The FamilyThe Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power

A fascinating and chilling exposé of the most influential Christian special-interest group you've never heard of
The national prayer breakfast, the references to God in the pledge of allegiance and on US coins, the monster movie THE BLOB — Jeff Sharlet traces these and more touchstones of post-WWII American culture to a subrosa network of evangelical Christian power brokers dubbed The Fellowship, or The Family. His book shows how the group, which is happy to compare their organization's structure to that of the Mafia, has exercised and continues to exercise even more important and pervasive, if heretofore invisible, influence. As one of their lieutenants puts it, "A revolution can be … a Fourth of July fireworks celebration, or it can be quiet and penetrating and thorough, like salt, like benevolent subversion."

As Sharlet tells it, the Family, operating under the Biblical precept that "the powers that be are ordained by God," tries to establish the kingdom of God on earth by developing personal relationships with any and all global leaders — and if that means currying favor with tyrants and dictators such as Suharto and Papa Doc, that's just fine. Maddened by this indiscriminate obeisance, Sharlet outlines its very real impacts on US foreign policy. This investigation, spurred by the time he spent living with a group of young Family recruits, is easily the strongest part of the book; in a chilling early scene, he and his fellows listen to a silver-tongued peer extolling Genghis Khan.

The rest of the book takes us back in time from the Family's history to its prehistory, dating back to the Great Awakening. While Sharlet convincingly argues that it's worth connecting these dots, this digression serves to blunt rather than hone what's most fascinating about this worthwhile expose.