Oh great. So now I have to expect that on any given day a dem administration could also place a 10 ton monument of the 10 commandments on the front steps of the motor vehicle department?
Posted by TIKI AL at September 2, 2007 08:18 PMI'm as opposed to weakening the wall between church and state as anybody; it's probably one of the the most important domestic political issues of our time. But the Fellowship is little more than standard-issue evangelical boilerplate: "the Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God’s plan.”
Serious Christians have to reconcile their own belief in divine grace and providential authority with the goings on of men and women on earth. They will often say, "Such and such is the will of God..." God's plan usually ends up meaning little more than "serving the nation well," bringing about peace, prosperity and justice, etc. This is hardly a plan for theocratic takeover. Nor is it a right wing Trojan horse. There are more serious worries with regard to church and state than Hillary's participation in National Prayer Breakfasts.
Oh just great Steve. It's not like I wasn't suicidal already. I must disagree with Elrod - every bit of reporting on this group indicates they are very dangerous people and many are indeed planning a theocratic takeover although they wouldn't call it that.
Posted by Ron In Portland at September 2, 2007 08:31 PMThanks for the notice of this piece by Kathryn Joyce and me, Steve. You ask above why this theocratic group, the Fellowship, should be allowed to sponsor the National Prayer Breakfast. The answer is depressing: Because they invented it. The first breakfast was 1953. They'd tried it under Truman, but even though he was very religiously conservative, he told em to take a hike. At first, Eisenhower said no way, too -- but then Billy Graham and Eisenhower's right-hand man, Senator Frank Carlson persuaded him that it was Fellowship politicians who'd helped him demolish his Republican opponent Robert Taft, and he relented. Later, he concluded that the National Prayer Breakfast was the kind of propaganda money can't buy, but he personally found it too full of shit to attend, so he sent Nixon -- who loved it, of course. The National Prayer Breakfast was never meant to be a fundamentalist ritual, although all of its organizers were fundamentalist. It was meant to be bland enough to win the endorsements of moderates, thus eroding a wall of separation between church and state to which its organizers were and are vigorously opposed.
As for Elrod above -- yes, the National Prayer Breakfast isn't the big problem. It's the kind of legislation that emerges from the Fellowship's prayer councils, like perversions of anti-slavery laws that punish prostitutes, not slavers, and the little-noticed Silk Road Act, which puts US foreign policy in the volatile Central Asian Republics wholly at the service of Big Oil.
Posted by Jeff Sharlet at September 2, 2007 08:59 PMWinger Hillary.
Gee, once elected maybe she'll tell her supporters that like Bush before her, God speaks to her?
Posted by Christopher at September 2, 2007 09:00 PM"Gee, once elected maybe she'll tell her supporters that like Bush before her, God speaks to her?"
Well, if God tells her to enact universal health coverage for all Americans... ;)
Posted by herbal tee at September 2, 2007 09:36 PMThe right-wingers will denigrate it as yet another Machiavellian move. Proof that Clinton is cold, calculating and manipulative. The corporate press/media will nod in agreement. Apparently, back in 1993, then first lady Clinton was plotting her run for the White House. They really do think that way.
They will say that it is insincere, a transparent and disingenuous attempt to curry favor with "religious" folk. And I sure hope they are right because the last thing this country needs is another president who thinks that God, especially the God of American fundamentalists, put her in charge.
Posted by James E. Powell at September 2, 2007 09:42 PMThe John Birch Society used to devote their energies to identifying communists and their fellow travelers. Here it looks like the game is identifying the dreaded theocrats and their fellow travelers.
There is such an misunderstanding and paranoid distrust by secularists in the progressive blogosphere of anyone who has any kind of public presence in their practice of faith. Is it such a strange notion that some people find their spiritual commitments the unifying force in their life and that is what brings them to public service? That doesn't mean they want to use public service to indoctrinate everyone into their particular creed. Al Gore, of the conservative Southern Baptist Church, states that his motivation for environmental action stems from the teachings he integrated on the spiritual practice of stewardship. (He must be secretly in cahoots with Richard Land, George Bush's friend, and leader of the Southern Baptists.) Is that such a strange notion that his practice of faith has brought him to exercise it in the way he does?
