Obama, January 20, 2008

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

It would seem this Martin Luther King day is more significant than ever with Obama's inauguration happening tomorrow and the festivities surrounding the event already in full swing. I don't recall this much celebrating in the days leading up to inaugurations of the past. It's a beautiful thing....

My children watched Hairspray for probably the third or fourth time yesterday and I couldn't help but wonder if the channel airing it (I can't remember which one it was) was doing so in honor of King. I rely heavily on movies like this to help my children understand the struggles and significance of the civil rights movement.... an era that, to them, seems a million light years away.

I try to teach my children about racism, but I don't think they fully grasp it. To them it seems like just another one of those things mom rambles on about that happened in her youth that has no relevance to them. Even their African American friends don't seem to fully grasp it. One Sunday evening before MLK day several years ago, one of my daughter's black friends was having dinner with us and asked me who Martin Luther King was and why they didn't have to go to school on Monday. At the time she was probably in the 2nd grade and I about fell out of my chair. I couldn't believe this child didn't know yet who Martin Luther King was or why we had a day in honor of him. She wasn't "testing" me... she genuinely did not know.

I've tried to impress upon my kids the significance of Barack Obama being elected president and, while they seem to be big fans, I'm not sure they get the whole "first black president" thing. To them, he was simply the better candidate.

Last night I stood in the driveway of our neighbor's house looking up at the stars and waiting for another one of my daughter's African American friends to come out of the house with her overnight bag, and I realized this had become sort of an unintentional tradition with us. Since Martin Luther King day falls on a Monday and the kids don't have school, these girls have spent several "night-before's" and "morning-of's" MLK day together over the last seven years that we've lived in this neighborhood. Of course, neither of them sees the beauty in it. But I get all warm and fuzzy when I think how far we've come since my parents' generation.

Music Unites the World

This will leave you goose pimply! Happy holidays, everyone!

The Power of Prayer... And Spells....

I recently had a hysterectomy and, before the surgery, many friends and family said they would pray for me... then they would add something like, "Even though you don't believe in that kind've stuff" or something to that effect.

Well, for those who really know me and really know anything about Paganism... at least the kind I practice... I very much believe in the power of prayer. I may not believe in the same god those particular well-intentioned friends believe in, (I don't actually believe in any "gods" or "goddesses" in an anthropomorphic sense) but there really isn't much difference between a prayer and a spell. The purpose of both are essentially the same. In both the prayers my friends were reciting and the spells or incantations that I was, we were asking a higher power for a positive outcome to an upcoming event. My "higher power" is the universe at large. I believe in quantum physics and the law of attraction, so the way I "pray" is more or less the same way they suggest in "The Secret" and other popular DVDs and books on the law of attraction. Focus on the positive, ask and ye shall receive, and all that other good stuff.

So for all those who "prayed" for me, thanks for the positive vibes. I'm still alive and kickin' and itchin' to get back to bloggin"!

I'm Still Here!

If by the grace of the Goddess I actually have any regular readers out there, my apologies for not blogging much lately. Several factors play into this: 1) I've had some health problems which I'm getting straightened out (and no, said problems have NOT made me rethink my religious views... that's already been asked and answered); and 2) I'm in the retail business and my company has been scrambling to get all the new holiday gifts uploaded. Both have really cut into my blogging time.

Just in case anyone wondered. ; )

Where is God in the Constitution?

I love modern technology with "the internets" as John McCain likes to call it, and the ability to search for certain text with the click of my mouse.

Here's a little exercise for all you who keep insisting the United States was founded as a Christian nation. Go to any web site that provides the entire text of the United States Constitution. Then, from your browser's tool bar, click on "find." Then type in "God."

Found him yet? Not in there?

How about "Christian" or "Christianity?" No?

Well, don't give up yet. Try "Jesus." Is he in there? No?

How about "Bible," "Christ," or "Church?"

I'll save you some time. None of those words are in the United States Constitution.

Where is god in the Declaration of Independence? In the very first paragraph. But don't get too excited, Christians:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

"Powers of the Earth?" "The Laws of Nature." "Nature's God?" Wow. That sounds really Pagan to me. Sounds like the religion of our founding fathers was a lot more like my religion than that of Christianity.

The Declaration of Independence goes on to say:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...

"All men are created equal." All. Christian men. Muslim men. Pagan men. Atheist men. Hindu Men. All men. And "their Creator" whoever they believe that to be.

The words "In God We Trust" did not appear on any form of U.S. currency until 1864 -- 32 years after the death of the last remaining founding father, Charles Carroll, in 1832.

The pledge of allegiance wasn't written (by a socialist, no less) until 1892 -- 60 years after the death of the last founding father -- and it didn't mention god at all. The words "under god" were not added until 1954 -- 122 years after the death of the last remaining founding father.

But here's the biggie. Neither the United States Consitution nor the Declaration of Independence declared the U.S. to be a Christian nation, but Article 11 in the Treaty of Tripoli, which John Adams signed and the Senate approved in 1797, clearly states that this nation was NOT founded as a Christian nation:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Palin Supports Concealed Weapons in Bars

Well, we've learned in the last few days that when she first took office as Mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin was eager to fire almost all of the city's department heads. We now know the reason she wanted to fire the librarian was because said librarian refused to censor books that Palin found offensive.

Well, now we know why she wanted to fire the local Police Chief (aside from the fact that he supported her opponent during the election):

While Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the NRA and others (who most likely included Sara Palin since she is "Miss NRA" herself) supported a state legislative proposal to lift some restrictions on Alaska's concealed-weapons law. Among other things, it would allow citizens to carry concealed weapons in banks and even bars. The local Police Chief, Irl Stambaugh, opposed this proposal. "Bars, guns and booze don't mix under any circumstances,"he said.

Gee..... Ya think?!?!?!

The proposal passed the state legislature. Chief Stambaugh and other apparently sane, rational, concerned citizens asked the then governor of Alaska, Tony Knowles, to veto it, which he did. Later, during a coversation with Stambaugh, Palin implied she might have to fire Stambaugh because the NRA "wanted change."

Concealed weapons in bars? And right-wing nut jobs are questioning Obama's judgement?!?!?!?

Stambaugh, it should be noted, was nominated by Wasilla citizens in 1994 to be Alaska's Municipal Employee of the Year. This man started with nothing, but, within a year, assembled a trained staff of eight officers who would record 206 drunken-driving arrests. I wonder if one of those arrests included Palin's husband?

Librarian Stood Up to Sarah Palin When She Was Asked to Ban Books

An email sent out by a resident of Wasilla, where Sarah Palin was once the mayor, has hit the internet. The author asked that it not be published on websites, but I'm only about the zillionth blogger to do so... oh well.

Anne Kilkenny, my new hero, told the recipients of this email, aka "Friends," they could forward it to as many people as they liked, with her name and email address, but she didn't want it on the web. "There are too many 'kooks' out there," she wrote. Now by "it" I'm not sure if she didn't want the content of the message or her email address to be posted on the web. Her name got out there - she's been interviewed by the NY Times already - but hopefully her email address is still safe.

Sorry, Anne. But look on the bright side: The eyes of the nation will be watching if Palin tries to retaliate. That would take balls, but we all know Vice Presidents are capable of using their office for revenge. Those nasty journalists Palin has been whining about would have a field day if they detected anything like that going on.

Anyway, much thanks goes out to Kilkenny and much credit for her courage. I know all too well being outspoken isn't easy.

The most disturbing bit of information revealed in Kilkenny's email letter is the claim that Palin asked for the resignation of the Wasilla librarian who refused to remove, or censor, if Palin asked her to. By all accounts, Palin never actually asked any books to be banned, but as a test of her loyalty, the librian was asked if she would do so if Palin requested it. The librian would not back down. Later, a letter was sent from Palin to the librarian asking for her resignation. Under pressure, Palin backed off and the librarian stayed on the city's payroll.

Kilkenny, who knew Palin well enough to be on a first-name basis with her, writes:

"While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day."

Yikes! I bet if Kilkenny wasn't on that list already, she is now! That's OK, Anne. You go girl!!!!

Many are dying to know which books Palin wanted banned, but nobody has been able to uncover a list. It's most likely Palin never made a list public, since the librarian out and out refused from the very beginning, she probably didn't have a chance to take it that far. We can, however, get a pretty good idea of the books she most likely objected to from the list below of the books most commonly targeting for censorship:

• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
• As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
• Blubber by Judy Blume
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
• Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
• Carrie by Stephen King
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Christine by Stephen King
• Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Cujo by Stephen King
• Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
• Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
• Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
• Decameron by Boccaccio
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
• Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
• Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• Forever by Judy Blume
• Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
• Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
• Have to Go by Robert Munsch
• Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
• How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
• Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Impressions edited by Jack Booth
• In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
• It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein
• James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
• Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
• Lysistrata by Aristophanes
• More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
• My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
• My House by Nikki Giovanni
• My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara
• Night Chills by Dean Koontz
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
• One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
• One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Ordinary People by Judith Guest
• Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective
• Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
• Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
• Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
• Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
• Separate Peace by John Knowles
• Silas Marner by George Eliot
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• The Bastard by John Jakes
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
• The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
• The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
• The Living Bible by William C. Bower
• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
• The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
• The Pigman by Paul Zindel
• The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
• The Shining by Stephen King
• The Witches by Roald Dahl
• The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
• Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
• Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
• Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

Lots of references to "witches" in those titles. Sarah Palin would just love me, wouldn't she?

Sarah Palin Needs to Study History a Little More

During her campaign for governor, Sarah Palin was asked,

"Are you offended by the phrase 'Under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance?"

Her answer:

"Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me and I'll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance."

Someone tell Palin the pledge of allegiance was not written by the founding fathers (who for all intents and purposes we usually consider to be those who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776).

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy decades after all the founding fathers had already died. Bellamy's original pledge, in it's entirety, reads

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

In 1923, the National Flag Conference changed Bellamy's phrase "my flag" to "the flag of the United States." The words "of America" were added in 1924.

Congress did not recognize Bellamy's pledge as the "official" national pledge until June 22, 1942, and "Under God" wasn't added until 1954.

Yes... 1954.

Tell me, Sarah Palin, who of our founding fathers were still alive in 1954?

Christians Aren't the Only Ones Who Have Sacrified Their Lives for This Country

Barack Obama gave a fantastic speech tonight at the DNC. One of my favorite parts was when he pointed out that democrats, republicans and those with other or no party affiliation are fighting and dying for this country in our armed forces. .. that the men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq are not fighting for a red country or a blue country, but for the United States of America.

I was hoping for him to go further and point out that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists and Pagans alike are fighting for this country. But I knew that would be political suicide. Even with thousands leaving "the Church" in droves every year, the fact remains that Christians still make up the majority of this country, and Christians still believe they are morally superior to everyone else. Pointing out that Pagans, too, are dying for their freedom would not change the attitudes of many. Some, maybe... but few. And still, in the year 2008, a presidential candidate -- running for office in a "diverse" country that claims to support religious freedom for all -- would lose votes for pointing that out.

But I'm not running for office.

The Power of Our Example

"People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."
- Bill Clinton, August 27, 2008, Denver, Co - Democratic National Convention

BUFFY is the Reason More Women Have Turned to Wicca?

