Gord's Notebook : "The Family" AKA "The Christian Mafia" Exposed As Elitist Anti-Democratic Christian Fascists

UPDATE: 9:30 AM & 10:52 AM,12:09 PM August 20, 2009

Lindsay decided to delve into understanding the Fellowship after interviewing more than 360 of the nation's top political leaders for a book on faith and power. He discovered that lawmakers mentioned the Fellowship more than any other organization when asked to name a ministry with the most influence on their faith: "It has relationships with pretty much every world leader—good and bad—and there are not many organizations in the world that can claim that."

Quote from article COVER STORY ARTICLE | "The ABCs of C Street" August 29, 2009: All in the family ;Behind the scandal-tainted C Street house is an organization big on protecting its own and small on church ties and theology | Emily Belz, Edward Lee Pitts at World Magazine

This story is certain to continue to generate new revelations on the influence that The Family's elitist, theocratically oriented members have managed to garner both within the Washington DC power establishment but also worldwide. As Family member David Kuo, author of Tempting Faith, has stated, "...the Family's reach into governments around the world is impossible to overstate or even grasp."

Revelations concerning The Family and other fundamentalist groups it works with, such as Campus Crusade For Christ and Youth With a Mission, will no doubt continue to break throughout the rest of August and into Fall 2009. Other angles to The Family story include its proclivity for promoting falsified American history and The Family's relationship with the global behemoth missionary group Youth With a Mission, which owns the "C Street House".

Above Quote from article: "MSNBC's Maddow Show Propels Growing Scandal Over Washington's "Christian Mafia" .Are Leadership Lessons of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao Compatible with Democracy ? " by Bruce Wilson at Huffington Post August 18, 2009

First a video about "The Family" which sees Hitler, Mao, Stalin as Great Role-Models. "The Family" it should be noted was started as an anti-FDR New Deal organization . In the 1960s members of "The Family" and its leadership were more comfortable with the policies of Barry Goldwater than with those of President Johnson whom they saw as too far to the left and a radical. For instance they believed that the Civil-Rights legislation went too far ,too fast.

Note Hillary Clinton & Obama both tied to this Christian Facists organization.
'The Fellowship' aka 'The Family' secretive DC prayer group

Anyway The Family or Fellowship is basically a radical conservative evangelical sect or cult which tells its participants who are wealthy and in positions of power that they have been chosen by God and Jesus to be the leaders of their Nations and of the world and that whatever they do is just part of God's plan from invading other countries to mass murdering their own citizens or torturing and killing all who dare oppose their leadership.

They also have a duty to spread God's word and the Free Market economy throughout the world and to crush socialism, communism, liberalism and basic democratic institutions and principles . They are against basic human rights for all but rather only for the elite which they are a part of. All that matters as Jeff Sharlett has pointed out is that they believe in Jesus and always pray to Jesus and ask for his guidance before they take any action -"so it is Jesus plus nothing "

The followers of The Family are not accountable to anyone besides Jesus and The Family. No human institution or system of justice has any moral or legal authority over them . So for example if President Suharto an ally of course of the United States-Americans do like their dictators- of Indonesia kills , tortures , murders thousands of his own people to give him total and absolute control over his country and his people then that is not a crime or immoral or unethical because if he did it all to stop Godless Communism , Liberalism, Labor Unions , the evils of democratic institutions and did it with his mind and heart filled with the spirit of Jesus then its okay.

The Family is known best for its hosting of The National Prayer Breakfast in Washington each year. The Breakfast has been attended by a number of Presidents and many Washington politicians and others in positions of power and authority and of course the very wealthy.

In political terms "The Family's " philosophy is one that allows those seeking power to use whatever means necessary to gain and maintain their power-so deception, lying etc. would be acceptable as the ends justify the means and in this way they are in tune with the Neoconservatives and the philosophy of Leo Strauss except that the Family throws Jesus into the mix. But their idea of Jesus is that of a warrior fighting a cosmic battle against the "forces of Evil" such as Communism, socialism, liberalism & egalitarianism. Egalitarianism and the notion of equality they see as going against the natural order in which there is a natural hierarchy of the Chosen who rule and those , the masses who must obey those in authority over them..

Indonesia’s ex-dictator Suharto dies at 86 Army general and close ally of U.S. was vilified for 32 years of harsh rule By MSNBC, Jan, 2008

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Former dictator Suharto, an army general who crushed Indonesia’s communist movement and pushed aside the country’s founding father to usher in 32 years of tough rule that saw up to a million political opponents killed

...Totalitarian dominance

Suharto had ruled with a totalitarian dominance that saw soldiers stationed in every village, instilling a deep fear of authority across this Southeast Asian nation of some 6,000 inhabited islands that stretch across more than 3,000 miles.

...Suharto was vilified as one of the world’s most brutal rulers and was accused of overseeing a graft-ridden reign. But poor health — and continuing corruption, critics charge — kept him from court after he was chased from office by widespread unrest at the peak of the Asian financial crisis.

The bulk of political killings blamed on Suharto occurred in the 1960s, soon after he seized power. In later years, some 300,000 people were slain, disappeared or jailed in the independence-minded regions of East Timor, Aceh and Papua, human rights groups and the United Nations say.