Jimmy Carter,(also Southern Baptist) who teaches a Bible study class every Sunday exercises his faith to bring peace and justice to the world. I just don't get this paranoid hostility to people who can reach across barriers of ideology to be with other people who pray. Prayer is not a political ideology, it is a practice of communion with the Ultimate. If you don't share that practice, then don't pray. But don't denigrate those people who do, and who want to find common ground and reconcilitation with their political opponents in doing so.
Posted by Bill R. at September 2, 2007 09:59 PMThanks Steve - it's great that you and TLC are honored with this advance excerpt.
The Fellowship isn’t out to turn liberals into conservatives;
But I think it does. I remember Hillary in 1992 and liked her. Maybe she was more conservative than me, but didn't seem to be by much. Back then I easily considered her to be politically liberal. Then after her healthcare debacle, she seemed to change. Suddenly, Hillary Rodham was gone and out popped another conventional First Lady. Not even as feisty and independent as Betty Ford. Bill also turned right after the 1994 election. Recently we're hearing of instances where Hillary pushed Bill to move further to the right on specific policy issues than he was inclined to go.
So, she gets to retain her aura of liberalism for Democratic voters while behind the scenes relating to not just Republicans but right-wing fundie Republicans. This all explains so much about why I found her harder and harder to take late in Bill's tenure and why since then I've found her increasingly shallow and irritating. Why she advocated passage of the IWR.
The only thing to recommend Obama at this point is that he hasn't sat in that poisoned well for years.
Posted by Marie at September 2, 2007 10:02 PMI'm done with Hillary.
Posted by Sharkbabe at September 2, 2007 10:09 PMBill R., above, suggests that my co-author, Kathryn Joyce, and I were on a witch hunt, hostile to any expression of faith in public life. This is a peculiar charge to level at Kathryn and I, since for several years we co-edited a website called The Revealer, about religion and media, in which we proudly published a broad range of religious perspectives -- including some very conservative ones. My first book was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the ten best religion titles of 2004, I spent years editing a Jewish magazine, and although I'm not a Christian I speak at churches fairly often. In other words, I'd make a sorry secular Torquemada. My beef with the Fellowship, and with Hillary's association with it, is not the fact of their faith; it's the nature of their faith. Jimmy Carter may exercise his faith to bring peace and justice to the world (these days, anyway; not so much when he was arming El Salvador), but the Fellowship, theologically opposed to the very concept of justice as "prideful humanism," most definitely does not. The suggestion that I criticize them because they're public is even more ironic, given that they're dedicated to creating an "invisible" organization, an opaque, undemocratic network of power along theological lines.
Hillary, as we argued, is not some tool of the Fellowship; but she is their ally. Why? What aspect of her Methodism would lead her toward such brutish Calvinism? I wish we could answer that, but only Hillary can, and so far she's responded with vague pieties in place of substantial faith.
Posted by Jeff Sharlet at September 2, 2007 11:33 PMExactly, Mr. Sharlet.
I don't want to go all "the Masons rule the world" here, but when the leader of an organization with cult-like elements tells its members that they are there to learn how to rule the world, I'm thinking we are not talking about the free exercise of religion. I'm thinking we are not even talking about religion, as most Americans understand the term. I'm thinking we are talking about programmatic propaganda designed to promote authoritarianism and imperialism.
That's the kind of thing that ought to be very public if we are to have a democratic government.
Posted by James E. Powell at September 3, 2007 12:07 AMThe origins and tenents of the Fellowship are repugnant for anyone who believes in the separation of church and state in this country. We definitely need some kind of statement or explanation from the Clinton campaign as to how she justifies being a member of such a cultish group.
