by Jeff Sharlet
C Street describes the beliefs of Roger Williams, a seventeenth-century advocate of two principles eventually laid out in the First Amendment: religious freedom and the separation of chruch and state. How is Williams’s legacy relevant today?
Sharlet argues that, like it or not, religion—including fundamentalism—is a part of American democracy. Do you agree?
In the world around you, have you ever witnessed the type of religious fundamentalism C Street describes? Have you ever encountered it in the political beliefs of your friends and family? Or in your own political beliefs?
Do you think that fundamentalism played a role in the 2010 midterm elections? What role do you think fundamentalism will play in the presidential election of 2012?
Some of Jeff Sharlet’s favorite nonfiction books
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans (1941) This is an attempt to document the “cruel radiance of what is,” as Agee put it, that all others should be measured against. And all others fail—as did Agee and, to a lesser extent, photographer Evans. And still I reread this great, failed experiment over and over through the years, with caution and awe.
Blues for Cannibals: The Notes from Underground by Charles Bowden (2002) I used to assign this to my students, but it infuriated two thirds of every semester’s class. It’s hard going, dense, circular, occasionally overwrought, and absolutely brilliant. Makes the phrase dark lyricism meaningful. Sort of like James Agee’s best work: study it, but beware of trying it at home.
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (1968) When I first read this, at age eighteen, I wanted to wear giant Joan Didion sunglasses and have migraines. Then I figured out that all I wanted from Didion were her sentences. Now that I’m older and I have my own, imperfect sentences, what I admire is Didion’s power of perception, the nearly flawless double vision that allowed her to see a society in crisis and at the same time to see herself watching it crumble.
The Robber Barons by Matthew Josephson (1934) An early-twentieth-century example of muckraking as scripture. Like many of his contemporaries, Josephson wanted to write about the bastards who’d ripped off a nation; but unlike less imaginative writers, he fell in love with his subjects, and the result is this Dante-esque tour of the history of American greed by a writer who knows that Hell is more interesting than Heaven.
The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds by S. Ansky (1914) This Yiddish play, which I first read in an English version by the great translator Joachim Neugroschel and later saw in an adaptation by one of my favorite playwrights, Tony Kushner, is not, technically, nonfiction. But Ansky approached it as if it were, scouring the folklore of Eastern European Jews for decades to create this uncanny distillation of a world of belief. The story, of a possession, is simple and yet irreducibly complex; I find myself thinking about it often when writing about religion. Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is equally essential to me.
The Maine Woods by Henry David Thoreau (1864)
I’m no great fan of Thoreau’s self-enamored prose, but this book’s account of his ascent up Mt. Katahdin and his discovery, close to its peak, that the world is vastly more complex and beautifully dangerous than his imagination could conceive—“Contact! Contact!” he nearly screams in terror—is, to me, the beginning of American literary journalism.
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm (1990) Maybe this book should have marked the end of American literary journalism. Its brief story—of a dispute between the murderer of its title and the journalist who tried to tell his story—is a vehicle for Malcolm’s condemnation of the genre she practices as something akin to ritual sacrifice. I read it, assign it, and think about it every time I start a new story.
Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus (1990)
I’ve never read this book straight through, and I don’t care about its ostensible subject, the Sex Pistols, but I always keep it close at hand. It’s a masterwork of pattern and digression, a too-hip monstrosity of hybrid prose that I nonetheless find bracingly hopeful: a commonplace book of strange dignity.
Jeff Sharlet on the artists, besides writers, who have influenced his approach to literary journalism
From photographer Walker Evans I learned how to frame a picture.
From punk poet Patti Smith I learned the importance of being earnest.
From Marvin Gaye I learned that anger can be beautiful.
From composer Tarik O’Regan I learned the shape of grace.
From photographer Roy DeCarava I learned the elegance of contrast.
From jazz singer Patty Waters I learned the power of phrasing.
From basketball player Allen Iverson I learned how to weave.
From photographer Dorothea Lange I learned the angles.
From photographer Sally Mann I learned the roots.
From singer Paul Robeson I learned the depths.
