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Inspiration for the Netflix Documentary Series
“Of all the important studies of the American right, The Family is undoubtedly the most eloquent. It is also quite possibly the most terrifying.” — Thomas Frank, New York Times bestselling author of What's the Matter with Kansas?
They insist they're just a group of friends, yet they funnel millions of dollars through tax-free corporations. They claim to disdain politics, but congressmen of both parties describe them as the most influential religious organization in Washington. They say they're not Christians, but simply believers.
Behind the scenes at every National Prayer Breakfast since 1953 has been the Family, an elite network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. Their goal is "Jesus plus nothing." Their method is backroom diplomacy. The Family is the startling story of how their faith—part free-market fundamentalism, part imperial ambition—has come to be interwoven with the affairs of nations around the world.
The most powerful and most enduring Christian Right movement in America isn’t James Dobson’s Focus on the Family or Pat Robertson’s electoral armies. It is “The Family” – soldiers in the army of God, quietly waging spiritual war in the halls of American power. Their base is a quiet, leafy estate along the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, and Jeff Sharlet is the only journalist to have reported from inside its walls.
A New York Times bestseller, The Family dramatically revises conventional wisdom about American fundamentalism. Sharlet reveals its crucial role in the unraveling of the New Deal, the creation of the Cold War, the no-holds-barred economics of globalization, and the slow but steady destruction of the wall of separation between church and state. Jeff Sharlet is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and Harper’s and associate research scholar at New York University’s Center for Religion and Media. He regularly comments on religion and politics for major media outlets. He is the co-author, with Peter Manseau, of Killing The Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible (Free Press), and the co-founder of KillingTheBuddha.com. Sharlet is the editor of TheRevealer.org, a review of religion and media for working journalists. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Julia Rabig, a historian. “Un-American theocrats can only fool patriotic American democrats when there aren’t critics like Jeff Sharlet around – careful scholars and soulful writers who understand both the majesty of faith and the evil of its abuses. A remarkable accomplishment in the annals of writing about religion.” – Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of AmericaYou may also like
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