But let's remember we also need answers to the other questions Steve poses here: 1) what was John Edwards doing serving as a co-chair of the group when he was in the Senate? I would also ask what other Democratic members of Congress attend?
2) Is there another, more moderate prayer group for progressive-minded members of Congress to attend? Or is the Fellowship the only game in town?
3) Barack Obama still owes an equally important explanation as to why he is so eager to work with Tom Coburn.
This is an excellent post and great thanks to Jeff Sharlet for joining in on the discussion here. I highly recommend all the articles mentioned. No one would in their right mind question Hillary's right to belong to a prayer group and solidify her faith, but we should be allowed to know how great her understanding is regarding this particular prayer group.
Posted by Jeff Dinelli at September 3, 2007 01:48 AMOh dear - I'm so glad I'm British
Posted by littlejohnuk at September 3, 2007 03:34 AMSteve, this was really nice. Getting one of the co-authors was quite a get. Congrats for this!
Posted by peter at September 3, 2007 03:41 AMthe only thing i gleaned from the piece is that indeed hillary might really be religious ..or..she is pandering to evangelicals..so what...how in god's name do you think ..mr. wide stance himself..karl rove engineered as many votes for that fraud in the white house..i see nothing sinister in hillary being in the group...for those that oppose her something a lot more is going to be needed..bill has her playing her cards very nicely and close to the vest..as to change with the wind
Posted by dennis at September 3, 2007 04:33 AMI also want to thank you Steve, for widely publishing this story. I can't agree at all with Elrod and Bill R. This is a secretive and secret society, the ideology of which is completely anti-constitutional.
I certainly can't pretend to know the actual feelings of the candidates as regards to the theological goals of this organization. I can only hope that they think they are just using the connections they achieve through this fringe group to enhance their political "clout".
I am very disappointed to see that my personal favorite, John Edwards has also associated himself with these people. I believe it's very dangerous for any politician to believe that they can use organizations like this for their own purposes. Such associations always exert pressure to conform to completely untenable behaviors in order to remain in "good standing". They will always be very demanding of evidence of "good behavior" or "true belief". This is extremely dangerous to rational, secular government and highly depressing. At this point, I am highly in favor of about 95% replacement of every self-serving, venal moron in our government. Our great experiment in democracy is moribund and in extreme danger of terminality.
Posted by DeminNewJ at September 3, 2007 05:26 AMTitles such as "The Fellowship" or "The Family" always make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"Is there another, more moderate prayer group for progressive-minded members of Congress to attend? Or is the Fellowship the only game in town?"
Good question Jeff, as the answer will tell you all you need to know.
My question is why has this group been kept under wraps, so-to-speak? As we all know, any group that does not want exposure is a group that has something to hide, and it would seem that "The Fellowship" is one of those groups.
Those of us who believe or call ourselves Christians (although I miss the mark by a wide margin), know all to well about 'secret' religious groups. Opus Dei comes to mind. These groups are fanatical and are not of the mainstream religious groups. Often their agenda is anything but the teachings of Christ, but seek rather control over others, including as in Opus Dei, their wives and children.
Beware of any group that calls themselves Christian, but are not open and transparent. This is a story that must be exposed, as we have had seven years of an elitist who believes that God told him to invade Iraq.
Posted by Judith at September 3, 2007 05:57 AMTo me, this is the money quote:
the Fellowship believes that Christian elites have a duty to rule the world, and serve Jesus Christ in a higher calling than their duties as leaders of nations.
Remember kings annointed by God? This is heady stuff for power-seeking people. This is something I think both Clintons have bought into.
I remember in my first political science class in college my professor saying: "There are two jobs that people have to be crazy to actually want. The first is the President of the United States. What is the second?"
After a pause where the students looked non-plussed, the professor provided the answer: The Mayor of New York.
So there you have it, our Democratic and Republican Presidential Candidates: Clinton and Guiliani.