Suharto just another brutal dictator supported by The Family & The United States
Evangelical Christians & the Religious Right do love their dictators from Suharto in Indonesia to Pinochet in Chile to the Shah of Iran to Samosa etc.

"The Family" - Fundamentalism, Friends In High Places (Fresh Air - NPR) 2/3

Recorded from NPR's Fresh Air from WHYY, July 1, 2009 · In the book "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power", author Jeff Sharlet examines the power wielded by a secretive Christian group known as the Family, or the Fellowship.

Founded in 1935 in opposition to FDR's New Deal, the evangelical group's views on religion and politics are so singular that some other Christian-right organizations consider them heretical

Rachel Maddow C Street The Family /Fellowship

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

MSNBC's Maddow Show Propels Growing Scandal Over Washington's "Christian Mafia" by Bruce Wilson August 18, 2009.Are Leadership Lessons of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao Compatible with Democracy ? at Huffington Post

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 [see attached YouTube video segments], 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.

Now, bypassing most mainstream news organizations, Christian media is getting into the act. As covered on the latest Rachel Maddow The Family/C Street House segment, a conservative Christian news magazine, World Magazine, has not only covered the Family/C Street saga but also advanced the story in important ways.

In All In The Family, Emily Belz and Eric Lee Pitts do what is sorely lacking in much of mainstream journalism - they investigate, dig that is, and uncover new information on the welter of Family-owned properties located in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC as well as on the financial dealings of The International Foundation, the Family's central nonprofit entity which finances international travel.

World Magazine quoted Chris Halverson, the son of Former US Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson - one of the earliest Family members, as stating,

"they used to call themselves the Christian mafia--and they would laugh. Meaning one family is in strong power and then other families around that family have some power. . . . I would have been considered one of the families that have power... [Doug Coe] became the godfather . . . but for good, not for bad."

This story is certain to continue to generate new revelations on the influence that The Family's elitist, theocratically oriented members have managed to garner both within the Washington DC power establishment but also worldwide. As Family member David Kuo, author of Tempting Faith, has stated, "...the Family's reach into governments around the world is impossible to overstate or even grasp."

Revelations concerning The Family and other fundamentalist groups it works with, such as Campus Crusade For Christ and Youth With a Mission, will no doubt continue to break throughout the rest of August and into Fall 2009. Other angles to The Family story include its proclivity for promoting falsified American history and The Family's relationship with the global behemoth missionary group Youth With a Mission, which owns the "C Street House".

The founder of Youth With a Mission, Loren Cunningham, espouses a widely marketed program for Christian world domination called the "Seven Mountains" mandate (also known as the 7-M mandate and "Retaking the Seven Mountains") that is promoted in conferences, books, literature, and videos and has been espoused at Sarah Palin's most significant church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, during an October 2005 Palin ceremony and "anointing" Palin attended before running for the Alaska Governor's seat.

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and from the article on The Family at World Magazine:

COVER STORY ARTICLE | "The ABCs of C Street" August 29, 2009: All in the family ;Behind the scandal-tainted C Street house is an organization big on protecting its own and small on church ties and theology | Emily Belz, Edward Lee Pitts at World Magazine

... But adultery is not new in Congress or in the church, and aside from three men shattering their families' lives, a larger story emerged of the group behind the C Street row house: a 60-year-old, globally reaching organization that has muddy theology and a disdain for the established church.

The C Street house is one of many properties in the greater Washington area owned by the Fellowship Foundation, which sponsors the annual National Prayer Breakfast ( which President Obama & Hilary Clinton & Bush etc. have all attended & praised Doug Coe & The Family GORD.), Bible studies, social gatherings, and private retreats, and funds international development.

"Associates" (employees) of the Fellowship say its mission is to show the love of Jesus to the world's leaders...

Former U.S. Senate chaplain Richard Halverson was one of the first to join the Fellowship under founder Abraham Vereide in the 1950s. Halverson, before joining the organization, had prayer groups of his own with movie stars in Hollywood.

Vereide, looking for someone to partner with in a similar mission in Washington, chose Halverson. Privacy became a trademark of the Fellowship's prayer groups, something that grew into an obsessive culture of secrecy in the organization itself, Halverson's son Chris told WORLD. "If you talked about it, you would destroy that fellowship," he said.

Washingtonians who know about it think of C Street as a kind of "Christian frat house," according to Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who has been close with members of the Fellowship for over 20 years. But Cromartie also noted, "It is a virtue to try to be anonymous in a town where self-promotion is so often the modus operandi of many who come to work among the powerful."

At the center of the group is Doug Coe, who joined in 1959 at the age of 30 after working with The Navigators, and a decade later was heading the organization...

...House members Zach Wamp, R-Tenn.; Bart Stupak, D-Mich.; Mike Doyle, D-Pa.; and Heath Shuler, D-N.C., are reportedly current C Street residents. Senators Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Jim DeMint, R-S.C.; and John Ensign, R-Nev. reportedly also live there...