According to the recent British study published in "Women and Religion in the West," actress Sarah Michelle Gellar's hit show "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" has been "blamed" for 50,000 women abandoning traditional Western religion to study paganism.

Yes, that's the term used: "Blamed." How about "credited." Apparently, this Bristish "study" believes Buffy is the reason these young women have taken an interest in practicing witchcraft.

There's something I don't understand, though. I wasn't a big fan of the show, but if I remember correctly, it was about vampires -- not witches. This is one of my pet peeves: When uneducated people assume anything they would consider "occult" is the same as "pagan." Therefore, vampires or witches.... it's all the same to them.

But if the show indeed blessed the world with more witches, then I say to Sarah Michelle Gellar, "YOU GO GIRL!"

John McCain Will Impose a Draft if Elected President

Something that hasn't gotten nearly enough mainstream media attention is the fact that, by all indications, if elected as president, McCain has every intention on reinstating the draft.

It's become clear he wants to stay in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan requires more troops, he's chomping at the bit to invade Iran, and now it's looking like he may try to pick a fight with Russia. All this and probably more with an already overextended military.

During a question and answer session at a townhall meeting last week, an audience member brought up the fact that she couldn't see how we would ever catch Bin Laden without reinstating the draft. His response: "I don't disagree with anything you said.."

Witch Hunts Still Happening in 2008

Rationalists International reports:

In Kisii district in western Kenya, eight elderly women and three men, suspected to practice witchcraft, have been brutally killed at the same time. They were dragged out of their houses by an irate mob and were – in separate cases – burned to death. The police arrested 86 villagers in connection with the murders.

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in the area and there have been some cases of attacking and killing suspected witches in the past. But never before, so many victims have been killed at the same time. During the investigations some witnesses revealed that an exercise book had been found in the local primary school containing minutes of an alleged secret meeting of witches. The book listed not only the names of the participants, but also the names of those whom they planned to bewitch next, they said.

Investigations are still on, said a police spokesman, but those arrested may face charges for murder, in some cases also for violent robbery. Five of them were found in possession of property and livestock of some of the victims. Those charged with murder could face death sentence. The court case is expected to start soon.

Cheney: Terrorist or Just an Evil Genius?

By Chris Davis

August 1, 2008

Is Vice President Dick Cheney a terrorist? In an interview posted at thinkprogress.org, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh accuses the Veep of hosting a meeting in his office to determine how the Bush administration might provoke a war with Iran and make Americans think it's Iran's fault. The bellicose brainstorming session even included a plan to disguise American troops as Iranians and have them shoot and possibly kill other American troops.

"There were a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war [with Iran]," Hersh said.

"The one that interested me the most was why don't we [America] ... build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up."

The plan was dismissed because Americans might die, Hersh said, explaining why the provocative information didn't make it into his most recent story for The New Yorker. But does it really matter that this time Team Torture chose to dismiss the dirtiest option on the table? What makes Cheney so special that he believes he has the right to determine whether or not to turn the American military against Americans to create an international incident and facilitate war?

The answer isn't hard to find. What's perhaps most shocking about this revelation is that we are surprised by it. In the 90's, Cheney signed on with William Kristol’s Project for the New American Century, a think-tank that advocated for a variety of wars in the Persian Gulf. In 1998, three years prior to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington D.C., several neoconservatives including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, and other Cheney associates sent a letter to then President Clinton urging him to invade Iraq. PNAC also drafted a Y2K manifesto titled Rebuilding America's Defenses which declared, "Even a global Pax Americana will not preserve itself ... The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of the past century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership."

RAD further argued that America could shape circumstances by way of proactive military engagement. The document called for a rigorous defense of the American homeland and advised that we should in essence become the world's police force, capable of fighting and winning wars in many theaters simultaneously.

RAD substituted ideology for historical context and stated, "Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region."

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to marvel at how convenient it was, so soon after Cheney's elevation to the vice presidency, that terrorist attacks in New York and Washington (followed by weeks of anthrax scares) gave neocons a pretext to do almost everything they wanted to do. They led us into Iraq on a wave of jingoism and the specter of a mushroom cloud. They got torture, multiple wars in the Middle East (well, two), a Department of Homeland Security, a politicized Department of Justicee, and even domestic wiretapping.

Now Hersh contends that Cheney held a meeting to discuss the merits of a terrorist act against Americans to promote a war he's wanted for years.

That's what we talk about when we talk about radicalized ideology.

Army Base Forcing Soldiers to Attend Church

Army Base Cannot Coerce Soldier Trainees To Attend Church Services, Says Americans United

From an article posted on Americans United for Separation of Church and State website July 23, 2008

Watchdog Group Asks U.S. Department of Defense to Investigate Missouri Army Base That Promotes Baptist Church Proselytism

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today asked the U.S. Department of Defense to investigate an Army base’s practice of coercing soldiers to attend church services during their training.

Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri offers “Free Day Away” as one of only two opportunities for soldiers to leave the base during eight weeks of vigorous Army training. (The other day is the day before graduation, which can be spent with parents and guests.) During “Free Day Away,” trainees are picked up by a bus sent from the Tabernacle Baptist Church of Lebanon, Mo., to participate in a day full of recreational activities, followed by dinner and a required church service.

Trainees are given the impression that the event is sponsored by the Army and that they must attend. If they do not attend, they have to remain on the base and continue with training, while those who attend the event have a break for the day.

“We believe that it is of utmost importance that the Army guarantee the constitutional rights of those who risk their lives to protect our freedom,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “And that means ensuring that soldiers have the freedom to practice any faith or no faith at all.

“The coercive religious practices at Fort Leonard Wood are an outrage,” he continued, “and the Department of Defense should put a stop to them immediately.”

During the church service, soldiers are told that they are all sinners who must repent and that they “must be saved now or go to hell.” Soldiers willing to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior are instructed to step into the aisles of the church and enroll in a six-lesson correspondence course that will lead to their “personal salvation.”

In a 2003 article in the Global Baptist Times, the pastor of Tabernacle Church reported that 270,000 soldiers had participated in the “Free Day Away” ministry since its inception in 1971 and that 47,000 had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. The Tabernacle Church also asks the soldiers to provide their home addresses so members of their families can also be “saved.”

Fort Leonard Wood has promoted this program for the past 36 years and the program is endorsed by the base commander, Americans United learned during its investigation.

Americans United, in its letter, urged Gordon S. Heddell, acting inspector general for the Department of Defense, to conduct a full investigation into the Army’s “Free Day Away” practice.

The letter was prepared by Americans United Senior Litigation Counsel Alex J. Luchenitser and volunteer attorney Howard Sribnick.

Bill Moyers Would Like Bill O-Reilly On His Show to Answer a Few Questions

Marcus Brigstocke on Religion

Was the Flight 93 Memorial More a Tribute to Islam Than the Victims?

Earlier I dismissed Michelle Malkin as a lunatic for insisting the people who wear scarves around their necks are supporting Islamic terrorists. I haven't changed my mind on that, of course, but I have found something on which I agree with Malkin. (Trust me.... I was as shocked as anyone).

A competition for a design memorializing the victims of Flight 93 began Sept. 11, 2004, and out of more than 1,000 entries, the design below, called the "Crescent of Embrace, was chosen:

Now, I'm not Islamaphobic, but I don't think a crescent of trees, facing Mecca, which will turn red in the fall (which includes the month of September) with the site of the crash being in the same position of the star on the symbol of Islam is the appropriate manner in which to memorialize victims of an Islamic terrorist attack.

This would be a lovely memorial to all those innocent American-Muslims who suffered violent attacks from ignorant Islamaphobes after 9/11, as well to all those who were torn from their families and deported by the Bush Administration in the now infamous "registration" process. But it's not an appropriate memorial to those who died in the crash of Flight 93.

You really have to question the motives behind the couple that designed this memorial, Paul and Milena Murdoch of Los Angeles, who assert that the shape is a mere coincidence and was not intended to resemble the symbol for Islam. I find it really hard to believe they never saw the connection.

To their credit, however, they have agreed to modify the design. It will now be a full circle, rather than a crescent.

Patriot Act - The War on Civil Liberties

I highly recommend the documentary, Unconstitutional.

Government "For" the People? - What Bush and Cheney Think About American Public

The Bush Administration's Lies About Iraq - Hear Them for Yourself

Goddess Save Us From Rachael Ray's Terrorist Scarf!

Who knew? All this time Rachael Ray has been spending on her TV show and writing books has all just been a cover for her real job as an Al Qaeda operative. It's all become painfully clear to us now.

You can't make this stuff up. First, blogger Pam Geller posted it under the headline "Rachel [sic] Ray: Dunkin Donuts Jihad Tool." Then, ultra-conservative Fixed News commentator Michelle Malkin got hysterical over it.

What is "it?" A scarf. No lie. A black and white printed scarf wrapped around Rachael Ray's neck in a Dunkin Donuts ad. Yes... really.

Geller and Malkin insist the scarf looks too much like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men. She goes even further by claiming that the fashion designers and hollywood stylists are supporting jihad by dressing their clients in these scarves. On her website she states, "The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not so ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities and left-wing icons.... Fashion statements may seem insignificant, but when they lead to the mainstreaming of violence -- unintentionally or not -- they matter. Ignorance is no longer an excuse. In post-9/11 America, vigilance must never go out of style."

Is she serious?!?! I think the must-have fashion accessory for Ms. Geller and Ms. Malkin this season is a straight jacket.

But here's the sad part.... caving to the pressure of a few lunatic conservative bloggers, Dunkin Donuts actually pulled the ad. In an poll on the website of NBC's affiliate station in Chicago, they ask readers, " Do you think Dunkin Donuts should have pulled the Rachel Ray ad?" As of 9:10 PST May 30, 2008, an overwhelming 84% had responded "no." It's comforting to know that only 16% of our population has lost all common sense.

CAIR: Obama Not a Muslim Apostate

Earlier I posted an article written by Edward Luttwak where he asserts that the Muslim community would react violently if Obama was elected president. His reasoning was that, though not a Muslim now, his father was a Muslim and that would make him born a Muslim who rejected the faith and this would make him an apostate.

Well, today I found an interesting post on CAIR's site titled, "Luttwak Does Not Speak for a Billion Muslims." CAIR stands for Council on American-Islamic Relations, and they strongly disagree with Luttwak. Some would characterize CAIR as "extremist," therefore taking away the argument that their defense of Obama comes from a moderate position. Whether this is true or not, I don't know. Nevertheless, their statement on this matter is very interesting:

Dalia Mogahed and John Esposito recently asked one of the most pertinent questions of our time: Who speaks for a billion Muslims?

I won't tell you the answer because I recommend that you read their book. But I will give this away: the answer is not Edward Luttwak.

Nonetheless, in a recent New York Times commentary, Luttwak pretends to do just that. The product of his curious endeavor is a sobering demonstration of why it is an ill-fated idea.

Luttwak makes the bizarre claim that U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama is an apostate according to Islamic law and concludes that, if elected, Muslims will either seek his head or look the other way when it is sought.

If Luttwak's rendition of Obama's biography is a little off, then his understanding of Islamic law is downright inaccurate, and his survey of Muslim beliefs and attitudes grossly simplistic.