Posted by hell's kitchen at September 3, 2007 06:01 AMWhat a match that will be next year. My vote is on The Mayor. We'll see some Wednesday morning in November next year.
Happy Labor Day folks!
Posted by peter at September 3, 2007 06:09 AMReminds me of 1956 when Ike was talked into putting God on the money and in the pledge for votes.
Posted by TIKI AL at September 3, 2007 06:15 AMRon in portland already made my post. I'm just going to say "ditto."
aimai
Posted by aimai at September 3, 2007 06:17 AMWell, if God tells her to enact universal health coverage for all Americans...
This would require her to oppose the insurance industry.
After the military, industrial complex, Hillary is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the insurance industry.
Posted by Christopher at September 3, 2007 06:20 AMWhat aspect of her Methodism would lead her toward such brutish Calvinism?
The same aspect as Bush's Methodism.
Posted by Christopher at September 3, 2007 06:23 AMI haven't made it all the way through the articles, but I'm wondering if there are any Opus Dei members. Or any Catholic members at all. The Fellowship seems to have a lot in common with it.
Posted by Julie at September 3, 2007 06:47 AMThis also reminds me of the Urantia.
Posted by Julie at September 3, 2007 07:01 AMJeff Dinelli, excellent comment and questions.
Comment of the thread imo..many of the conflicting thoughts and concerns I have too. You just write them so much better than me. And these concerns I have transcends all political participants no matter what letter they place politically after their name.
I think one interesting thing I see from the excerpts is the Jim Baker consigliere (and Bush fixer du lifetime) wife Sue's connection...as I wondered why the conventional wisdom to date was that the bigwhigs (and big money guys-even Rupert Murdoch) in Washington seemed to "accept" Hillary. I think that connection speaks volumes and explains things to me. Actually all these excerpts and revelations help explain a lot to me about the current political climate and group think in Washington as opposed to say, what most Americans feel, and think who live outside it.
"This also reminds me of the Urantia."
And not one uranus joke in that entire book!
Posted by TIKI AL at September 3, 2007 07:34 AMI don't know much about The Fellowship. I do know that back in 1986 Frank Zappa was on Crossfire with Robert Novak and he happened to mention that America was turning into a "Fascist Theocracy". How they sniggered and guffawed. Well, I think Frank was seeing things. He was seeing how things were shaping up.
Posted by obelus at September 3, 2007 07:38 AMA couple of corrective footnotes:
Jimmy Carter is no longer a Southern Baptist.
Rick Santorum is/was a Fellowship member and is, according to him, extremely Catholic.
Posted by Joyful Alternative at September 3, 2007 08:03 AMNot sure about the relevance of the Obama relationship with Coburn. Is Coburn a right wing religious fanatic, yes, but does that mean Obama can't work with him? What does his willingness to work with another Senator on other issues not related to faith have to do with Clinton's faith? It just seems thrown in there for balance, something the progressive blogosphere seems to hate about the MSM.
Posted by RollaMO at September 3, 2007 08:24 AMThere's something very calculated about Hillary's involvement in this group. I'm recalling how Bill schmoozed Travolta, the Scientologist. Always calculating.
Posted by Julie at September 3, 2007 08:50 AMRolla, Tom Coburn is a member of the Fellowship who Obama has indicated is a "friend" and someone he would be very willing to work with under an Obama administration. I believe that's why Steve mentioned it in his post. There could be a significant difference between praying with these people and actually legislating with them.
Posted by Jeff Dinelli at September 3, 2007 09:07 AMWhatever Hillary's motivation was for joining this group in 1993, whether it conformed to her pre-exisiting religious orientation or was merely an effort to reach across the aisle, one doesn't become integrated in such a community and remain in it for fourteen year without embracing most of their positions and the dividing line between religion and politics is a lot fuzzier than it was fifty years ago. Reviewing Bill's record for at least the last four years in office (my take is last six years) indicates on issue after issue he approved either hard or soft right positions.