...Others (affiliated) include... Reps. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.; and Joe Pitts, R-Pa.; along with Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.; Bill Nelson, D-Fla.; and Mark Pryor, D-Ark. They too were contacted by WORLD. Moran, Nelson, and Pryor did not return repeated phone calls; others refused to speak on the record about C Street house activities and the Fellowship.

...Another lawmaker with long ties to the group, Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe... 74, attends a weekly Fellowship study that does not meet at C Street...

...In fact, said Halverson, "they used to call themselves the Christian mafia—and they would laugh. Meaning one family is in strong power and then other families around that family have some power. . . . I would have been considered one of the families that have power."

In the early days, the core families included Vereide, the Coes, and the Halversons. Coe "became the godfather . . .

Today members emphasize that there is no overriding organization...(placing) emphasis on decentralization, but according to current tax documents, the organization does have a board of directors and had $19 million in revenue in 2007.

...In addition to the house on C Street and other properties, relationship building takes place at the Cedars, the organization's $7.8 million headquarters. A mansion tucked away in Arlington, Va., it once belonged to U.S. statesman and founding father George Mason.

...Fellowship associates call the Cedars "a house for the poor," by which they mean a place where political leaders can meet on behalf of the poor.

...Well-knowns ranging from Michael Jackson to Hillary Clinton have escaped to the Cedars for refuge. Couples rotate as hosts at the mansion for two-week stints and welcome any visitors as "part of the Family."

Young women who live at a boarding house called Potomac Point down the street work dusting shelves, scrubbing dishes, and making meals at the Cedars. Young men who live down the street at a separate house called Ivanwald tend the grounds carrying leaf blowers. The mansion's carriage house holds administrative offices.

The Fellowship also owns a house in the high-crime northeast Washington neighborhood of Trinidad, where students come for afterschool programs that sometimes include a field trip out to swim at the Cedars. The group began Jonathan House, a home for young Christian men named after Coe's deceased son and now operated by Washington Community Fellowship. And in Annapolis it owns homes for young people to live in and receive mentoring under the Wilberforce Foundation.

The house on C Street is listed under the ownership of the Fellowship's C Street Center, an IRS-registered church, though the house doesn't fit the traditional definition of a church. ( is it designated as a church just to avoid paying taxes?GORD)

..."Does this provide an enabling environment? Or does this provide an environment of discipline? I've seen it do both," said Halverson about the Fellowship.

With his father's influence, Halverson, 65, became involved in Fellowship activities at age 18 but left the group a little over 10 years ago. He said he felt marginalized after his father's 1995 death, could no longer afford to live in the Cedars neighborhood, and was increasingly bothered by what he described as the group's "pathologies"—its obsession with privacy and problems in the areas of discipline, accountability, and theology. The gospel of the cross, he said, looked more like "the gospel of the kingdom of God triumphant."

Halverson can recite the organization's "catechism" by heart: "What is the purpose of life? To love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. What is the gospel? The gospel is the person of Jesus Christ. What is the work of God? The work is to believe in Him who He has sent."

And among the Fellowship's three leaders, his father was the only one to have obtained a seminary degree. Richard Halverson was a full-time pastor (serving at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Md., for 23 years before he became the Senate chaplain). He worked behind the scenes and deferred to the leadership of Vereide or Coe—neither of whom had theological training. Some said theological rigor drained away from the organization after Halverson's death.

...The word "Christian," also, is taboo. Fellman explained, "You would have to understand Doug's definition of a Muslim or Hindu. Was Jesus a Christian? Did Jesus ever utter the word Christian?. . . They are not becoming Christians, they are following Jesus."

Fellman said that Coe believes in "the inerrancy of Scripture" but that it should be interpreted on one's own, outside of "denominations." And he contends that "denominations break [Jesus'] heart."

Regarding Fellowship participants, Sen. Inhofe explained, "Some of them are Muslims. Some of them are Christians. But they meet in the spirit of Jesus, so it's not a denomination thing, it's not even a Christian thing, it's a Jesus thing."

Those sentiments have led to controversial Fellowship-sponsored interfaith dialogues with Islamic strongmen. And over the years Coe has raised eyebrows meeting with world leaders like Indonesian dictator Suharto, Nicaraguan Anastasio Somoza, and Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.

That, said Cromartie, "is a form of Christian innocence and naïvete." The Fellowship approaches world leaders, he said, as if disagreements are misunderstandings that can simply be solved through reconciliation.

Rice University's Lindsay sums up the group as "sort of a free-floating spiritual formation group" that "is very indifferent to local churches."

In addition to "a number of issues raised about their theology," Lindsay said, "there are elements of the Fellowship which indeed are not in line with what we would consider mainstream evangelical theology."

Lindsay decided to delve into understanding the Fellowship after interviewing more than 360 of the nation's top political leaders for a book on faith and power. He discovered that lawmakers mentioned the Fellowship more than any other organization when asked to name a ministry with the most influence on their faith: "It has relationships with pretty much every world leader—good and bad—and there are not many organizations in the world that can claim that."

...Richard Halverson preached a sermon in 1987 saying, "God created people to master their environment, to subdue it, to replenish it—but under God's authority. If people will not be under God's authority then they become victims rather than masters of their environment."