How would you feel if you knew that your elected representatives belonged to a secret religious cult that praised the likes of Hitler, Pol Pot, Papa “Doc” Duvalier, Mao, and other despots. According to this insider, these politicians make up as much as 30% of our elected officals of mostly Republican and a handful of Democrats. They feel they are chosen by God to be our leaders, and because of this all their transgressions from simple adulterous behavior to the toppling and ruin of foreign governments are forgiven and protected by the Family.
In a new August 17, 2009 Maddow Show segment, Rachel Maddow and Jeff Sharlet discuss, among many new revelations, the disturbing fact that the “Christian Embassy” scandal, propelled by a complaint to the Department of Defense from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, was investigated by a Pentagon Inspector General who is in fact a Family member.
The Family, also known as “The Fellowship”, is a secretive fundamentalist Washington DC ministry which runs the National Prayer Breakfast and Bible study groups attended by numerous US Senators and Congress members, wields global influence, and celebrates the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao.
Over the course of the summer of 2009, Washington’s Family-run “C Street House” has become notorious as a string of sex scandals have engulfed national GOP political figures who live at, have lived at, or attended Bible study classes at the secretive former convent turned church-cum cheap-rent high end boarding house: Senator John Ensign, former Congressman Charles “Chip” Pickering, and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford.
By far the story has been driven, first, by Jeff Sharlet, who wrote the 2008 book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at The Heart Of American Power, which followed Sharlet’s 2003 Harper’s expose Jesus Plus Nothing. But MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who has pursued breaking new aspects of the festering scandal with a long-term dedication only rarely seen in mainstream media news coverage, has played an invaluable role in giving the mafia-like “Family” widespread public exposure.
Maddow’s willingness to cover the story of The Family and the C Street House in an ongoing manner, week to week over the summer, implicitly indicts much of mainstream news coverage as suffering from collective attention-deficit disorder; given the level of international, geopolitical influence The Family apparently wields, its members’ penchant for describing their group as a Christian “mafia”, and in light of Family head Doug Coe’s zest for celebrating useful leadership lessons Coe says can be gleaned from studying Lenin’s Bolsheviks, Mao’s Red Guard willing to chop off their own parents’ heads for the good of the revolutionary state, and Hitler’s Nazis, it’s nothing less than astonishing and appalling that most of mainstream news media has neglected for so long to dig further into revelations seeded in Jeff Sharlet’s The Family book, which came out early in 2008.
You can see a list of members here, and act appropriately when it’s time to vote.
Papa
Great book! The author really knows his stuff.
It’s been known for ages that fanatical christians are the most dangerous people on the face of the planet. The number of people killed by them eclipses (by a huge amount) the number killed by any other fanatical religious groud in history.
What incredible is under the last administration the whole of the government was run by fanatical christians who were running a crusade from the white house and pentagon, yet so few people could see it going on. Hopefully more people start waking up and realizing that these christian freaks are extremely dangerous and should be kept under a very close watch.
Wait a sec!
So there is a group of ultra-conservative religious wackos who believe they were sent by God to rule the USA? And further that their personal sins are unimportant because of the holiness of their political mission? And they study the methods of social control employed by some of history’s worst tyrants?
Oh, ha! For a minute I thought you were serious. That could never happen here.
Cue the wingnut chorus of “why do you hate Christians?” in 3, 2, 1…
#4. If you read the book, you will find these people are anything but Christian. So do not mistake this post as Christian bashing…it is not.
Misrepresenting biblical Christianity is common.
I expect the book in the article to set up numerous straw man fallacies that will knock Christians.
Just started reading it on my kindle…
It has been ever thus. Powerful people trying to acquire more power by co-opting the current religious beliefs.
#4 Hm, anything but Christian? The wingnuts might disagree, this reads as a who’s who list of the most ostentatiously Christian members of the Republican party.
Well? pedro, other wingnuts? Are these prominent Republicans who “celebrate the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao” real Christians or not?
Republicans feel they they are appointed by “God” to be our leaders.
Democrats, on the other hand, feel they are self-appointed to be our leaders.
And Obama, of course, was born (in Kenya) to be our leader.
If you vote for a “leader” then you are sheep.
How about we just vote for a “representative” to be responsible for running the government, for a limited period of time.
And when I say “run the government”, I don’t mean “run the country”. No one runs the country.
# 4 McCullough,
“If you read the book, you will find these people are anything but Christian.”
