Rachel Maddow’s interview with Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family.
You can browse The Family at Google Books.
Jesus Plus Nothing by Jeff Sharlet at Harper’s.
“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.”
Another Jeff Sharlet article at Harper’s about Christian fundamentalism – Through a glass, darkly: How the Christian right is reimagining U.S. history.
Jeff Sharlet’s Rolling Stone article on Sam Brownback and C Street -God’s Senator
Who would Jesus vote for? Meet Sam Brownback.
“They were striving, ultimately, for what Coe calls “Jesus plus nothing” — a government led by Christ’s will alone. In the future envisioned by Coe, everything — sex and taxes, war and the price of oil — will be decided upon not according to democracy or the church or even Scripture. The Bible itself is for the masses; in the Fellowship, Christ reveals a higher set of commands to the anointed few. It’s a good old boy’s club blessed by God. Brownback even lived with other cell members in a million-dollar, red-brick former convent at 133 C Street that was subsidized and operated by the Fellowship. Monthly rent was $600 per man — enough of a deal by Hill standards that some said it bordered on an ethical violation, but no charges were ever brought.”
All of which reminds me of this advice from William Burroughs.
“If you’re doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch, get it in writing. His word isn’t worth shit. Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.”