I've long had a problem with Hillary's need to cling to her husband while enduring the humiliation that comes with it. If she could say that Bill has an open marriage and that works for us, then fine. But that's not what she says or does. In public she plays the unsuspecting spouse and then the victim. How many self-respecting women can do that over and over again (far more often than the public knows)? None that I've ever met. As if that isn't disturbing enough, she has affiliated herself with people who championed public disclosure of Bill's infidelity. That's called identification with the aggressor.
Those who pray together, stay together. This report should calm the fear about Hillary for the rightwing, but those on the left should run away from this woman and fast.
Posted by Marie at September 3, 2007 09:50 AMMeant to include a comment on Coburn in my last one (got a bit carried away at the end there). I haven't paid much attention to him, but enough to suggest that he doesn't fit neatly into a rightwing box. At least in public, he occasionally displays moments of principled rationality and clarity that are way outside the rightwing frame. Suppose if I dug enough, might find that he's operating from a deeper layer of the rightwing frame; so, it's not exactly inconsistent for him, but it most definitely doesn't conform to the standard rightwing GOP position. That might be where Obama connects with him and who knows, maybe that aspect of Coburn is expressed more often when he's not in front of the TV cameras. So, I agree with an earlier poster that including the Obama-Coburn relationship in the Hillary piece is a cheap shot because it was neither explored nor related to the Fellowship group.
Posted by Marie at September 3, 2007 10:03 AMThose who pray together, stay together.
Same for those who prey together.
Posted by Julie at September 3, 2007 10:04 AM"Those who pray together, stay together.
Same for those who prey together."
Ditto, Julie.
Being extremely leery of the pious ones has been ingrained in my head since childhood and, as of late, lest not forget that apparently God has nodded a big AOK to the inane invasion of Iraq, that bloody notion has increased ten-fold.
Anyway, perhaps not that it matters much here (after all Franco is still dead) but the pious good old chap was also quite, quite religious. Guess that explains the wanton killing of oppositors until the 1950's of a civil war than had ended in 1939...
God have mercy.
PAZ
Posted by quídam at September 3, 2007 11:02 AM...well Julie, my Father plays dominoes better than your father!!
Posted by Goyo at September 3, 2007 11:08 AMSecretive prayer group? God speaks to them? Geez. No wonder Hillary wraps herself in the 'inevitability' notion. No wonder others tend to think of her as Bush-lite. No wonder my worst fear about Hillary becoming president is that it would be more of the same.
Thank you for this heads-up.
BTW, something does not compute at all about boxing Coburn, and by association, Obama into this secretive group. What does not compute is that the Coburn/Obama legislation was the OPPOSITE of secrecy. Remember that bill which became law a year ago is titled: Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. That bill requires the government to establish an internet database whereby all citizens can go to learn the particulars about who receives government tax monies. So, maybe Coburn is a part of the prayer group, but he has another side to him, which Obama taps into to get important disclosure information out to all of us who want our govenment to be accountable.
Posted by Donna at September 3, 2007 11:08 AMit's a prayer group....with politics at it's core (evangelicals)..that leftie kook dwight eisenhower once hosted a breakfast for them...stop witch hunting
Posted by dennis at September 3, 2007 11:15 AMSee folks, we're already seeing President Clinton's history change from the greatest president ever to someone that had a soft right slant in his later years.
Posted by peter at September 3, 2007 12:53 PMAs long as she advocates for things like stem cell research and ending the ban on gays in the military, she can play Tibean singing bowls with the Dali Lama for all I care.
Posted by JoeCHI at September 3, 2007 05:57 PMJoechi, I'm glad Hillary's for stem cell research and ending the ban on gays, too. I'll vote for her if she's the nominee based on the Supreme Court alone. But I also care about other issues, too, like the possibility of war with Iran -- Hillary's a hawk -- and the culture of corruption -- through the Fellowship, Hillary has befriended many of its stars -- and, yes, gay rights -- Hillary is sufficiently soft on this issue to have been abandoned by a major gay rights group in her home state of New York.