Obama is neither a convert nor an apostate for the simple fact that he never declared himself a Muslim to begin with. The fact that his father and grandfather were Muslims does not itself determine his own faith status.

When it comes to Islamic law, Luttwak is confused on two fronts.

First, there is nothing in Islamic law that suggests that Islam is passed down genetically. To the contrary, the state of being Muslim (submission) is enshrined in Islam as a personal covenant between a human being and God; as such it can only be a freewill choice of the heart and mind. For that reason, every convert to Islam is asked publicly at the time of taking the testimony of faith whether they are coerced or are converting of their own free will.

Conversely, converting out of Islam is also a matter of free will. The Qur'an explicitly states: "Let there be no compulsion in matters of faith." [2:256]

Second, Luttwak gets apostasy wrong. According to most Muslim scholars, the term apostate is applied under exceptional circumstances that have more to do with treason and the posing of a national threat than with conversion alone. This was applicable in the context of a new and vulnerable Islamic state where, in historical instances, those who left the fold of Islam ended up joining the warring factions against Muslims.

After befuddling Islam's take on apostasy, Luttwak then swiftly moves to build a ghoulish and speculative scenario of how Muslims en-masse would subsequently use it against Obama.

In doing so, Luttwak employs two intellectually lazy and reductive routines, all too common in today's public discourse on Islam and Muslims.

In the first, aberrational instances are cherry-picked and then laundry listed in an attempt to make definitive statements about the norm.

Luttwak pretends to sample the Muslim world at random to substantiate his claim about Muslim attitudes against apostates. Instead, he selectively focuses on the most religiously stringent periphery of the Muslim world by its own standards: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Taliban's Afghanistan. Once there, he drills down further for cases that are exceptional even by those countries' own standards. The result leaves the reader with the false impression that the extreme of the extreme is somehow representative of the norm, when in truth it represents a fraction of 1% of the total.

The second reductive routine casts Muslims into a simplistic monolithic entity.

Luttwak explains that, while most Americans understand that Obama is not a Muslim, "[h]is conversion, however, [is] a crime in Muslim eyes." Similarly, he states that it would be difficult to plan Obama's security during state visits to Muslim countries because "the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards." He goes further to state that "most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of [his] conversion to Christianity once it became widely known."

These are all pretty sweeping statements; worse still, they are highly inaccurate.

Of course, most Muslims have TV sets and follow the news. They are already aware of the fact that, although Obama's father was Muslim, he himself is a Christian. There is no bounty on his head, and talking to people on the streets in Muslim countries explains why: most are not preoccupied with the religious or race affiliation of American presidents. They dislike George Bush because they see him as an arrogant war monger. They liked John Kennedy because they felt he was an empathetic and intelligent leader. Both were white and Christian.

Contrary to Luttwak's final conclusion, Obama is already quite popular in the Muslim world and is likely to be even more so if elected president. But it is not necessarily because he is black or has Muslim ancestry – it is because Obama is widely perceived as the most likely candidate to bring an end to the current war in Iraq and treat the rest of the Muslim world with some respect.

McCain Pastor Says U.S. Founded to Destroy Islam

One of the fundamentalist Christian pastors endorcing McCain, Rod Parsley, would like us to believe the U.S. was founded for the purpose of destroying Islam. I'd like to see his sources. As far as sources to the contrary, in Andrew Sullivan's book The Conservative Soul:

In 1797, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved the "Treaty of Tripoli," an attempt to deal with Muslim piracy and terrorism in the Mediterranean. One of its clauses read:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

It is hard to think of a leading contemporary Republican insisting that American government "is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." In the early republic, not a single senator dissented.

Parsley and I agree on one thing: Islam is a definite threat to the West. Despite what Islamic apologists would like us to believe, the Quran implicitly instructs it's followers to kill all heretics that refuse to be converted. They are, indeed, waging holy war against non-muslims.

But, I also believe the U.S. is just as guilty of waging it's own holy war. We've allowed ourselves to be governed by a bunch of crazed literalists who are no better than playground bullies with their "My God is better than your God" mentality. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus.... none of them are any better than the inner city gangs that just keep retaliating against each other in an endless cycle of violence.

Under the Bush administration, the U.S. has been made to look like nothing more than a nation of arrogant hypocrites in the eyes of the rest of the world. In the book I'm currently reading, Why the Christian Right is Wrong, Christian minister Robin Meyers illustrates this beautifully:

"When you claim that our God is bigger than their God and that our killing is righteous while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.

...When lumping the Iraqi insurgents together with the terrorists of 9/11, the president said that they are all 'enemies of civilization' and share 'a fanatical political ideology.'

That certainly describes the hijackers, but it does not describe every Iraqi nationalist who wants to expel an occupying army from his own country. They have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.

... the president and his Christian Right defenders simply ignored the double standard of calling all 'enemy' resistance an 'insurgency' while calling our eighteenth-century resistance to British occupation...'patriotic'.... Just as there are no Israeli 'terrorists,' there are also no American 'insurgents.' Our resistance, regardless of tactics, is always an act of bravery. The resistance of those we occupy is always an act of barbarism.... There is no force in nature quite so powerful as the response of human beings to occupation by a foreign power.

...By (Bush's) rationale, any invasion we deemed necessary to spread freedom and democracy would have God's blessing. No wonder the rest of the world sees this as a religious crusade.... We have mixed arrogance with absolutism, and the result is that we are conducting our own 'jihad' ...and fueling the very hatred we claim to be fighting.

...This 'my God is bigger than you God' mentality is not just a product of human nature. It's a product of bad theology. The only way in which God will cease being co-opted for the purpose of violence is when we change our way of thinking about God. As long as we are trapped in biblical literalism, the theology of the Fall, and God's invasion from the sky to rescue some while letting others perish, violence in the name of God will never cease....

...Until we shed the 'shedding of blood' as the central metaphor of Christianity, the shedding of blood will continue....

Now we stand at a crossroads in human history. The violence we think will save us cannot, and the evidence of the failure to be 'protected' by either a righteous president or a partisan God is omnipresent.... the name of the Prince of Peace is once more carrying soldiers into battle, this time to slay the dragon called terrorism. The result is the 'downward spiral' that Martin Luther King Jr. described as inevitable. Fighting terrorism with divinely sanctioned violence is like hitting quicksilver with a ball-peen hammer."

Robin Meyers, PhD, is senior minister of Mayflower Congregational Church (United Church of Christ) in Oklahoma City. He is a columnist for The Christian Century and a professor of rhetoric at Oklahoma City University.

Pagan or Atheist for President?

Robert Paul Reyes wrote a great article called In Wicca We Trust! Is America Ready For A Pagan Or Atheist President? which I found posted on News Blaze. It would appear he's a tad anti-Clinton. I, personally, thought Bill Clinton was a pretty good president, particularly in contrast to Dubbya Bush, but Reyes makes some very good points nonetheless.

Polls indicate that the vast majority of Americans wouldn't vote for a presidential candidate who's an atheist or a member of a fringe religion, like a Pagan or Wiccan.

"Many current pagans in industrial societies base their beliefs and practices on a connection to Nature, and a divinity within all living things." Quotation from Wikipedia

What is so threatening about this peaceful ideology that would disqualify an individual from being the President of the United States?

Pagans perceive a touch of divinity within all living things, and atheists see all human beings as equal under the law. Pagans and atheists/freethinkers aren't burdened with the sinner/saint dichotomy. We don't obsess on the differences that divide us; we focus on the similarities that unite us.

But Americans have no problem casting a ballot for a mainstream Christian who doesn't follow the precepts of his faith. Bill Clinton is a Southern Baptist who curses like a sailor, lies like a dog, mates like a bunny, and bears false witness like a jailhouse snitch, but he would still be president if the Constitution didn't have that pesky two-term limit.

Americans need a president who believes in God, because patriotism and religion are so inextricably linked. Most Americans simply can't believe that an atheist can be patriotic; they'd rather elect a hypocritical Christian than a morally-upright unbeliever.

I long for the day when a candidate's religion is as irrelevant as which football team he roots for. But I'm afraid that we'll see a stripper elected president, before an atheist or a Pagan.

Keith Olbermann Has Some Choice Words for Bush

Keith Olbermann was on FIRE tonight! Whoooooh! I think I actually saw smoke coming out of his ears at one point. He had a scathing commentary about Bush on tonight's Countdown that I sincerely hope Bush actually sees for himself.




Olbermann lets Bush have it over recent comments he's made, among which include a truly assasine answer to a question asked of him yesterday, "If we were to pull out of Iraq next year, what's the worst that could happen? What's the doomsday scenario?"

Bush's reply: "Doomsday scenario, of course, is that extremists thoughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States. The biggest issue we face is - it's bigger than Iraq - it's the ideological struggle against cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives."

I was relieved to hear Olbermann's response to that was exactly what I was thinking:

"Mr. Bush, at long last has it not dawned on you that the America you have now created includes 'cold-blooded killers who will kill to achieve their political objectives'? There are those in, or formerly in, your employ who may yet be charged some day with war crimes. Through you haze of self-congratulation and self-pity, do you still have no earthly clue that this nation has laid waste to Iraq to achieve your political objectives? This ideological struggle you speak of, Mr. Bush, is taking place within this country. It is a struggle between Americans who cherish freedom, our and everybody else's."

S. Res. 483: The Ten Commandments is the Basis of Our Law? Yikes!

We had H. Res. 847, then H. Res. 888, now we are threatened with S. Res. 483, which was introduced by Senator Samuel Brownback, (R-Kansas).

Senate Resolution 483 would "recognize the first weekend of May 2008 as 'Ten Commandments Weekend'."

First of all, hasn't the first weekend of May 2008 already passed us by? What, then, would be the purpose of wasting time on this? If I had a nickel for every time I've said this, I'd be wealthier than Donald Trump, but I'll say it again: Don't they have more important issues to deal with? Shouldn't our Senators be focusing on something slightly more relevant to current affairs. Oh I don't know.... maybe the war in Iraq? The threat of a nuclear disaster from several countries including Iran and Pakistan? The economy? Global warming?

Secondly, the Bible and various versions of the Ten Commandments are hardly something to model one's life after. This proposed resolution states, "Whereas the Ten Commandments are a declaration of fundamental principles for a fair and just society...." Really? Fair and just, huh? Let's take a look at the Ten Commandments. I'm going use my copy of the New King James version of the Bible, which here in the U.S. is the most widely accepted version (yes I really do own a Bible... several, actually).

Exodus 20:2 - You shall have no other gods before Me.

How does this commandment make America a better country? What about us Americans who don't worship any god or those who worship a different god(s)? Our government is supposed to be "by the people, for the people" not "for God and only The God of the Old Testament."

This commandment has absolutely nothing to do with morality or what is "fair and just." It is nothing more than pure egotism, which I believe most would agree is not a desirable characteristic in someone who considers themselves "moral."

If this God of the Jews, Christians and Muslims was so great, why is he does he feel so threatened? He sounds ridiculously insecure to me.


Exodus 20:3 - You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve the. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.

Just more egotism. He's a "jealous" God, huh? Again, is that really an admirable characteristic? And it's OK for him to be jealous but not us. We're not supposed to covet anything or anyone, but he can covet us?

