The Democrats' New "Family" Values:Thanks to C Streeter Bart Stupak and his allies, the GOP isn't the only party kowtowing to the Christian right
Sharlet writes on 10 November 2009 for Salon:com: "American women will pay the price for the Democratic dithering that allowed Saturday's passage of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, a worm virus inserted into the House healthcare reform bill with surgical precision. But the Democratic Party will suffer collateral damage."
Jesus Killed Mohammed: The Crusade for a Christian Military
Sharlet writes in the May 2009 Harpers: "When Sergeant Jeffery Humphrey and his squad of nine men, part of the 1/26 Infantry of the 1st Infantry Division, were assigned to a Special Forces compound in Samarra, he thought they had drawn a dream duty. “Guarding Special Forces, it was like Christmas,” he says. In fact, it was spring, 2004; and although Humphrey was a combat veteran of Kosovo and Iraq, the men to whom he was detailed, the 10th Special Forces Group, were not interested in grunts like him. They would not say what they were doing, and they used code names. They called themselves 'the Faith element.' But they did not talk religion, which was fine with Humphrey."
Sex and Power inside "the C Street House"
Sharlet writes on 21 July 2009 for Salon.com: "I can't say I was impressed when I met Sen. John Ensign at the C Street House, the secretive religious enclave on Capitol Hill thrust into the news by its links to three political sex scandals, those of Gov. Mark Sanford; former Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., who allegedly rendezvoused at the C Street House with his mistress, an executive in the industry for which he then became a lobbyist; and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. Although Sanford declared today that his scandal will actually turn out to be good for the people of South Carolina because he's now more firmly in God's control, the once-favored GOP presidential prospect will finish out his term and fade away. And Ensign's residence at the C Street House during his own extramarital affair now threatens to end a career that he and other Republicans hoped would lead him to the White House."
God's Senator: Who Would Jesus Vote for? Meet Sam Bronback
Sharlet writes in the January 2006 RollingStone: "Nobody in this little church just off Times Square in Manhattan thinks of themselves as political. They're spiritual -- actors and athletes and pretty young things who believe that every word of the Bible is inerrant dictation from God. They look down from the balcony of the Morning Star, swaying and smiling at the screen that tells them how to sing along. Nail-pierced hands, a wounded side. This is love, this is love! But on this evening in January, politics and all its worldly machinations have entered their church. Sitting in the darkness of the front row is Sam Brownback, the Republican senator from Kansas. And hunched over on the stage in a red leather chair is an old man named Harald Bredesen, who has come to anoint Brownback as the Christian right's next candidate for president."
Through a Glass, Darkly: How the Christian Right is Re-Inventing American History
Sharlet writes in the December 2006 Harpers: "We keep trying to explain away American fundamentalism. Those of us not engaged personally or emotionally in the biggest political and cultural movement of our times those on the sidelines of history keep trying to come up with theories with which to discredit the evident allure of this punishing yet oddly comforting idea of a deity, this strange god. His invisible hand is everywhere, say His citizen, otheologians, caressing and fixing every outcome: Little League games, job searches, test scores, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, the_success or failure of terrorist attacks (also known as "signs"), victory or defeat in bat,.. tie, at the ballot box, in bed. Those unable to feel His soothing touch at moments such as these snort at the notion of a god with the patience - or the prurience to monitor every tick and twitch of desire, a supreme being able to make a lion and a lamb cuddle but unable to abide two men kissing. A divine love that speaks through hurricanes. Who would worship such a god? His followers must be dupes, or saps, or fools, their faith illiterate, insane, or misnformed) their strength fleeting, hollow, an aberration. A burp in American history. An unpleasant odor that will pass."
Jesus Plus Nothing: Undercover with America's Secret Theocrats
Sharlet writes in the March 2003 Harpers: "This is how they pray: a dozen clear-eyed, smooth-skinned “brothers” gathered together in a huddle, arms crossing arms over shoulders like the weave of a cable, leaning in on one another and swaying like the long grass up the hill from the house they share. The house is a handsome, gray, two-story colonial that smells of new carpet and Pine-Sol and aftershave; the men who live there call it Ivanwald. At the end of a tree-lined cul-de-sac, quiet but for the buzz of lawn mowers and kids playing foxes-and-hounds in the park across the road, Ivanwald sits as one house among many, clustered together like mushrooms, all devoted, like these men, to the service of Jesus Christ. The men tend every tulip in the cul-de-sac, trim every magnolia, seal every driveway smooth and black as boot leather. And they pray, assembled at the dining table or on their lawn or in the hallway or in the bunk room or on the basketball court, each man's head bowed in humility and swollen with pride (secretly, he thinks) at being counted among such a fine corps for Christ, among men to whom he will open his heart and whom he will remember when he returns to the world not born-again but remade, no longer an individual but part of the Lord's revolution, his will transformed into a weapon for what the young men call 'spiritual war.'"
Sharlet also writes for Religion Dispatches. His archive of article for this blog can be found at: http://www.religiondispatches.org/authors/jeffsharlet/
For more information of Sharlet, visit his webpage at http://www.jeffsharlet.com
Sharlet writes on 10 November 2009 for Salon:com: "American women will pay the price for the Democratic dithering that allowed Saturday's passage of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, a worm virus inserted into the House healthcare reform bill with surgical precision. But the Democratic Party will suffer collateral damage."