I am glad to see you make that distinction, exceptionally; when they likely haven’t read the book.
I thought anyone who recognized Jesus as the Son of God and God at the same time was a Christian? Other definitions around “Christ” as well as in he is the only way to Heaven and all that. As long as you accept Christ, I think you can believe any other crap you wish–so McCullough, money grubbing self serving delusions elected officials is no bar to being a good Christian, for that is for God to judge not us?
BTW–your use of electorate is incorrect. Its rare the public is not more nuts than those we elect. We should treasure those fact patterns.
Bobbo has the solution.
“Throw them all out of office!”
Then, as chuck says “we just vote for a “representative” to be responsible for running the government”
And then hold them accountable.
I fear this won’t happen because we, the general public, would have to become responsible ourselves.
Hows about some of you geniuses actually read the book?? I know for some of you it will be the first time you’ve ever read an actual book, but hey maybe you’ll find you like reading and learning things. Until you’ve read it, anyone writing it off as “wingnut” or something similar is simply exposing themselves as a fool who comments on things with only his/her uninformed opinions. This guy moved within the ranks of the group he is exposing, he knows of what he speaks.
And #4, if you read the book you would know that these people believe they have been appointed by god as christians to rule the little people, so while you may not think what they do is “christian” they very much think they are working for christianity. And I dare say that throughout history everytime a christian group went on a murderous rampage, they also believed they were furthering christianity…So, as christians go, you as a supposed peace-loving christian are very much in the minority. Just facts..sorry to burst your bubble.
I meant to say accountable, which implies being able to take responsibility for both our government and our own actions.
Good luck with that.
Thanks Ah Yea, YES, it is rare when christian and atheist duties are but one in the eyes of god and the vastness of the universe:
VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!
And when you look at the abuses of power that the Bush administration committed – seems they may have been privy to some meetings with these friendly folk as well. At least took to heart some of their ideas.
And they even have an army – it goes by the name of Blackwater (Xe) and are working very hard to forward their ‘Christian’ cause.
This needs to disturb people – highly disturb people.
hey Jack, that doesn’t even rhyme.
Good stuff though. Better than the original.
Let’s look at the 20th century for the real horrors
Hitler murdered 7 million
Stalin murdered 27 million
Mao murdered 50-70 million
Pol Pot murdered just 2 million
Good atheist all and lovers of the State.
the “new chosen” think they have a mission ordained by god to control the masses
Oh-No someone learn to speak their language without sharing their beliefs what will they do? WHAT WILL THEY DO?
#18, when you’re not intelligent enough to say something worthwhile, do something else.
Seeing as how, a post with c*ck, c*nt, f*ck, c*m, etc gets deleted, I would say post #18 qualifies for deleting.
#20
12 million native americans murdered by the white man.
8 million Vietnamese murdered by America.
2 million Iraqis murdered by George W. Bush.
200 million potential humans murdered in your right hand and drying, I mean dying, on your keyboard.
PotBoil # 20,
your history needs a little work. and your numbers need a little more work.
all combined they don’t come close to the numbers killed by christians.
#22
Bite the tea bag!
Tea bagging gun nuts
Wait for Rush to say the word
Grab your guns and go
# 24 black Jesus,
What where your numbers again, I thought so!
how about you read the book and keep the conversation on topic instead of trying to divert away from the truth it contains.
# 24 black Jesus,
By your deluded reasoning, WAR is something that significantly occurred no more then 2000 years ago.
But let see…
How many millions did the Romans kill?
How many millions did Atilla the Hun kill?
How many millions did the goths kill?
How many million ……
How many died in the turkish armenian genocide?
Please show your numbers and try to be complete.
Oh how I love the way a post brings out the nuts. From both sides, you lefties and righties are so full of hate. Would make a great comedy if it were fiction.
When will you see that you are both duped? There is no different between Dems and Repubs besides who’s pocket the bribes come from. Non at all. Now please waste time to tell me I am wrong.
Blah blah blah
#26 great haiku Animal Mother! 🙂
So technically as long as you have accepted Jesus as your personal savior, you’re a Christian, and it doesn’t matter what unsavory acts you commit. The Bible says good works alone won’t save you, so flipping it around, no matter what you do once you’re saved, you’re still saved.
Thus do tyrants justify their acts.
#30 Do you really think Gore would have started the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? That all happened due to Cheney’s demented worldview. I agree, D’s and R’s are alike in many ways, but they differ in some significant ones too.