And all you Catholics answer this one for me: If we're not supposed to worship "any likeness of anything that is in heaven above," then what are all these statues of the Virgin Mary in churches, on home altars and even dashboards? I myself have witnessed the "faithful" placing flowers at the feet of a statue of Mary, dropping to their knees and bowing their heads. If that's not worship I don't know what the hell is. So are all Catholics, including Senator Brownback, going to burn in hell for their idol worship of Virgin Mary likenesses? You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who believes they are (except possibly McBush's favorite pastor John Hagee, who has called Catholicism "the great whore").

And what is this?:

Hail Mary, full of grace
The Lord is with thee,
blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

That's not worship? The Catholics say it's veneration not worship. What is the difference? Do they really think this god of theirs is interested in semantics?

In the Merriam-Webster online thesaurus, this is what I found for venerate:

to offer honor or respect to (someone) as a divine power venerate God — see worship 1

Here are some of their synonyms for worship:

adore, deify, glorify, revere, venerate


And it is hardly "fair and just" that this will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate him? Would we tolerate a law being passed that allowed judges to pass sentences on to the children and grandchildren of those who've committed a crime? So if Joe Schmoe kills his boss and is dies in prison, his son would have to serve out the rest of his sentence? Or how's this: If and when George Bush is finally convicted of war crimes and other offenses committed during his presidency, should we also lock up Jenna and Barbara and all their future offspring as well? Tempting, I know, but hardly "fair and just."


Exodus 20:7 - You shall not take the name of the Lord you God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Again I ask, how is this commandment a fundamental principle for a fair and just society? And am I supposed to believe none of the sponsors of this resolution have ever used the "Lord's" name in vain.


Exodus 20:8 - Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle (my cattle?), nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

OK. Which Sabbath day? For the Jews, it's Saturday. For the Christians, it's Sunday. Hummm..... how did that happen? And by the way, a little bit of trivia, Saturday is named in honor of Saturn or Saturnus, the Roman god of agriculture.... a god worshiped by (gasp!) Pagans long before Christianity was invented. So Saturday was a big holy day long before Moses came along. Sunday is named after the Sun, which was also worshipped by Pagans. And Sunday is named after Sunna, the Germanic goddess of the Sun. But I digress....

So, no working on weekends. Oh yes, America would be a much better place if this commandment were enforced. Think of all the sinners who will be working in your community this Sunday: Doctors and nurses in emergency rooms, paramedics and EMTs, pharmacists, fire fighters, police and highway patrol officers, those people who run our power plants.... tsk tsk. The nerve of those people. They're all going to hell for sure. I wonder if the preachers are sinning by doing their jobs on Sundays? Are rabbis sinning in temples every Saturday? I wonder if Senator Brownback ever works on a Sunday?

Exodus 20:12 - Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

This is certainly reasonable. We should all honor our fathers and mothers. But should it be enforceable by law? Let me remind you what this resolution asserts: "Whereas, in addition to being understood as an elemental source for American law, the Ten Commandments have become a recognized symbol of law in our Nation's culture." So does this mean the next step for Senator Brownback will be to propose a law that allows me to have my children arrested the next time they talk back to me? Again, according to the Bible, the punishment for not honoring your parents is death. Would stoning our children to death for not cleaning their rooms be considered moral? Do we really want to model our laws from the ten commandments?


.... to be continued when I have time to finish this post. Kids, my job, housework... life is getting in the way of my blog posting. Anyone who wants to jump in, feel free to comment.

Will McCain Respect Separation of Church and State?

If his endorsement from Rod Parsley is any indication, the answer is no.

Which Candidate is More Likely to Fuel the Flame of Terrorism?

Edward Luttwak wrote an article recently for the New York Times implying that America will face the wrath of Islam if Obama is elected because he was born a Muslim but rejected the faith. He writes:

"As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood.... Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder."

Well, if anyone out there is thinking the solution to this problem is to elect McCain, think again. Not only has McCain sought out the endorsement of nut-case John Hagee, he has always received the endorsement of another whack-job named Rod Parsley, who has made the outrageous assertion that America was founded for the very purpose of destroying Islam. The video below, produced by Mother Jones and Brave New Films, illustrates this perfectly:



In the video below, Keith Olbermann questions why McCain is embracing hate-mongers:

Why America is in Denial Over Global Warming

Found this great article by Bill McKibben on MotherJones.com titled Climate of Denial.

One morning in Kyoto, we won a round in the battle against global warming. Then special interests and pseudoscience snatched the truth away. What happened?

It was around eight in the morning in the vast convention hall in Kyoto. The negotiations over a worldwide treaty to limit global warming gases, which were supposed to have ended the evening before, had gone on through the night. Drifts of paper—treaty drafts, industry talking points, environmentalist press releases—overflowed every wastebasket. Delegates in suits and ties were passed out on couches, noisily mouth breathing. And polite squadrons of workers were shooing people out of the hall so that some trade show—tool and die makers, I think—could set up its displays.

Finally, from behind the closed doors, word emerged that we had a treaty. The greens all cheered, halfheartedly—since it wasn't as though the agreement would go anywhere near far enough to arrest global warming—but firm in their conviction that the tide on the issue had finally turned. After a decade of resistance, the oil companies and the car companies and all the other deniers of global warming had seen their power matched.

Or so it seemed. I was standing next to a top industry lobbyist, a man who had spent the last week engineering opposition to the treaty, huddling with Exxon lawyers and Saudi delegates, detailing the Venezuelans to change this word, the Kuwaitis to soften that number. Right now he looked just plain tired. "I can't wait to get back to Washington," he said. "In Washington we'll get this under control again."

At the time I thought he was blowing smoke, putting on a game face, whistling past the graveyard of corporate control. I almost felt sorry for him; it seemed to me (as sleep-deprived as everyone else) that we were on the brink of a new world.

As it turned out, we both were right. The rest of the developed world took Kyoto seriously; in the eight years since then, the Europeans and the Japanese have begun to lay the foundation for rapid and genuine progress toward the initial treaty goal of cutting carbon emissions to a level 5 to 10 percent below what it was in 1990. You can see the results of that long Kyoto night in the ranks of windmills rising along the coast of the North Sea, in the solar panels sprouting on German rooftops, and in the remarkable political unanimity in most of the world on the need for rapid change. Tony Blair's science adviser has repeatedly called global warming a greater threat than terrorism, but that hasn't been enough for Britain's Conservatives; the Tory leader (the equivalent of, say, Tom DeLay) rose last summer to excoriate Blair for moving too slowly on carbon reductions.

In Washington, however, the lobbyists did get things "under control." Eight years after Kyoto, Big Oil and Big Coal remain in complete and unchallenged power. Around the country, according to industry analysts, 68 new coal-fired power plants are in various stages of planning. Detroit makes cars that burn more fuel, on average, than at any time in the last two decades. The president doesn't mention the global warming issue, and the leaders of the opposition don't, either: John Kerry didn't exactly run on solving the climate crisis. The high-water mark for legislative action came in 2003, when John McCain actually managed to persuade 43 senators to support a bill calling for at least some carbon reductions, albeit much lower than even the modest Kyoto levels. But given that it takes 60 votes to beat a filibuster and 66 to override a veto, and given that the GOP has since added four hard-right senators to its total, it's safe to say that nothing will be happening inside the Beltway anytime soon.

IT WAS NEVER going to be easy. Controlling global warming is not like the other battles (dirty water, smog) that environmentalists have taken on, and mostly won, over the years. Carbon dioxide, a.k.a. CO2, or just "carbon" for short, is not a conventional pollutant. It's tasteless, colorless, odorless. Unlike carbon monoxide, which is what kills you if you leave your car running in the garage, CO2 doesn't do anything to the human body directly. It does its damage in the lower atmosphere by holding in heat that would otherwise escape out to space. And even more unfortunate, there's no easy way to get rid of it, no catalytic converter you can stick on your tailpipe, no scrubber you can fit to your smokestack. To reduce the amount of CO2 pouring into the atmosphere means dramatically reducing the amount of fossil fuel being consumed. Which means changing the underpinning of the planet's entire economy and altering our most ingrained personal habits. Even under the best scenarios, this will involve something more like a revolution than a technical fix.

You would think the Europeans would have had a harder time making reductions; after all, they were already fairly energy-efficient, thanks to decades of high taxes on coal and oil. Their low-hanging fruit had long since been plucked. For the United States, there were loads of relatively easy fixes. We could have quickly reduced our emissions by trimming the number of SUVs on the road, for instance, while the French were already in Peugeots. However, in certain ways, America was more firmly locked into coal and oil than our European peers: sprawling suburbs, oversized houses, abandoned rail lines. We had the single hardest habit to break, which was thinking of energy as something cheap. This staggering inertia meant that even when our leaders had some interest in controlling energy use, they faced a real challenge. Al Gore wrote a book insisting that the future of civilization itself depended on battling global warming; during his eight years as vice president, Americans increased their carbon emissions by 15 percent.

What makes the battle harder still is the tangibility gap between benefits and costs. Everyone is, in the long run, better off if the planet doesn't burn to a crisp. But in any given year the payoff for shifting away from fossil fuel is incremental and essentially invisible. The costs, however, are concentrated: If you own a coal mine, an oil well, or an assembly line churning out gas-guzzlers, you have a very strong incentive for making sure no one starts charging you for emitting carbon.

At the very least, the "energy sector" needed to stall for time, so that its investments in oil fields and the like could keep on earning for their theoretical lifetimes. The strategy turned out to be simple: Cloud the issue as much as possible so that voters, already none too eager to embrace higher gas prices, would have no real reason to move climate change to the top of their agendas. I mean, if the scientists aren't absolutely certain, well, why not just wait until they get it sorted out?

The tactic worked brilliantly; throughout the 1990s, even as other nations took action, the fossil fuel industry's Global Climate Coalition managed to make American journalists treat the accelerating warming as a he-said-she-said story. True, a vast scientific consensus was forming that climate change threatens the earth more profoundly than anything since the dawn of civilization, but in an Associated Press dispatch the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change didn't look all that much more impressive than, say, Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute or S. Fred Singer, former chief scientist at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Michaels and Singer weren't really doing new research, just tossing jabs at those who were, but that didn't matter. Their task was not to build a new climate model; it was to provide cover for politicians who were only too happy to duck the issue. Their task was to keep things under control.

It was all incredibly crude. But it was also incredibly effective. For now and for the foreseeable future, the climate skeptics have carried the day. They've understood the shape of American politics far better than environmentalists. They know that it doesn't matter how many scientists are arrayed against you as long as you can intimidate newspapers into giving you equal time. They understand, too, that playing defense is all they need to do: Given the inertia inherent in the economy, it's more than sufficient to simply instill doubt.

IN SHORT, the deniers have done their job, and done it better than the environmen- talists have done theirs. They've delayed action for 15 years now, and their power seems to grow with each year. How, even as the science grew ever firmer and the evidence mounted ever higher, did the climate deniers manage to muddy the issue? It's one of the mightiest political feats of our time, accomplished by a small group of clever and committed people. It's worthwhile trying to understand how they work, not least because some of the same tactics are now being used in debates over other issues, like Social Security. And because the fight over global warming won't end here. Try as they might, even with all three branches of government under their control, conservative Republicans can't repeal the laws of chemistry and physics.

Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to Mother Jones and the author of several books, including his most recent, Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscapes, Vermont's Champlain Valley and New York's Adirondacks.

Got global warming questions? Go to AskQuestions.org

John Hagee, McCain's Pastor, is Far More Dangerous Than Reverend Wright

If you haven't read Matt Tiabbi's article yet about his undercover experience at a retreat hosted by John Hagee, pastor of the Cornerstone Church in Texas, whose fans include George W. Bush and John McCain, then you really should.

John Hagee is a Christian Zionist, which I guess would make Dubbya and McSame Zionists as well? As Tiabbi describes it,

"The whole idea behind Christian Zionism is to align America with the nation of Israel so as to "hurry God up" in his efforts to bring about Armageddon. As Hagee tells it, only after Israel is involved in a final showdown involving a satanic army (in most interpretations, a force of Arabs led by Russians) will Christ reappear. On that happy day, Hagee and his True Believers will be whisked up to Heaven by God, while the rest of us nonbelievers are left behind on Earth to suck eggs and generally suffer various tortures."

During the grand finale of this cult's retreat, which they call "Encounter Weekend," Hagee encourages his flock to vomit up their demons (literally) as he reads them off a list. Among his demons on his list: intellect, philisophy, astrology (oh, yes, please Lord save us from astrology), and hand-writing analysis (somebody warn the FBI they have demons).

So, Hagee cast out Bush's demons of intellect, huh. Well that explains a lot.

Admirably, Hagee also casts out the demon of incest, but he doesn't know his bible very well:

"The next morning the older daughter said to her younger sister, "I slept with our father last night. Let’s get him drunk with wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him. That way our family line will be preserved." So that night they got him drunk again, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. As before, he was unaware of her lying down or getting up again. So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father." (Genesis 19:23-25, 30-36 , NLT)

Below are just some of the comments received by readers of Tiabbi's investigative report that are worth repeating:

That Hagee supports W and McSame. He's clearly an extremist megalomaniac, yet the MSM won't scrutinize him the same way they've sliced and diced Rev. Wright. Why? I think we know...

"Hagee wants to bring about the end of the world, preferably by convincing President John McCain to pre-emptively use NUCLEAR WEAPONS against Iran. (Just which army taking part in the Great Conflagration is on the side of Satan, again?) And with the end of the world, Right-Wing sadistic "patriots" should know that that means the end of the United States of America as well."

As Voltaire put it, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

Flags, Not Crosses

Found this from Joel Layton, Director of Atheists of Utah, on the site for The Salt Lake Tribune:

The roadside memorials for troopers who died in service are meant to commemorate their service to the community - to the whole community, not just community members who happen to believe in God. A conservative estimate puts the number of Utahns who declare themselves atheist or agnostic in excess of 225,000. Additionally, there are thousands of taxpaying Utahns who may have a belief system other than that represented by the Christian cross. That is a large portion of the population driving the highways who would like to feel that the Utah Highway Patrol represents them on equal footing with all Utahns.

I would like to place emblems on my car that identify me as atheist. Can I be assured of being treated fairly if pulled over by the UHP when I pass 12-foot-tall Christian crosses emblazoned with the UHP logo?

I find it hard to believe that all citizens, along with the families of these brave troopers, wouldn't be just as proud of memorials based on an American flag rather than a religious symbol.

Joel Layton
Director, Atheists of Utah
Salt Lake City

The Funniest Damn Thing I've Seen in a Long Time

And here's the original by Will Ferrell:

What Happened in Our Names While We Went Shopping

- Written by Leonard Pitts Jr., a columnist for the Miami Herald

Return with me to Abu Ghraib. You remember it. You may not want to, but you do.

The Iraqi prison was the epicenter of an international scandal in 2004 when it was revealed that U.S. soldiers were mistreating detainees, forcing them to stand in stress positions, sexually humiliating them, menacing them with dogs, denying them clothes, dragging them on leashes, threatening them with electrocution.

All of it was captured in photos that shocked the world. One of the most memorable showed then-21-year-old Army private Lynndie England, cigarette poking from an idiotic grin, index fingers cocked like guns as she pointed to the genitals of a naked Iraqi man.

We stared at those images and asked how this could have happened, how American soldiers could have become so degraded and undisciplined, could have wandered so far afield from the moorings of simple, human decency. Many answers were proffered. Mob mentality. Dehumanizing conditions. Lack of oversight.

But as the years have passed, a truer answer has coalesced. Where did these young soldiers get the idea that the rules were suspended, that free reign was given, that they could do whatever they wanted to the men in their custody?

It came from the top.

The latest proof: a recently declassified 2003 memo from John Yoo, then a Justice Department lawyer. The memo, eventually rescinded by Justice, authorized torture as a means of interrogation, a finding that carried the force of law.

Much of the media coverage of the 81-page document has focused on the — and this word is unavoidably ironic — bloodless legalese in which Yoo contemplates the permissibility of putting a prisoner's eyes out, slitting his tongue, scalding him with water, dosing him with mind-altering drugs, disfiguring him with acid.

But what is also appalling is Yoo's contention, repeatedly restated in the memo, that the president in time of war enjoys virtually unfettered authority over, is accountable to no one for, the treatment of prisoners.

Legal scholars have accused Yoo of sloppy reasoning. Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale and American universities, told the International Herald Tribune the document was a monument to the "imperial presidency." Yoo disagrees. He calls the memo a "boilerplate" defense of presidential authority.

Your humble correspondent doesn't know from legal scholarship. He does know this: Seven years ago when the nation was attacked and Americans wanted to pitch in, wanted to help, wanted to sacrifice, our leaders told us to go shopping. Prop the economy up, they said. Don't worry about the war. Let us handle it. Go shopping.

And we did. Nor, scared as we were, eager for the illusion of security as we were, did we look too closely or examine too intently the things that were being done in our names.

We became, many of us, expert at ignoring the screams from behind the curtain, discounting the growing mountain of evidence that things were not as we had been told, brushing off nagging questions about what we have become and how that does not square with what we are supposed to be.

We shopped, and did not fret overmuch about the price of our moral laxity.

Maybe that's because the price is paid in tiny increments of our national honor yet somehow, never by those who most deserve to foot the bill. So that, seven years later, George W. Bush is still president of the United States, Donald Rumsfeld is working on his memoirs, John Yoo is a law professor at UC Berkeley.

But Lynndie England is a single mother, on parole and looking for work, living in a trailer with her folks.

Stop Pushing Your Christian Agenda On Me Through Your EMails!

I've had it! I'm so sick of getting those Christian emails calling for me to boycott the new one dollar coin because it omits "In God We Trust" (I WISH that were true, but it's just another email myth), or to boycott Pepsi because they took out "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance on their soda cans, or to write my congressman because they want to remove all the crosses from the military cemeteries....

According to my husband and family (particularly my in-laws), it would be "impolite" for me to ask the senders of these emails (other family members, close friends of family, mutual friends and even just mere acquaintances) to stop sending them. I should never "rock the boat." I'm expected to just delete them and go on with my day allowing everyone to remain under the delusion that I'm a Christian and will become just as outraged at these atrocities as them. Which is exactly what I've been doing because the last time I tried to speak out about one of these offensive emails I ended up completely severing a relationship with a friend in our neighborhood. It's nothing less than discriminatory that I should be expected to tolerate the Christian agenda, but that others should not be expected to tolerate mine.

Some will argue that sending me these emails is harmless and nothing to get excited about, but I'd bet anything if I started sending email messages to THEM eschewing MY agenda, all of proverbial hell would break loose. Is anyone going to try to tell me THEY would not be offended if I started sending them my favorite spells and incantations every time I received one of their favorite prayers via email.

9/11 - Are the Truthers On to Something?

When I first heard about the 9/11 conspiracy theories being cooked up by the "Truthers" I laughed out loud. Like Bill Maher, I didn't think Bush could possible be behind the 9/11 attacks for the simple reason that it worked. Bush couldn't possibly be intelligent enough to pull it off. But then I accidentally came across something while researching something completely unrelated.

I was checking the history of a site I was viewing using the "Way Back Machine" tool. That led to some curiosity about the Way Back Machine itself, so I took a look at their homepage. Then I noticed a thread on their message boards regarding censorship of internet archives. Further browsing brought the realization there is very little evidence to support this claim, but my curiosity did get the best of me when I read references to the "The New Pearl Harbor" and "Northwood" I wasn't familiar with these, so I Googled them. One site pointed me to another.... and another.... and another...and I soon started wondering: Is there something to this 9/11 conspiracy theory? Maybe Bush isn't smart enough, but certainly a lot of the people behind him are.

"The population of (thruthers) is larger than you might think. A Scripps-Howard poll of 1,010 adults last month found that 36% of Americans consider it "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that government officials either allowed the attacks to be carried out or carried out the attacks themselves. Thirty-six percent adds up to a lot of people. This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality."

- TIME Magazine, Sept. 3, 2006

I have yet to make up my mind about this. But I think it's worth investigating further.

Christopher Hitchens: Religion is the Source of Hatred

Will United Nations Resolution on Defamation of Religion Take Away the Rights of Critics?

Since 1999, The United Nations Third Committee of the 62 General Assembly has been bouncing around several versions of a resolution Combating the Defamation of Religion that

"...would have the Assembly express deep concern about the negative stereotyping of religions and manifestations of intolerance and discrimination in matters of religion or belief, still in evidence in some regions of the world. The Assembly would further note, with deep concern, the intensification of the campaign to defame religions and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001. It would also emphasize that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which should be exercised with responsibility and may therefore be subject to limitations according to law and necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others; protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals; and respect for religions and beliefs."

While I assume the authors of this resolution have only the best intentions, it could have serious, unintended repercussions. In a post titled Government Authority Tells World to Stop Hurting Religious Authority, "Dissaffected" wonders, as do I, exactly how the U.N. defines "defamation" of religion:

If I point out mohammed killed people who disagreed with him, experienced hallucinations and lied about having a horse fly him to Jerusalem and back in one night, have I defamed islam?

If I call christanity a collection of ideas taken from other religions and philosophical systems have I defamed, christanity?

And what should the punishment be for Richard Dawkins for this commentary?

Re-education? A Fine? Imprisonment? The pillory? The Heretic's Fork?

Scary stuff.... I believe the U.N. needs to stay out of religious matters as much as I believe in separation of church and state here in the U.S.

In a post on the website for the International Humanist and Ethical Union titled "IHEU: 'Combating Defamation of Religion' unecessary, flawed and morally wrong," Babu R.R. Gogineni and Roy W. Brown point out:

"...troubling is the fact that nowhere in these resolutions has the term “defamation” been defined. Attempting to restrict freedom of expression on the grounds of defamation without even defining the term is wrong in principle and bad in law. It could lead, for example to justifying the criminalization of apostasy on the grounds that it constitutes defamation of the favoured religion.

Attempts to protect religions from ‘defamation’ are really seeking to protect religion from critical evaluation, and aiming to stifle religious dissent, and would therefore constitute a violation of the principles of the UN Charter and a disavowal of the freedoms of individuals in favor of those who deny them in the name of group rights.

There are deeper moral issues because a religion that needs the power of a state and the threat of punishment for criticism loses its persuasiveness and its moral character. We should progress towards a universal civilization that will flourish on the free exchange of ideas and the critical examination of each other’s beliefs in a true celebration of our common humanity.

