by Jeff Sharlet
Ann wasn’t the face of dissent, she was just playing her part. But we did meet a real dissenter that day: “Sarge” Bill McDonald, a veteran of twenty years in the army. Called a preacher by his flock of winos and junkies back home in southern Illinois, and briefly brought into our circle of friends that day by Ann’s Jesus sandwich board, he was a man who bucked expectations. He’d come to New York City to represent a member of his congregation back home, a poor woman who’d broken her wrist and couldn’t even afford a cast. “So she’s just gonna try to keep it real still for fourteen weeks,” he explained. To that end he found himself marching in the crowd. He planned on voting Republican, but that didn’t stop him from protesting. “What they don’t need is mumbo jumbo,” he said. “They” included himself and his friend with the broken bone. “ ‘Compassionate conservatism,’ ” he scoffed. “Poor people need something for this!” He rubbed his belly as though he were a good-luck Buddha. “You sit there and listen for decades, or centuries, while some rich guy says, ‘Hold on awhile.’ Well, after a while, you get fed up, you know?”
The politics of that year are old now, but the problem remains the same, the real culture clash of American life. It’s between the essence of fundamentalism—paternalism, authority, and charity—and the messy imperatives of democracy, “the din of the vox populi” once derided by Abram Vereide. It’s the difference between false unity, preached from above, and real solidarity, pledged between brothers and sisters—the kinds who are always bickering. It’s the difference between the harmony of a politics with few options and less imagination, and the cacophony of believers and unbelievers gathered together. Gathered, that is, not by the narrow borders of “common ground”—a euphemism for the stronger faction’s conventional wisdom—but by a commitment, grudging or willing, to disagreement: “the noise of democracy,” as President James Buchanan (1857–1861) called the American sacrament of arguing, his failures myriad but for the high regard in which he held dissonance.
The names on the ticket against which Sarge would protest and for which he would vote were ephemeral; the spirit of stubborn self-contradiction that guided him was not. It was as old as Ann’s head-in-his-hands Jesus and as timeless as the recognition with which people greeted her misunderstood Christ. Sarge was a large red-bearded man in double-wide jeans and he had half-squatted to read Ann’s sign through square metal-framed glasses. When he took in what it said, he raised the brim of his “Jesus Is Lord” hat and grumbled his approval with absolute sincerity, one sidewalk prophet recognizing another.
After Sarge mustered out of the army, and after two decades of keeping born-again beliefs to himself (he was born the first time around Catholic in the Bronx), he began preaching on street corners, in St. Louis, Kansas City, Indianapolis, as far afield as New Orleans. Or rather, not so much preaching as receiving: the lost, the curious, and the mocking. Like most Christians, Sarge considered them all beloved by God in heaven; but, unusual for a man of his literally Bible-thumping beliefs (or maybe Bible-patting; he tended one while we spoke like it was a needy puppy), that translated into equality here on earth as well. “Anyone wants to talk, I’ll listen to ’em. It’s the gutter punks and the skate punks a lot of the time. Also, gay men and women. I don’t seek ’em out, they just come to me. That’s gotta be Jesus, ’cause I know I ain’t cute.” He happened to be conservative on moral matters and felt the Bible backed him up, but his Word, the verse he felt he’d been given by Jesus to study and to share, was Proverbs 14:31. He flipped his Bible open and read, tracing the highlighted line with a finger. “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.”
Look, he said. He waved toward a group of protesters in tight pink dresses standing near us. Across their chests were the words “Axis of Eve.” “God doesn’t say ‘Bang! You fail.’ ” Sarge pointed toward one of the women, who turned and stared. “ ‘Bang! You fail!’ ” He pointed to another. And another. And another. The Axis of Eve glared with perfect pink fury. Sarge smiled, oblivious and benign. “God doesn’t actually say that.”
That’s why he liked Ann’s sign. His sign, meanwhile, read: DELIGHT YOURSELF IN THE LORD JESUS AND HE WILL GIVE YOU THE DESIRES OF YOUR HEART. Delight; desire; it struck me as a fine message, even if Sarge had taken it upon himself to edit scripture, adding a Jesus to the Hebrew Bible’s Psalm 37. That’s religion in America, under constant revision. Only when it settles does it become dangerous, only when it begins to replace the uncertainty of democracy—of life—with the absolute of authority. Sarge was a fundamentalist, but he had a more equitable notion of the divine. “I’m here to give God an opportunity to be part of the democratic process,” he said. “He’s got as much at stake in this as anyone.” He aimed to pay his God the highest compliment possible: he wanted to make him legal. That is, a citizen, a voice in the crowd, part of the noise.
Acknowledgments
My first thanks must go to Mark Sanford, John Ensign, and Chip Pickering, who ensured that my last book, The Family, would find a second life in paperback and lead to an opportunity to follow up with this contemporary investigation. I thought about sending them flowers; this book will have to do.
