Report links Shuler to “The Family”.
 Shuler More Reading … |
REGIONAL/NATIONAL–A small, secretive and oddly fundamentalist Washington group called, alternately “The Fellowship” and “The Family” has been much in the news lately, for a variety of reasons.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Nevada Sen. John Ensign, philanderers, are both involved — that’s one reason.
Another is the release of Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, which has gotten press.
The group has been around for decades, and the most public thing it does is put on the yearly National Prayer Breakfast. But it also maintains a residence in Washington, called C Street, where a few congressmen and senators rent apartments and which serves as a meeting place. Owned by a foundation affiliated with the Family, C Street is officially registered as a church.
A christian magazine called theworld.com — echoed by John Boyle at the Asheville Citizen-Times — is reporting today that 11th District Congressman Heath Shuler makes his Washington residence at C Street.
Some info:
From a National Public Radio story about Sharlet’s book:
Founded in 1935 in opposition to FDR’s New Deal, the evangelical group’s views on religion and politics are so singular that some other Christian-right organizations consider them heretical …
The group’s approach to religion, Sharlet says, is based on “a sort of trickle-down fundamentalism,” which holds that the wealthy and powerful, if they “can get their hearts right with God … will dispense blessings to those underneath them.”
Members of the group ardently support free markets, in which, they believe, God’s will operates directly through Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.”
The Family was founded in 1935 by a minister named Abraham Vereide after, he claimed, he had a vision in which God came to him in the person of the head of the United States Steel Corporation.
More, including the radio piece, here.
Tags: Asheville Citizen Times, congressman heath shuler, national public radio, Washington Post
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