The current exercise in ‘combating defamation of religion’ is doing quite the opposite.

House Resolution 888 One Step Closer Towards an American Theocracy

They're about to do it again! Yet another resolution trying to close the gap between separation of church and state. But this one takes the cake.

H. Res. 888: Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our nation's founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as "American Religious History Week" for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith.

The terms "education" and "history" in the above statement are laughable, considering the author of this resolution, Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA), is obviously completely uneducated in regards to our nation's history. Either that or he is intentionally trying to rewrite history to fit his own agenda. I suspect it's a combination of both. Perhaps not so coincidentally, that's exactly how the Bible was written.

H. Res 888 is currently in Henry Waxman's Subcommittee, so if you have a rep. on the committee please email them.

Below is a list a some great posts on this resolution I recommend:

Think the "Christmas Resolution" was Bad? Check Out H. Res. 888 by Chris Rodda, author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History

Congress Aims to Dumb Down History, Pushes Fiction of Christian Nation....

H. Res. 888 Rewrites American History to Support Christian Nation Myth

House Resolution Promotes Fake "Christian Nation" Version Of American History

God, if She Exists....

"I'm an atheist. So God, if She exists, isn't really a part of my life."
- Sir Ian McKellen

Famous Atheists, Deists, Pantheists and Other Rational People

I just found a really interesting website that list celebrity atheists, deists, humanists, agnostics, etc. Below is a list of just some of those this site claims are Freethinkers:

Woody Allen
Lance Armstrong
Dave Barry
Ingmar Bergman
Richard Branson
Warren Buffett
George Carlin
Noam Chomsky
Rodney Dangerfield
Harvey Fierstein
Dave Foley
Jodie Foster
Janeane Garofalo
Bill Gates
Bob Geldolf
Katherin Hepburn
Billy Joel
Angelina Jolie
Diane Keaton
Bruce Lee
Tom Leykis
John Malkovich
Barry Manilow
Sir Ian McKellan
Arthur Miller
Julianne Moore
Randy Newman
Jack Nicholson
Paula Poundstone
Ron Reagan, Jr.
Keanu Reeves
Henry Rollins
Andy Rooney
Salman Rushdie
Steven Soderbergh
Annika Sorenstam
Eddie Vedder
Howard Stern
Julia Sweeney
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Clive Barker
Bill Blass
Paul Bettany
Bjork
Marlon Brando
Gabriel Byrne
Amanda Donohoe
Phil Donahue
Kathy Griffin
Rachel Griffiths
Kevin Kline
Margot Kidder
Ian McEwan
Joaquin Phoenix
Robin Quivers
Ray Romano
Bertrand Russell
Ted Turner
Frank Zappa

Are the Girl Scouts Religiously Diverse?

My eight-year-old daughter is interested in joining the Girl Scouts. Without a troop in our area, a local Girl Scout representative met with some of us mothers to explore the possibility of forming one.

After a lengthy discussion regarding who would volunteer to be the leaders, yadda, yadda, yadda... she asked if there were any additional questions.

This is when I asked about the role of religion in the Girl Scouts. I remembered the big controversy in 2002 when a young atheist Boy Scout was told he had to profess a belief or he'd be banned from his troop.

She said the Girls Scout of America was, fundamentally, a Christian organization, but they didn't discriminate based on one's beliefs.

I decided I needed to probe even further: I told her neither my husband or I were Christian and I was concerned there would be a problem if the subject ever came up and my daughter, who I believe is yet undecided about her spiritualily, professed a minority belief of some kind.

At this point, one of the mothers, who had been a den mother for the Boy Scouts and graciously volunteered to be a leader for this budding troop, jumped in and reassured me both scouting organizations were very tolerant towards all religions. "We're very diverse" she confidentally proclaimed. "We have all kinds of different religions in the Scouts... methodists, baptists, catholics, pentacostals, lutherans...."

As you can imagine, I was almost at a loss for words (not to mention barely able to keep a straight face), but I trudged on and tried to explain we were none of the above. And, anticipating the next declaration to inevitably come, I explained even further we were neither Jewish nor Muslim. "We're none of the three major monotheistic religions," I said, wondering if anyone in the room even knew what the word monotheistic meant (I sincerely doubt it).

After my startling revelation, I knew their brains were undoubtedly working furiously trying to figure out what religion we were. I could tell they were dying to ask, but they didn't. (For those readers new to my blog, I'm a pantheist-slash-atheist-slash-agnostic-slash-pagan and my husband is, last I checked, an atheist).

When I came home, I told my husband about the Girl Scouts being a "Christian organization" and asked him if he'd have a problem with that aspect of it if our daughter joined. He didn't.

Then I asked my daughter if she'd have a problem, at which point she reminded me, "What difference does it make? You said all of us kids could decide for ourselves what religion we were going to follow, and maybe I'll decide I want to be a Christian." (Yes, she is definitely her mother's daughter.... defiant and feisty).

"So, are you a Christian?" I asked her.

"I'm eight," she replied. (She got a high five for that one. )

Later, I did a little surfing on the web and found this on bsa-discrimination.org:

"On October 23, 1993, in a landslide 1,560-375 vote, the Girls Scouts of the USA adopted a measure to permit any of its 2.6 million members to substitute another word or phrase for "God" in their Oath. However, according to their Constitution, 'the motivating force in Girl Scouting is a spiritual one and the word 'God' in the Promise reflects this. The organization makes no attempt to interpret or define God, but looks to each member to establish for herself the nature of her belief. Specific religious or denominational affiliation is not a requirement of membership, only the acceptance of the Promise.'

So, while a questioning girl might be allowed to remain in GSUSA, a confirmed atheist would be rejected. This fact was confirmed when James Randall (the father of the Randall twins who sued BSA) filed suit against a San Diego Girl Scout troop for denying 6-year-old Nitzya Cuevas-Macias entrance into meetings for refusing to pledge to serve God. "

So, it sounds like as long as my daughter believes in some deity, or at least pretends to, they can't exclude her. However, neither of the two women who agreed to be leaders have contacted me since, despite their prediction that a troop would be formed within a couple weeks (that was about three months ago). I'm realizing it's possible they've made the conscious decision to exclude my daughter now, in light of whatever impression they got from my questions at the meeting, and I'm pondering whether I should make a stink about this. I have mixed feelings about her being involved in the Girl Scouts, so I'm thinking I might just ignore it.

I, myself, was a Girl Scout. Heck, I was even a Girl Scout leader at one time. For the most part, I believe it's a good organization. But, let's get real here: If one of the women volunteering to lead this troop has her head so far up her ass that she actually believes religious diversity means throwing Lutherans and Baptists into the same room together, how demented would I have to be to allow this woman to mentor my daughter?

So, I'm just going to hope my agnostic-possibly-atheist-hopefully-not-Christian daughter forgets all about Girl Scouts and the whole matter blows over. But if she brings it up again, and she's determined to join, then I'll back her up every step of the way. Goddess knows, it wouldn't be the first time I've rocked that proverbial boat.

Update on Female Referee Catholic School Debacle

I knew today was supposed to be the day the Kansas State High School Activities Association held their hearing regarding St. Mary's Academy's refusal to allow a female referee to officiate a boys basketball game in February. I couldn't find much online, but I did find this posted by the Kansas City News:

TOPEKA, Kan. -- The Kansas State High School Activities Association's executive committee has approved two proposals to prevent its member and approved schools from discriminating against sports officials.

Tuesday's proposals were in response to St. Mary's Academy near Topeka refusing to allow referee Michelle Campbell to work a boys basketball game last month because she was a woman.

The nine-member board unanimously approved proposals to add a position statement to its handbook and a rule requiring member schools to accept qualified officials regardless of race, gender or any other factor that could be construed as discriminatory. The rule also would be added to the application forms for approved schools, which aren't KHSAA members but can use its officials.

"I was always positive that the Kansas State High School Activities Association would take this matter seriously and make the appropriated decision," Campbell said. "You can say I'm pleased with what their motions are today to protect future officials. Not just myself, but any official."

The flap started on Feb. 2, when St. Mary's Academy officials told Campbell she wouldn't be allowed to officiate a boys basketball game because of her gender. The controversy caught national attention, with Campbell becoming the center of a media whirlwind and St. Mary's the target of women's groups and newspaper editorials. It also made KSHSAA officials take a harder look at their handbook, which had no provisions preventing the discrimination of officials.

The association's executive committee tried to address the issue by creating a position statement that mirrors its mission statement, giving officials the same rights and opportunities as the organization's member schools.

Gary Musselman, KSHSAA's executive director, will work with the association's legal department to come up with exact wording for the new rule, then forward it to its board of directors. The 77-member board, which approves all changes to the organization's handbook, will then vote on the new rule at its meeting on April 11. Once the rule is in the handbook, the executive committee will then vote to add it to the approved school's application form. The new rule would go into effect for the 2008-09 school year.

"Going forward, the focus of the association is to ensure appropriate rules and policies are adopted to ensure equal opportunity for all of our athletic officials," Musselman said. "Today's actions by the executive board are the appropriate steps to move toward that goal."

Campbell attended the meeting with her young nephew and Darin Putthoff, who was supposed to work the St. Mary's game but walked off in protest after learning Campbell had been banned. They were introduced to the executive board, but did not speak until after the meeting was over.

St. Mary's officials were invited to KSHSAA headquarters to tell their side of the story, but did not attend. The school has refused repeated interview requests, instead referring people to a statement on its Web site from its school headmaster, saying adolescent boys should have male role models and girls' role models should be women.

The new rule would require all member and approved schools to use affiliated officials, though it likely won't affect St. Mary's much because the school typically only has a handful of games against approved schools.

"You're sort of having apples mixed with oranges when you have approved schools," Musselman said. "They're not obligated to do everything eligibility wise, numbers of games wise, even the rules of play. So I think we continually have to evaluate what do we need to do to make sure approved schools and member schools can interact successfully."

It seems unlikely St. Mary's officials will accept the new rules given their hard stance on the issue in the past. If they do, there's one official who wouldn't hesitate coming back. "If their rules change, if their belief system changed, I would say yes," Campbell said. "Sure, I would go call at St. Mary's because it's about the kids. It's not about the adults, it's not about my personal feelings. It's about those kids and that's what they want. They want a ballgame and they can't have a ballgame without officials."

I FOUND JESUS!

He was behind the couch the whole time!

Uncanny

My Review of "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins, a professor of biology at Oxford University, has written a book that challenges us all to examine our beliefs. He asks us, as John Lennon did, to imagine a world without religion:

"Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as 'Christ-killers', no Northern Ireland 'troubles', no 'honour killings', no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money ('God wants you to give till it hurts'). Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing an inch of it."

Then he goes on to give his motive for writing The God Delusion:

"...there are lots of people out there who have been brought up in some religion or other, are unhappy in it, don't believe it, or are worried about the evils that are done in its name; people who feel vague yearnings to leave their parents' religion and wish they could, but just don't realize that leaving is an option. If you are one of them, this book is for you. It is inteneded to raise consciousness -- raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled."

Here's what Dawkins thinks about Yahweh, the god of the Old Testament:

"...arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Those of us schooled from infancy in his ways can become desensitized to their horror."

