How to Get Rich and Powerful the Jesus Way
September 4th, 2008 | by Matthew Smith |If you thought TV evangelists were scary, you aint seen nothin’. This week’s Religion Report Elite Fundamentism – The Fellowship’s gospel of Capitalist Power is an interview with Jeff Sharlet the author of a book that looks at a fundamentalist group that has huge influence in American politics and industry known as “The Family”.
The interview introduces the Family as a network of Christian fundamentalists who interpret the Gospel as a message of free market capitalism and salvation through power. Jeff talks about the way they recruit powerful people, their strong aversion to democracy, their links with dictatorship and neo-naziism, their use of the office of the President of the United States and their involvement internationally including their negative influence on the AIDS program in Uganda (by lobbying for Uganda’s AIDS program to stop promoting condoms).
From the show transcript (talking about Doug Coe, the leader of the Family):
Woman: Who is Doug Coe? Here he is on videotapes obtained exclusively by NBC News, with his account of atrocities under Chairman Mao.Doug Coe: I’ve seen pictures of the young men in the Red Guard, they would bring in this young man’s mother, he would take an axe and cut her head off. They have to put the purposes of the Red Guard ahead of their father, mother, brother, sister, and their own life. That was a covenant, a pledge. That’s what Jesus said.
Woman: In his preaching he repeatedly urges a personal commitment to Jesus Christ, a commitment Coe compares to the blind devotion Hitler demanded.
The interview really must be heard for it’s jaw dropping, blood boiling effect.
To me this story illustrates the folly of religious groups and individuals who place the Bible at the authoritative central place and assume that the Bible can be a reliable guide to faith without any regard for what we now understand about textual criticism. Many Christians reject modern critical theory because they see it undermines the authority of the Bible, but what this theory is also saying is that we can’t read the Bible and assume that there is one definitive meaning that we will all share. The Family illustrates this perfectly because they read the Bible and see a completely different message even from other fundamentalists.
One Response to “How to Get Rich and Powerful the Jesus Way”
By Matthew Smith on Sep 4, 2008 | Reply
Of course The Family might be being hyped up a bit for this guy’s book but my point about alternative readings of the text are the same.