Someone above asks about overlaps with Opus Dei. As I discuss at greater length in my forthcoming book, Sam Brownback is a longtime inner circle Fellowship member and converted to Catholicism through Opus Dei. The connection goes back much further, though -- in the early 1970s, the Fellowship was able to build bridges to the Spanish dictator Franco, long suspicious of them, through the cultivation of Opus Dei members in his cabinet. Theologically, they are world apart, and there are plenty of honorable Opus Dei members; but both group share a fetish for authority that makes them sympatico.
thanks, everyone, for this good discussion. I was disappointed with the conversation about it on Kos, which consisted mainly of a few Hillary supporters bashing any one who'd dare question her perfection.
Posted by Jeff Sharlet at September 3, 2007 08:43 PMJeff Sharlet - didn't see the discussion at dKos, but substanative discussions there are rare and the closer to an election practically impossible. What I call the Hill-Bots act as if they are a roving gang of thugs. Trolling through every diary for any critique or criticism Hillary and when they find one they pounce. I convinced that this is somewhat organized and at least one of them is a covert campaign operative (Kos may like lots of silly rules but he's fine with covert ops on the site). So, wouldn't be disappointed with the reception of your fine work over there.
Regards. (And can't wait to pick up MJ and read the whole piece.
Posted by Marie at September 3, 2007 10:55 PMA thought about Edwards and Dinelli's remarks:
I believe Edwards is a Southern Baptist. I am not sure if that connotes official SB Convention Baptist (the mainstream of Baptists) or the seeming thousands of other varieties. I do know this: being a Baptist allows for an incredible spectrum of very elastic beliefs, and many would preclude the Dominionist notions ascribed to the Fellowship. It seems that finding a personal saviour can take on some very odd dimensions with respect to how you view the rest of the world, and Baptists frequently subdivide their ranks across increasingly odd lines and still call themselves both Christian and Baptist.
So as much as you might fear the Fellowship, don't jump too quickly to the assumption they all agree on anything important. You might be surprised---as I am sure many of them would be if they bothered to talk to each other at length about what they believe.
Posted by gtash at September 4, 2007 06:07 AMIt would be interesting to know how many of the Supremes have belonged to the Fellowship group. Don't something like four of them have connections to Opus Dei?
I'll vote for her if she's the nominee based on the Supreme Court alone
Perhaps, for that reason alone you shouldn't vote for her, if she's been that involved with The Fellowship, and for that long. That's not an insignificant connection. I would probably have been comfortable knowing Hillary was the one making a choice for the Supreme Court--until I read Jeff's articles. Now I have some qualms.
You know, something that's floating around in my brain right now is this feeling that there are some pretty big pols who have connections to cults, in one way or another. The Fellowship, Opus Dei, the Moonies. Just google Sun Myung Moon+Bush family, if you don't believe me. As a matter of fact, I'm convinced that this last decade or two of dominence by the Christian right has quite a few hallmarks of a cult operation. Robert J. Lifton is a good one to read for his studies on cults and brainwashing.
Posted by Julie at September 4, 2007 08:30 AMSee folks, we're already seeing President Clinton's history change from the greatest president ever to someone that had a soft right slant in his later years.
Clinton was the best Republican (republi-con lite) you guys ever had. You're just too dense to understand that simple fact. Any analysis of his administration and its depredations on the average American recognizes that fact.
Posted by phidipides at September 4, 2007 09:18 AMphid: Clinton was the best Republican (republi-con lite) you guys ever had. You're just too dense to understand that simple fact.
And these are the ones that claim to be in the reality based community! Completely clueless that they are as deluded as those in the rightwing -- the great battle of differing delusions. We are so screwed.
Posted by Marie at September 4, 2007 10:30 AM