{"id":315,"date":"2009-07-21T14:16:05","date_gmt":"2009-07-21T14:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/07\/saurons-minions.html"},"modified":"2009-07-21T14:16:05","modified_gmt":"2009-07-21T14:16:05","slug":"saurons-minions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/07\/saurons-minions.html","title":{"rendered":"Sauron’s Minions"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE BELOW<\/p>\n

<\/b> I have been following Jeff Sharlet’s reports about “The Family,” for some time.  His report in Harper’s<\/i><\/a>  initially alerted me to this loathsome organization.  It was followed by his book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Powe<\/i>r<\/a>.  Today he published a good summary of what this group is about <\/a>in Salon. The sexual escapades of men who believe they are now beyond good and evil are finally getting them the publicity they deserve.  <\/p>\n

Why be concerned?  In Salon<\/i> Sharlet writes “Christian right leader — and Watergate felon — Chuck Colson,
\nconverted through the efforts of the Family, has boasted of it as a ‘veritable underground of Christ’s men all through government.'”  And the more we discover, the more worrisome the picture becomes.  I do not exaggerate when I describe The Family as the perfect picture of a Sauronic organization, as you will see, below the fold.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nThe family is a conservative Christian cabal of Congressmen and other
\npoliticians that live together at the ‘C’ House in Washington DC for
\nsome time.  It turns out that the sexually adventuresome Senator
\nEnsign, Representative Pickering, and Governor Sanford were all associated with ‘C’ House.  Along wirth Sanford, Ensign, and Pickering, a list of
\ncurrent politicians  “under the Family’s religio-political counsel”
\ninclude Sens. Tom Coburn, Chuck Grassley, Jim
\nDeMint, Lindsey Graham, James Inhofe, John
\nThune, and Mark Pryor – 7 out of a total of 40 Republican Senators.  With Tiahrt, at least 9 members of the House
\nare also involved.  But “The Family” likes secrecy, so it’s difficult
\nto tell. <\/p>\n

Sharet writes in Salon <\/i>that in Counseling Kansas Rep. Tiahrt,  Doug Coe, the group’s ‘spiritual’ leader  “offered Pol Pot and Osama bin Laden as
\nmen whose commitment to their causes is to be emulated. Preaching on
\nthe meaning of Christ’s words, he says, ‘You know Jesus said You got
\nto put Him before mother-father-brother sister? Hitler, Lenin, Mao,
\nthat’s what they taught the kids. Mao even had the kids killing their
\nown mother and father. But it wasn’t murder. It was for building the
\nnew nation. The new kingdom.'”<\/p>\n

Traditional morality takes second place to the Hitler and Mao
\ncomparisons.  It is not simply exaggerated rhetoric.   David Coe, Coe’s
\nson and heir apparent,
\n“calls himself simply a friend to men such as John Ensign, whom he
\nguided through the coverup of his affair. I met the younger Coe when I
\nlived for several weeks as a member of the Family. He’s a surprising
\nsource of counsel, spiritual or otherwise. Attempting to explain what
\nit means to be chosen for leadership like King David was — or Mark
\nSanford, according to his own estimate — he asked a young man who’d
\nput himself, body and soul, under the Family’s authority, ‘Let’s say I
\nhear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?’ The man
\nguessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. ‘No,’
\nanswered Coe, ‘I wouldn’t.’ Why? Because, as a member of the Family,
\nhe’s among what Family leaders refer to as the ‘new chosen.’ If you’re
\nchosen, the normal rules don’t apply.” <\/p>\n

This attitude is not simply hypothetical. Yesterday, in a NPR interview<\/a>, Sharlet reports<\/p>\n

\n

David Coe . . . came around and gave us
\nthis long lesson. He says, ‘What made King David great?’ And the men I
\nwas with are all trying to say, ‘Well, he loved God,’ all this. He
\n[says], ‘No, No, that’s not it. King David was a terrible man. You
\nknow, he was an adulterer and a murderer. So why is he a hero of the
\nBible?’ And the answer is because God chose him. King David is beyond
\nmorality, in their limited understanding of scripture. … I could
\nalmost hear Doug Coe’s voice when Gov. Sanford was saying, ‘I need to
\nkeep governing, because I’m like King David.’<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

UPDATE<\/b><\/p>\n

Rachel Maddow has just interviewed Sharlet <\/a>for more on the creeps at ‘C’ house.<\/p>\n

<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE BELOW  I have been following Jeff Sharlet’s reports about “The Family,” for some time.  His report in Harper’s  initially alerted me to this loathsome organization.  It was followed by his book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.  Today he published a good summary of what this group is about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"yoast_head":"\nSauron's Minions - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/07\/saurons-minions.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sauron's Minions - 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