“Investigation” would be too grand a term for this book were it not for the brilliant help of a number of talented researchers and interviewers, including Paige Boncher, Samantha Fields, Andrew Grossman, Vanessa Hartmann, and Meg Murphy. Kiera Feldman and Robert Kagolo are even more deeply implicated: they were collaborators, responsible for the best reporting in this book. Monica Gallegos was also of crucial assistance. Susan Strauss provided a fine space to work in. Esther Kaplan and The Nation Institute are two of the last pillars upon which investigative journalism in America rests; praise them, and send them money. Part of chapter 5 first appeared in Harper’s magazine, where it was much improved by Bill Wasik and Chris Beha. Sadly, I had to cut the story of an army medic named Dustin Chalker, who was exceptionally generous with his time; his insights, however, inform the final draft.
I was fortunate to have a number of talented writers serve as readers: Kathryn Joyce, Peter Manseau, Ann Neumann, and my father, Robert Sharlet, among them. My father’s insights, especially, have been essential. This is all his fault. Lori McGlinchey is too smart to waste her time writing, but generously killed some hours reading. Even more important than readers, especially when writing a book on a tight deadline, is a forgiving family: I’m grateful beyond words for the support of all the Sharlets, Tezcans, Rabigs, Bakers, and Dotis—and Fiona.
John Parsley and Geoff Shandler at Little, Brown were generous with their enthusiasm and, more important, with their patience. If you’re holding this book in your hands, that probably has something to do with the work of Amanda Brown, Janet Byrne, Dev Chatillon, Heather Fain, Peggy Freudenthal, Laura Keefe, Carolyn O’Keefe, and others at Little, Brown who did their jobs well in difficult circumstances, which is always worth acknowledging. And in that spirit I want to thank Amy Baker at HarperCollins, too. I won’t thank Rachel Maddow, Andy Dallos, and the rest of Rachel’s staff for helping me get this story to a wider audience—that’s just journalism, and for their excellence in that regard they don’t need my recognition—but I’m exceptionally grateful to them for backing me up while I was in Uganda. Most of all I’m indebted to my agent and pal, Kathy Anderson, who is the sort of person who reminds me of why I wanted to be a writer.
I’m extremely grateful for the wisdom and sharp tongues of those who helped me talk this book into being by supplying wisdom, expertise, liquor, or all three (thank you, Anthea Butler): Adam Becker, Martin Cook, Evan Derkacz, Omri Elisha, Becky Garrison, Queue Gaynor, Christina Honchell, Kristen Leslie, Victoria McKernan, Sarah Posner, Frank Schaeffer, Nathan Schneider, Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, Meera Subramanian, Warren Throckmorton, Boo Tyson, Diane Winston, JoAnn Wypijewski, and Angela Zito. I’ve always thought the line drawn between journalism and activism was fuzzy, so I’m also glad for those who cross back and forth with eas
e in regard to the issues raised in this book, including Diana Butler Bass, Fred Clarkson, Jodi Jacobson, Rev. Kapya Kaoma, Pastor Dan Schultz, and Bruce Wilson.
I’m thankful to everyone who spoke with me, even those who may wish they hadn’t. There are sources, there are subjects, and then there are the saints every writer depends on, people who throw their lives or their ideas open to you even at risk to themselves. Among those I can name are Eli Agee, Toufic Agha, Blessed Busingye, Dustin Chalker, Jeremy Hall, Jeffery Humphrey, Val Kalende, Kate Phillips, Chris Rodda, and Mikey Weinstein. A strange and special thanks goes to three subjects who knew who I was, guessed that they might not like what I’d write, and spoke to me anyway: David Bahati, Bruce Hrabak, and Col. Bob Young.
No-Prizes for those public servants from both parties who should have talked and didn’t: Sen. John Ensign, Gov. Mark Sanford, and former representative Chip Pickering, of course, and also Sen. Tom Coburn, Sen. Jim Inhofe, Rep. Robert Aderholt, Rep. John Carter, Rep. Mike Doyle, Rep. Joe Pitts, Rep. Bart Stupak, Rep. Zach Wamp: legislators like you make Uganda look like a democracy.
Fortunately, I’m married to a woman who lets me yammer on enough to make up for all our reticent leaders. Thank you, Julie, for allowing me to babble the wrong turns and dead ends of this book-writing into your ear, and for responding with the love, patience, and belief necessary to setting it on a better path. Our daughter is too young to know how many times she saved her father from insanity when dealing with some of the uglier characters in this story, but I’ll always be grateful to her for banging on the door to my office and demanding that I replace the words on the screen with pictures from our latest adventure. Roxana, this book is dedicated to your grandfather, without whom I couldn’t have written it; but it’s for you, that someday the debates it’s about may be justly forgotten.
Reading Group Guide
C Street
The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy
by
Jeff Sharlet
A conversation with Jeff Sharlet
Why did you decide to write this book?
Not long after 9/11, I was invited to join a secretive group of evangelical religious activists in government, business, and the military known variously as the Fellowship or the Family. Out of this experience and years of research came my last book, a history called The Family, published in 2008. In 2009, three conservative Family associates, all of them public moralists—Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Senator John Ensign of Nevada, and Representative Chip Pickering of Mississippi—were exposed as philanderers. What’s more, they used their religious affiliation with the Family to cover up their misdeeds. The scandal pulled me back to the subject of fundamentalism in American life. But this time I wanted to write about the present rather than the past.