Recommended Audio: Democracy Now! - Jeff Sharlet on “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power”
A secretive group known as The Fellowship, or “The Family,” is one of the most powerful Christian fundamentalist movements in the United States. The Family’s devoted membership includes congressmen, corporate leaders, generals and foreign heads of state. Author Jeff Sharlet profiles the group in his book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.Jesus Killed Mohammed: The Crusade for a Christian Military
Sharlet writes in the May 2009 Harpers: "When Sergeant Jeffery Humphrey and his squad of nine men, part of the 1/26 Infantry of the 1st Infantry Division, were assigned to a Special Forces compound in Samarra, he thought they had drawn a dream duty. “Guarding Special Forces, it was like Christmas,” he says. In fact, it was spring, 2004; and although Humphrey was a combat veteran of Kosovo and Iraq, the men to whom he was detailed, the 10th Special Forces Group, were not interested in grunts like him. They would not say what they were doing, and they used code names. They called themselves 'the Faith element.' But they did not talk religion, which was fine with Humphrey."
Sex and Power inside "the C Street House"
Sharlet writes on 21 July 2009 for Salon.com: "I can't say I was impressed when I met Sen. John Ensign at the C Street House, the secretive religious enclave on Capitol Hill thrust into the news by its links to three political sex scandals, those of Gov. Mark Sanford; former Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., who allegedly rendezvoused at the C Street House with his mistress, an executive in the industry for which he then became a lobbyist; and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. Although Sanford declared today that his scandal will actually turn out to be good for the people of South Carolina because he's now more firmly in God's control, the once-favored GOP presidential prospect will finish out his term and fade away. And Ensign's residence at the C Street House during his own extramarital affair now threatens to end a career that he and other Republicans hoped would lead him to the White House."
Recommended Media: Rachel Maddow - Sharlet Reveals Disturbing Details about Conservative "C Street House" Organization
Nicholas Graham writes for the Huffington Post (July 2009): "More and more information is beginning to leak out about the "C Street House" and the conservative and religious brethren of GOP politicians who live or have lived in the now infamous house. The house made headlines recently when it was discovered that among its occupants had been John Ensign, Mark Sanford and Charles Pickering, all religious Republican politicians who were revealed to be having extramarital affairs."God's Senator: Who Would Jesus Vote for? Meet Sam Bronback
Sharlet writes in the January 2006 RollingStone: "Nobody in this little church just off Times Square in Manhattan thinks of themselves as political. They're spiritual -- actors and athletes and pretty young things who believe that every word of the Bible is inerrant dictation from God. They look down from the balcony of the Morning Star, swaying and smiling at the screen that tells them how to sing along. Nail-pierced hands, a wounded side. This is love, this is love! But on this evening in January, politics and all its worldly machinations have entered their church. Sitting in the darkness of the front row is Sam Brownback, the Republican senator from Kansas. And hunched over on the stage in a red leather chair is an old man named Harald Bredesen, who has come to anoint Brownback as the Christian right's next candidate for president."
Through a Glass, Darkly: How the Christian Right is Re-Inventing American History
Sharlet writes in the December 2006 Harpers: "We keep trying to explain away American fundamentalism. Those of us not engaged personally or emotionally in the biggest political and cultural movement of our times those on the sidelines of history keep trying to come up with theories with which to discredit the evident allure of this punishing yet oddly comforting idea of a deity, this strange god. His invisible hand is everywhere, say His citizen, otheologians, caressing and fixing every outcome: Little League games, job searches, test scores, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, the_success or failure of terrorist attacks (also known as "signs"), victory or defeat in bat,.. tie, at the ballot box, in bed. Those unable to feel His soothing touch at moments such as these snort at the notion of a god with the patience - or the prurience to monitor every tick and twitch of desire, a supreme being able to make a lion and a lamb cuddle but unable to abide two men kissing. A divine love that speaks through hurricanes. Who would worship such a god? His followers must be dupes, or saps, or fools, their faith illiterate, insane, or misnformed) their strength fleeting, hollow, an aberration. A burp in American history. An unpleasant odor that will pass."
Jesus Plus Nothing: Undercover with America's Secret Theocrats
Sharlet writes in the March 2003 Harpers: "This is how they pray: a dozen clear-eyed, smooth-skinned “brothers” gathered together in a huddle, arms crossing arms over shoulders like the weave of a cable, leaning in on one another and swaying like the long grass up the hill from the house they share. The house is a handsome, gray, two-story colonial that smells of new carpet and Pine-Sol and aftershave; the men who live there call it Ivanwald. At the end of a tree-lined cul-de-sac, quiet but for the buzz of lawn mowers and kids playing foxes-and-hounds in the park across the road, Ivanwald sits as one house among many, clustered together like mushrooms, all devoted, like these men, to the service of Jesus Christ. The men tend every tulip in the cul-de-sac, trim every magnolia, seal every driveway smooth and black as boot leather. And they pray, assembled at the dining table or on their lawn or in the hallway or in the bunk room or on the basketball court, each man's head bowed in humility and swollen with pride (secretly, he thinks) at being counted among such a fine corps for Christ, among men to whom he will open his heart and whom he will remember when he returns to the world not born-again but remade, no longer an individual but part of the Lord's revolution, his will transformed into a weapon for what the young men call 'spiritual war.'"
Sharlet also writes for Religion Dispatches. His archive of article for this blog can be found at: http://www.religiondispatches.org/authors/jeffsharlet/
For more information of Sharlet, visit his webpage at http://www.jeffsharlet.com
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