Jeff Sharlet: "The Family believes Trump was chosen by God, and that's all they care about."

BarcelonaJeff Sharlet first published The Family in 2008, after having lived undercover in Ivanwald, the mansion in Arlington, Virginia, owned by the religious organization known as The Family or The Fellowship. The book, now published in Spanish by Capitán Swing, exposes the inner workings of what is considered the most influential religious organization in Washington, which since 1953 has organized the National Prayer Breakfast, attended by every US president since Eisenhower. Congressmen, senators, generals, and even foreign dictators meet to pray to Jesus and conduct business. The story of The Family, founded by Abraham Vereide in 1935 and led since the 1950s by Doug Coe, who died in 2017, has appeared in the press several times since the 1960s, but the documentary published in 2019 based on Sharlet's book offers its most exhaustive account to date. Sharlet calls them "the invisible roots of fundamentalism in the United States," a network of support for the powerful that does not believe in democracy and that He worships strong leaders, like Donald Trump..

Why didn't the book and documentary cause any major scandal?

— When my book came out it was best-seller A week later, there was a concerted effort to say it couldn't be real. It only gained widespread attention the following summer when Republican politicians used The Family network to cover up rather scandalous extramarital affairs. The American press understands the sex scandal, but not so much the corruption of power or international influence. And the topic quickly faded away.

But is the Family still active?

— Yes, but it's changed. In the documentary, we talked about Mike Pence, who had been involved in The Family. He was an acquisition and a merger: Trump's world acquired evangelicalism. But now they don't need Pence anymore. At first, I thought The Family could be a bulwark against the worst of Trumpism. But, as has happened with all right-wing Christian organizations, for them it was a matter of join or disappear, so they became a pro-Trump organization. That's what it is today, although somewhat diminished by the death of Doug Coe, its historic leader. It has less weight now because Trumpism has absorbed many of its ideas: authority without accountability, force, and muscular Christianity, who says Christ is a man of action. The Family paved the way, but Trump is a phenomenon of his own.

Has the family been key to the rise of global authoritarianism?

— They're not the only actor, but they are. But I don't want to say it's a conspiracy. They're not secret puppeteers, but an expression of American power. They've influenced many leaders and have always sought to remain invisible, working with dictatorships if it served their interests, like the Somali dictator Siad Barre, who told them: "If I pray to Jesus, can I have more guns?" Their model of Jesus is that of the strongman, the authoritarian leader.

Because they're not Evangelicals, Catholics, or Orthodox, they only talk about Jesus. But what ideology is behind it?

— It is diffuse, but it is based on the biblical capitalism, which is a kind of capitalism, not pure but oligarchic, which means that if you're rich it's because God has chosen you to be rich. leaders. They've been able to bring together both evangelicals and right-wing Catholics who don't recognize the authority of the Pope, as long as they align with their political vision. They've been able to replace God with a cult of personality. They have no problem with violence, as demonstrated by their support for the dictator Suharto in Indonesia, but they don't openly celebrate violence, as Trumpism does.

Is La Familia behind Trump's anti-LGBTI agenda?

— Not directly. The anti-LGBTI agenda comes from think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, one of the driving forces behind the so-called 2025 Project, closely linked to The Family. In Uganda, The Family participated in drafting what was called the law kills gays, but the central organization in Washington does not write laws like that.

Can we find out how many congressmen or senators are linked to La Familia?

— I haven't looked into this in a while, but they have very precise lists of "members," those who are "just friends," or those who "only come to Bible studies." There's still a weekly prayer breakfast in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Mike Pence, when he was vice president, led a weekly Bible study for The Family. Every year they host the Prayer Breakfast, which everyone attends and is full of lobbyists from all over the world, even Russian oligarchs.

You talk about lobbying, but also about bribery, tax evasion... What illegalities can be attributed to La Familia?

— They've always been financially organized around what they call "the man method," which means they make direct payments, bypassing the books, to those who act as "ambassadors for their idea of Christ," or pay the salary of someone who works for a senator they like, which is illegal. In addition, there's a whole network of interconnected corporations and foundations [many of them tax-exempt], but if you look at the boards of directors, they all overlap, and many end up at the same Virginia offices. Some congressmen have been very blatant in their corruption in the name of God, like the one who [financed] the Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, with this idea of "Messianic Muslims," which says that "you can be a Muslim as long as you worship Jesus," which seems quite contradictory.

Is Trump seen as God's chosen one within The Family?

— Yes, for them Trump has been chosen by GodTheir rudeness or contradictions don't matter to them. At the beginning of the book, I explain that Doug Coe's son approached a young man from The Family and told him the parable of King David, who, according to the Bible, did very bad things but had been chosen by God. He asked the young man, "If you came to me and told me you raped three little girls, what would I think of you?" And the young man said, "That I'm very bad." And he replied, "No, I wouldn't think that, because you're a chosen one." And this is Trumpism.