And he continues in this same in-your-face, tell-it-like-it-is manner which I happened to find extremely refreshing. The only thing I, personally, didn't care for was his preoccupation with Charles Darwin. While I believe in evolution and understand the necessity of including it in book written by an atheist to dispute the Genesis account of creation, I think one chapter on Darwin would have been sufficient. He insists on giving a Darwinian explanation to almost everything, including the "evolution of religion." Whenever Darwin would come up, my eyes started to glaze over and I would take that as my cue to turn the light off and call it a night.

That being said, I loved this book. The God Delusion is brilliant, provocative, inciteful and sometimes entertaining. I chuckled out loud on more than one occasion. I highly recommend it.

Boycott MySpace and Delete Your MySpace Profile

I've canceled my MySpace account, and I encourage others to do the same, for several reasons:

Rupert Murdoch owns MySpace. As if that's not reason enough, read on....

MySpace deleted the Atheist and Agnostic Group, consisting of 35,000 members, for being "offensive." And yet, when I reported a guy who posted an unsolicited message on my profile that said, "Wanna f*ck?" (only he spelled it correctly), I was told he was completely within MySpace's guidelines and they couldn't do anything about it. Apparently, not believing in a god of some kind is more offensive. I've read MySpace has since restored the atheist group's profile, but many of it's most active members do not have access.

MySpace deleted profile for an anti-war website, PrisonPlanet.com.

MySpace refused to run a Common Cause ad about a political issue – urging people to send letters to the FCC opposing media consolidation. In that ad, Rupert Murdoch was pictured as the symbol of big media. Murdoch’s NewsCorp owns MySpace.

MySpace deleted the profile of an openly homosexual band, Kids On TV.

MySpace rules clearly prohibit “selecting a profile with a commercial purpose as one of your 'Top 8' friends.” But Tom is advertising for Cingular. Isn’t that hypocritical?

MySpace deletes photos of breast feeding mothers and babies. FaceBook does also. Again, I find it extraordinary that MySpace considers breastfeeding babies offensive, but not some guy asking me if I wanna "f*ck."

St. Mary's Academy in Kansas Bans Female Referee from Officiating Boys Basketball Game Because She's a Woman

I heard about this awhile ago on sports talk radio (not my thing, but I tolerate it when my husband is driving...keeps him awake), and I kept forgetting to comment on it here at Goddess Bless America:

The Associated Press, February 13, 2008

KANSAS CITY, Mo — Kansas activities officials are investigating a religious school's refusal to let a female referee call a boys' high school basketball game.

The Kansas State High School Activities Association said referees reported that Michelle Campbell was preparing to officiate at St. Mary's Academy near Topeka on Feb. 2 when a school official insisted that Campbell could not call the game.

The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs.

Campbell then walked off the court along with Darin Putthoff, the referee who was to work the game with her. "I said, 'If Michelle has to leave, then I'm leaving with her,"' Putthoff said Wednesday. "I was disappointed that it happened to Michelle. I've never heard of anything like that."

Fred Shockey, who was getting ready to leave the gym after officiating two junior high games, said he was told there had been an emergency and was asked to stay and officiate two more games. "When I found out what the emergency was, I said there was no way I was going to work those games," said Shockey, who spent 12 years in the Army and became a ref about three years ago. "I have been led by some of the finest women this nation has to offer, and there was no way I was going to go along with that." Shockey noted that referees normally don't work Saturday games, but he agreed to officiate because his daughter's basketball game slated for that day was canceled.

The Activities Association said it is considering whether to take action against the private religious school. St. Mary's Academy, about 25 miles northwest of Topeka, is owned and operated by the Society of St. Pius X, which follows older Roman Catholic laws. The society's world leader, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, was excommunicated by Pope John Paul II in the late 1980s.

Gary Musselman, the association's executive director, said the organization will not make a decision until it confirms whether St. Mary's Academy has a policy of not allowing female referees to work boys basketball games. If that is indeed the school's written policy, Musselman said, the association could decide to remove St. Mary's Academy from the list of approved schools and take away its ability to compete against the association's more than 300 member schools.

St. Mary's Academy officials declined comment when contacted by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

St. Mary's Academy is among 30 schools on the list that are not full association members but compete against schools that are. Musselman said St. Mary's Academy plays one or two games per season against member schools but has no more scheduled this school year. He said if removed from the approved list for next school year, St. Mary's Academy still would be able to compete against approved schools that are not members of the association.

Musselman said the association hopes to resolve the matter sometime this week. He said he sent a letter to the school's principal, Vicente A. Griego, the day of the incident but has not heard back from him.

Putthoff and other supporters of Campbell said they believe state activities officials will handle the situation properly.

Campbell did not return phone calls seeking comment Wednesday. However, she told The Kansas City Star that she was "dumbfounded" by the incident but that she is not
angry at the school. She said she does not want the situation to go any further than it already has. "This issue was going to come up eventually," said Campbell, 49, a retired Albuquerque, N.M., police officer who now lives in Ozawkie, Kan. "I just happened to be the person who was there this time.

"It's kind of a sticky situation. It needs to be looked at carefully, slowly, with all the facts." Putthoff said he has called games at St. Mary's Academy off and on for 10 or 12 years, but doubts he will officiate at the school again. "Out of defense to Michelle, I'm probably going to decline to go back there," he said. "We have to support our fellow officials."

Campbell, one of about five female referees in the Topeka Officials Association, has been officiating games for about two years.

"We don't support any institutions that would discriminate against any of our officials," said Steve Bradley, president of the Topeka group. "We support Michelle 100 percent. "Michelle works hard. She cares about what she does. She is not a person who's on a crusade. She's a good person. She's a good official. You will not find a person who's more serious about doing a good job than Michelle."

Musselman said this was his first time dealing with a situation in which a school turned away a referee because of gender. "We view officials not as male or female, Hispanic or African-American or Asian-American. We view officials as officials," Musselman said. "Discrimination against our officials is something we can't be party to." Still, he said, the association wants to be fair to everyone involved and gather all the information before taking action.

Can you believe this!?!?!?! In the year 2008!?!?!?!? This Catholic institution actually has the audacity to rule that an ADULT female woman is so inferior to teenage boys that she is not allowed to officiate their basketball game? And they really thought they could get away with this? Do they make all the female students and staff at the school wear burkas, too?

Their excuse for this outrageously unacceptable behavior? Get this:

"Our school aims to instill in our boys the proper respect for women and girls," the statement says. "Teaching our boys to treat ladies with deference, we cannot place them in an aggressive athletic competition where they are forced to play inhibited by their concern about running into a female referee."

Uh huh. Like anyone is buying that. They're fanatical, sexist pigs is what it is. They're following an outdated and never-justifiable-to-begin-with monotheistic religios doctrine that dictates women are inferior to men (and, in this case, even boys). I guess we should just be grateful they didn't tie Campbell to a stake and set her on fire.

Then later, Rev. Vicente Griego, headmaster of St. Mary's Academy, stated:

"The formation of adolescent boys is best accomplished by male role models, as the formation of girls is best accomplished by women," the statement said. "Hence in the boys' athletic competitions, it is important that the various role models (coaches and referees) be men."

I think the first excuse sounded better. He's just diggin himself a deeper hole now.

In 2004, St. Mary's Academy (I LOVE how this sexist, male-dominated school is named in honor of a woman) refused to play a football game against a team that had a 14-year-old girl on their roster.

In reference to the first excuse given on the day of the incident, which was that Campbell would not be allowed to officiate because, as a woman, she could not be allowed to have authority of boys, Rev. Griego also claims, "This alleged reason was neither stated nor is it held by any officials of St. Mary's Academy."

Putthoff, who incidentally happens to be a pastor of a non-denominational church, said St. Mary's Athletic Director Keith Perry told him, "We have a problem: We don't allow women to referee here" and "it's something to do with women having authority over men."

"That's what his statement was," Putthoff said. "He seemed kind of shocked and didn't really know what he was talking about or have an understanding of the policy. He was shooting from the hip."

The Cost of Going Green

My husband and I are shopping around for a new vehicle. With three kids, two of which are still required by law to be in car seats (which are bulky and take up a lot of room), a dog, and a propensity to travel to far away places (which requires a lot of room for luggage), we are looking at another full-size SUV.

If I sound guilty or apologetic for wanting to purchase another SUV, it's because I am. I believe in global warming and I care about the environment, so I cringe at the thought of purchasing yet another SUV, even though with a family of five who often has additional passengers (grandparents, playmates, etc.) there doesn't seem to be much of a choice.

We looked at the latest offerings in full-size hybrid SUVs and were dismayed to find they cost nearly $20,000 more than "regular" SUVs and the gas-milage isn't much better.

And it isn't just driving a hybrid that seems exclusively for the rich. I'd like to install solar panels on my roof, but a recent estimate put that project at $30,000. I'd also love some kind of water filtration system that recycled the water used in our showers, dishwasher and washing machine so we could use it to flush our toilets and water our landscaping, but I'm sure it would cost a small fortune. Even buying organic food, which I do about 1/3 of the time, is considerably more expensive than buying the pesticide-laden stuff.

So it isn't that Americans don't want to be more environmentally conscious, it's just that we can't afford it. The best we can do is use less energy, eat less beef and pork, continue to recycle and vote for politicians who will make becoming a green nation more practical and affordable.

I believe the purchase of a hybrid vehicle or solar panels for one's home should be tax-deductible, at the very least. And the industries who manufacturer green goods should get more tax breaks and incentives from our government so they are in a position to make these items more accessible for the middle-class.

Yes, there are ways for a family to go almost completely green, but it's not very practical. There is a family in Southern California that's done it, and I admire them tremendously for it, but their lifestyle has become a full-time job. In fact, it is their job. They've created a foundation for the promotion of sustainable living, conduct workshops and sell environmentally-friendly products through their website. Their green, sustainable lifestyle provides them with their income, which is indeed truly amazing and admirable, but what about the rest of us who don't have the time to invest in living that way? We can't all quit our jobs and support ourselves growing organic food in our backyard and conducting workshops to local school children.

Bill's Back!!!!

Woooohooooo! Real Time with Bill Maher is back on the air and to celebrate, I'm going to share some more of my favorite clips from previous episodes. Enjoy!

The 2008 Presidential Race and religion.

The Death of Jerry Falwell

Think Tanks

My Review of DVD "With God On Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right"

With God on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right is a historical account of the creation of the "moral majority" and their involvement in the political scene, from the early years of Nixon to the George W. Bush administration.

Although Calvin Skaggs, David Van Taylor and Ali Pomeroy attempt to present a neutral picture of the rise of Christian conservatives, this documentary most definitely leans to the right. As one reviewer on Amazon.com puts it, "Ignore those who claim this is an even-handed documentary. It's a promotional film for the Christian right thinly disguised as investigative journalism."

While I'm not sure they intentionally created a promotional film for the Christian right, I wholeheartedly agree that investigative journalism it is not.

I sincerely doubt it will change anyone's opinions one way or the other, yet it is still informative and worth viewing.

My Review of "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong

Written by Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun turned best-selling author and commentator on religious matters, A History of God is an informative, comprehensive account of the history of the three largest religions in modern history: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Armstrong takes the reader back to the time of Abraham, the patriarch of all three, and gives us a very objective look at the manner in which civilizations create and recreate their gods to fit the needs of their culture at any given time.