What kind of research did you do to prepare for writing C Street?
I threw myself into an extreme regime of research, determined to get the story out while the public was primed to consider the role of piety in politics, the ways in which fundamentalism, in particular, challenges and even threatens the idea of American democracy. I brought in a team of brilliant young researchers, working out of my home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to help me. I sat in on fundamentalist strategy meetings, became a participant-observer in “spiritual war” prayer sessions, and gathered intelligence from congressmen, preachers, and activists on all sides of the story.
For the longest chapter, “The Kingdom,” I traveled to the East African nation of Uganda, which has been made by American religious activists into a laboratory for fundamentalism, with horrifying, even murderous results. To bring it back home in the following chapter, “The War,” I investigated the growing movement of militant fundamentalism within the U.S. armed forces by speaking to military men and women of nearly every rank, in every service. I visited the three major service academies, the most elite war colleges in the world, and met with enlisted men and women around the country. Unfortunately, the research wasn’t hard—everywhere I turned I encountered fundamentalism at war with basic democratic principles.
Did you feel there was hostility toward the project from the fundamentalist groups you were writing about?
Yes, halfway through writing, I received a big surprise—the very fundamentalists I was writing about reached out to me, hoping to persuade me of their good intentions. The thing is, I’ve never doubted the good intentions of fundamentalists. They mean well. The road to hell is paved with… you get the idea.
How do you think those good intentions get altered in practice?
Writing C Street was an exercise in keeping clear in my mind the distinction between good intentions and the real-world outcomes. For instance, many of the military officers I spoke with for my account of how fundamentalism has grown into an overwhelming force within the U.S. armed forces are decent people who want to do the right thing. The problem is that they’ve lost hold of the very idea of democracy, so that the only “right thing” they can imagine is that which is prescribed by their fundamentalist faith. They believe they’re fighting a holy war because they can’t conceive of any other kind.
How did opponents of the fundamentalist movements view your project?
Some of my liberal friends are reluctant to recognize the humanity of their fundamentalist political foes. The fact is, those fundamentalists have every bit as much right to participate in democracy as anyone else. Other liberal friends took a very different tack, a “see no evil” approach by which they ignored the enduring—and increasing—influence of fundamentalism on the national scene, even during a Democratic administration.
Is there a way to find a common ground?
I learned to be wary of “common ground” in Uganda, where David Bahati, a rising star in politics who’s been inspired by his understanding of American fundamentalism to pursue a literally genocidal campaign against homosexuality, invited me to share some with him. Men such as Bahati—or his heroes, American legislators such as Senator Jim Inhofe—know that by appealing to the liberal fetish for common ground they can legitimize the most violent of sentiments. Sometimes you really do need to know which side you’re on. But when you do, you’ll find a wide range of allies.
What kept me sane were conversations with a circle of some of the most deeply democratic thinkers I know, from the Christian philosopher Cornel West to the great journalist of “heartland” America, JoAnn Wypijewski, from my wife, Julia Rabig, an academic historian of African American social movements, to Warren Throckmorton, a conservative evangelical activist with a profound understanding of “liberty of conscience,” Roger Williams’s visionary eighteenth-century concept—an idea we’re still struggling toward today.
Questions and topics for discussion
Jeff Sharlet begins C Street with an account of a series of political sex scandals, but he goes on to argue that we must look beyond the sensational details of a scandal to understand its real importance. Do you think that’s true? What interests you about a scandal? What can we learn from a scandal when it happens?
Before the scandals of Ensign, Sanford, and Pickering broke, those affiliated with C Street were extremely secretive about the Family. In fact, Doug Coe said, “The more invisible you can make your organization, the more influence it will have” (here). Do you agree with him? If so, why? How do you think secrecy has contributed to the Family’s influence in the political community?
We don’t live in a democracy, Sharlet writes; democracy is something we must make every day. How does this compare with your idea of democracy? Did reading C Street change any of your ideas about democracy and government? If so, how?
The subtitle of C Street is “The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy.” Now that you have read the book, how would you describe that threat? Is there anything you have learned in C Street that has changed your mind about the role that fundamentalists play in our government and society?
In chapter 3, “The Chosen,” Sharlet elucidates the growing power of Christ
ian fundamentalism within the U.S. armed forces. How do you think this type of militarized religious fundamentalism differs from that of militant Islam? How is it similar?
Sharlet asks us to consider “populist fundamentalism” in chapter 5 and “elite fundamentalism” in chapter 3. What makes these types of fundamentalism different? Did you imagine there was such a difference before you read C Street? Do you think it’s possible for these two forms of fundamentalism to overlap? If so, how?
Populist fundamentalism, Sharlet argues, has democratic roots. Did you find that ironic, considering that one of the great democratic ideals of our society is the separation between church and state? Were you surprised to discover how much of our current government is inextricably entwined with popular religion?
Sharlet outlines several worst-case scenarios for American democracy in conflict with Christian fundamentalism. Which do you see as most likely? How might we avoid such outcomes?