"...it seems that creating gods is something human beings have always done. When one religious idea ceases to work for them, it is simply replaced."

- Karen Armstrong

Despite having doubts in her younger days, Armstrong is not an atheist. She is still very much a theist, but remains objective and has a strong tendancy towards agnosticism. Armstrong is also a little biased towards Islam, although many disagree with much of what she asserts about the nature of Islam, including Muslims themselves; as, I'm sure, many Jews and Christians disagree with some of what she has to say about the origins of Judaism and Christianity. Let's face it, when it comes to religion, there will never be unanimous agreement.

One reviewer stated that she managed to simplify a very complex subject. I can only partially agree with this statement, however. She did make a very heroic attempt to simplify it, but I don't think a subject such as the history of the world's three largest monotheistic religions could ever be simplified. While I recommend this book for anyone interested in the history of religion, it is a bit of a dry read. I like to be enlightened and entertained at the same time; but, admittedly, this is a pretty tall order to fill when it comes to subjects such as this.

Man Cuts Off Own Hand and Cooks It to Please God

Stories like this make atheism look better and better. This is just absolute insanity.

HAYDEN, Idaho — A man who believed he bore the "mark of the beast" used a circular saw to cut off one hand, then he cooked it in the microwave and called 911, authorities said.

The man, in his mid-20s, was calm when Kootenai County sheriff's deputies arrived Saturday in this northern Idaho town. He was in protective custody in the mental health unit of Kootenai Medical Center.

"It had been somewhat cooked by the time the deputy arrived," sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said. "He put a tourniquet on his arm before, so he didn't bleed to death. That kind of mental illness is just sad."

It was not immediately clear whether the man has a history of mental illness. Hospital spokeswoman Lisa Johnson would not say whether an attempt was made to reattach the hand, citing patient confidentiality.

The Book of Revelation in the New Testament contains a passage in which an angel is quoted as saying: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink the wine of God's fury."

The book of Matthew also contains the passage: "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body
than for your whole body to go into hell."

Wolfinger said he didn't know which hand was amputated.

- Associated Press, January 9, 2008

I remember when I was a Christian that absolute terror I felt for the "mark of the beast." I even made my gym give me a new membership number because in the middle of about 15 numerals were three sixes in a row. It all seems so absurd now.

Filangieri Society Condemns Ackerman's Vote Against HR 847

The Filangieri Society for Justice and Good Government has condemned Congressman Gary Ackerman's vote against House Resolution 847 recognizing the importance of Christianity and Christmas, which passed overwhelmingly. The vote was 372 Ayes to 9 Nays. Among the Nay Sayers was Congressman Ackerman, a thirteen-term member of Congress representing New York's 5th Congressional District.

In defending his vote against Christmas, Mr. Ackerman said, "For the Congress to spend time talking about the coming of the Messiah really broaches the wall of separation of church and state."

He makes a very good point. In fact, I made the same point in my original post on this. And when I read about this letter to Ackerman from the Filangieri Society, my initial reaction was outrage. I was assuming, of course, that this society was some kind of Christian conservative, right-wing organization joining the many others who are wagging their fingers at those who voted against this resolution simply because of their pro-Christian agendas.

But after reading this story in it's entirety (which one should always do before jumping to conclusions), I learned this same Congressman, Gary Ackerman, voted on October 2, 2007 for a house resolution recognizing the commencement of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which passed unanimously. Then, on October 29, 2007 he not only voted in favor of, but also co-sponsored House Resolution 747 recognizing the religious and historical significance of Diwali, the holiday of the Hindu, Sikh, and Jain religions, which also passed unanimously.

I strongly feel none of these resolutions should have passed, let alone have been brought to the floor.

So, the Filangieri Society has a very valid complaint against Congressman Ackerman. Although, further research on this group lead me to a story regarding a nasty postcard they sent out to all New Jersey residents with names that sounded Italian, alleging that Senator Bob Menendez “betrayed his Italian-American constituents” in voting against Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year.“New Jerseyans are supposed to take care of their own,” the cards state.

Excuse me? So, let me get this straight: They feel that just because Menendez' district has a large population of Italian-American's, he should be obligated to vote for the Italian-American nominee simply because of his heritage? They can't be serious!

Apparently, many of the recipients of this postcard were in as much disbelief as I. Comments received on the blog I read reporting this story included:

We received this postcard and laughed because our name is not Italian, but Dutch. Frankly, I thought the postcard itself made Italian-Americans look bad - why on earth would someone support Justice Alito simply because he was Italian-American? — Posted by Patricia Banta

I too received this postcard. Although my last name is Italian, I am not. My initial reaction was rage and disbelief. Does the creator of this mailer really believe that the electorate is so ignorant that it would vote for a candidate based on who did or didn’t support an Italian-American nominee for Supreme Court justice?

— Posted by Gloria - New Jersey

Apparently, anyone whose name ended in a vowel received the postcard. Obviously, true geniuses were behind this campaign: which, incidentally, were in support of Tom Kean.

The cards were accompanied by pre-recorded telephone calls from the retired racecar driver Mario Andretti and the comedian Joe Piscopo, who make similar arguments (hmmm... OK, my opinion of them has gone way down.)

Lawrence E. Auriana, who controls the Filangieri Society, has been one of the country’s most outspoken opponents of negative images of Italian-Americans in movies and television. He led a campaign in 2002 to persuade Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to drop plans to walk in the Columbus Day Parade with actors from “The Sopranos.” But I agree with Russ Beuttner's observation this “ 'take care of their own' thing and invocations of 'betrayal' as the ultimate outrage sound a little, well, Soprano-ish."

The Filangieri Society for Justice and Good Government is named for the 18th century Neapolitan philosopher Gaetano Filangieri, the author of "The Science of Legislation," an important five-volume work of the Enlightenment. Filangieri's focus was on the organization and responsibilities of government. Most of his proposals have become a reality in the United States, including free speech, freedom of religion, and limits on governmental power.

China Detains Church Pastors for Illegal Religious Gatherings

Another reason to start looking at the "made in..." labels of the products we buy and reconsider purchasing anything made in China. As an American, I'm ashamed at how dependent we've become on this country.

This is also an excellent example of why our own forefathers considered it so important to separate church and state in the first amendment of our constitution.

Henan Province - On December 16, 2007, Less than two weeks before Christmas, China Aid has learned that, Pastor Liang Qi Zhen, Vice President of the Chinese House Church Alliance, was detained by PSB officials in Er Qi District. After disbursing Liang’s congregation, police officials took him by force and transported him to an undisclosed location where he was tortured for several hours. Liang’s ears and right hand were injured during the lengthy assault. After being released, Liang was able to identify the one who tortured him as Er Qi Security Bureau policeman, Li Seng. No legal procedure was established during the entire incident. PSB officials continue to threaten the church members to abstain from gathering.

Jiangsu Province- A house church in Chang Zhou City was attacked by police officials in December during a Christmas celebration. The church, centered in the Bu Ge Qiao area, was in the midst of a Christmas service when police raided the gathering and detained four female members. During the apprehension police assaulted one of the members until she became unconscious. She was later taken to the hospital. Her condition remains unknown.

Yunan Province- On December 5, 2007, policemen and members of the Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs raided a house church meeting in Kunming, and detained several members including, Ms. Piao Guihua, the renter of the property. After searching the building, police seized several hundred Christian books and note-pads, and then burned them outside the residence. Police also destroyed the identification cards of three of the church members. After several hours of interrogation, the members were released and told to remove all property from the residence by 10am. The landlord of the building was also instructed to cease rental agreements with Ms. Piao. The same house church has been raided on several occasions beginning in December of 2004, September 2007, November 3, 2007, and November 29 2007. In each instance, police officials have confiscated the offering donations along with Bibles and other Christian literature. In every raid, police officials have failed to issue legal documentation of the property taken.

Henan Province- On Tuesday, December 4, policeman in Lu Yi district, Henan Province, assailed a local house church prayer meeting. Five church members were detained and taken to the local police station for interrogation. Their names are:Shao Guang Rong (the pastor of the church), his wife Zhang Ji Zhi, Yan Qi Ying, Cui LianZhi and Wang Xiao Jian.

The members were released on bail after 5 days detention, but not before being forced to pay an 800 Yuen fee for food consumed during their incarceration. According to several house church members, at the same time their leaders were taken by the police, dozens of believers in another town of the same district were also detained. No word concerning their release has been heard.

House church members, labeled by police officials as “cultists”, are often sentenced to labor camps when they are detained by police. The members detained in Henan Province are likely to face one year imprisonment in such a labor camp.

“To arbitrarily arrest peaceful Christians for celebrating Christmas, shows how much religious freedom Chinese people have,” said Bob Fu, President of China Aid Association. “The international community should be concerned for the increasing religious persecution in China in recent months especially in light of the Beijing Olympics just a few months away.”

In spite of increasing persecution, house church members remain adamant and vocal about celebrating the Christmas season. Services continue to be held celebrating the birth of Christ, as members gather to sing songs and worship despite fears of arrest and imprisonment.

– Issued by China Aid Association, December 19, 2007

Naturalistic Paganism - The Environmentalists' Religion

I just found a web page that describes my beliefs perfectly. I've been struggling for some time now to articulate my religion. Sometimes, I've wondered if I should consider myself a Pagan at all, since I don't really believe in the literal existance of Gods or Goddesses.

But I do believe in the divine. I believe in a "life force" or "cosmic energy" and I hold Mother Earth sacred.

Here's a sample of the article I just read:

People who identify as pagans don’t all believe the same things. Some believe Literally that gods or spirits exists, that elaborate ritual is critically important, or that magick can achieve real effects outside of the user’s natural reach. Most books on pagan beliefs and practices belong in this “supernatural pagan” category. This approach is accompanied by a whole panoply of products and paraphernalia, from crystals and cauldrons to chalices, daggers and tarot cards.

But there are others – let’s call them naturalistic pagans, pantheist pagans or atheist pagans - who don’t believe in any supernatural beings, forces or realms. For naturalistic paganism, the pagan gods and rituals are not taken literally but as symbolic expressions of a reverential attitude to Nature, while magick is a kind of therapy or "soul-work" rather than a supernatural way of controlling natural events.
Click here to read the rest of this article.

Are You Absolutley SURE All Your Friends are Christians?

My husband was raised a Catholic and was even an altar boy for many years, an experience he now credits for converting him to an Atheist. Actually, I don't think he's decided what his belief system is. Most days he's an Atheist. Some days he's an Agnostic. Like many of us, he's going through a spiritual identity crisis.

One thing he is very firm on, however, is that our children do not attend church. I found this out awhile back when our eight-year-old daughter asked if she could attend church with a friend from down the street. I didn't see a problem with it. My position has always been that we should expose the kids to all the different religions in an objective manner so they can make their own educated decision regarding their spirituality when they're older.

But my husband doesn't feel allowing them to attend Christian church services is an objective approach to achieving this goal. And he has a good point. After all, we had already tried putting our two younger sons in a Lutheran preschool last year and that didn't work out very well. This particular preschool had an excellent reputation and I had asked the director how much religious instruction was involved. She assured me very little. She said the