From photographer William Eggleston I learned that color bleeds.
From Tina Turner I learned what’s shaking.
From TV creator Joss Whedon I learned that art is pulp.
From actress Emily Watson I learned that innocence is death.
From photographer Helen Levitt I learned that everything is code.
From country duo the Louvin Brothers I learned that Satan is real.
From Bruce Springsteen I learned that everything that dies someday comes back.
Notes
Abbreviation used in the Notes:
BGCA Billy Graham Center Archives
CHAPTER 1: The Confessions
“As much as I did”: CQ Transcript Wire, “South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford Holds a News Conference to Discuss Disappearance and Admits Affair,” Washington Post, June 24, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/24/AR2009062402099.html. But for the full effect, I recommend watching the video, many copies of which are available on YouTube.
the congressman’s wife says: TPM Documents Collection, “Leisha Pickering’s Alienation of Affection Complaint,” July 14, 2009, http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2009/07/leisha-pickerings-alienation-of-affection-complaint.php?page=1.
“singular goal”: Richard Carver quoted in Lara Jakes Jordan, “Religious Group Helps Lawmakers with Rent,” Associated Press, April 20, 2003.
Sen. Tom Coburn: Coburn told reporter Tom Hess of his C Street residence for a feature in James Dobson’s fundamentalist Citizen magazine, “ ‘There’s No One I’m Afraid to Challenge,’ ” http://www.family.org/cforum/citizenmag/coverstory/a0012717.cfm. Coburn on abortion: “I favor the death penalty for abortionists.” Richard Cohen, “Democrats, Abortion and ‘Alfie,’ ” Washington Post, December 14, 2004. Coburn’s efforts in the Middle East with the Family are discussed in chapter 3.
Sen. Jim Inhofe: “The house also serves as a venue for business—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), for example, hosts a quarterly lunch with African ambassadors at C Street to discuss foreign policy issues. ‘It’s a great place,’ Inhofe said. Inhofe said he is undeterred by the negative news surrounding the affairs of the three members with ties to the house and will continue hosting his lunches at C Street.” Jessica Brady and Jackie Kucinich, “Intrigue Grows over C Street,” Roll Call, July 20, 2009. That same week in 2009, Inhofe won a coveted seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As for climate change, Inhofe argues that global warming is “the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state.” Charles P. Pierce, “In Praise of Oklahoma,” American Prospect, February 23, 2005, http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=9236. Inhofe’s extensive travel for the Family is discussed in chapter 3.
Sen. Jim DeMint: Jordan, “Religious Group Helps Lawmakers with Rent.” On God and government: “Government is not our salvation, and in fact more and more people see government as the problem, and so I think some have been drawn in over the years to a dependency relationship with government, and as the Bible says you can’t have two masters.” The Brody File Blog, CBN, Apr
il 21, 2010, http://blogs.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2010/04/21/senator-demint-to-brody-file-tea-party-movement-will-bring.aspx. DeMint’s Saving Freedom: We Can Stop America’s Slide into Socialism (Nashville: Fidelis, 2009) is as close to a contemporary primer as one will find on the fundamentalist paradox of libertarian authoritarianism, opposition to “big government” paired with a determination to use government to enforce a particular religious perspective; DeMint’s efforts, along with those of fellow C Streeter Sen. Coburn, on behalf of a 2009 coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Honduras shed light on his concept of “freedom.”
Sen. Sam Brownback: Author’s interview with Sam Brownback. Pages 260–72 of my last book, The Family (Harper, 2008), explore Brownback’s deep relationship with the Family based on extensive interviews with Brownback and his associates. The alignment between his political career and the Family is nearly complete, dating back to his college days, when he first lived in a C Street–like house for young men while interning for his predecessor, Sen. Bob Dole.
Sen. John Thune: Emily Belz, “On the House,” World, November 21, 2009. In an interview with ChristianityToday.com, Thune said he attended not one but two weekly Bible studies for congressmen, those of Christian Embassy, a Family-related initiative I discuss later, and C Street. “Q. Is this something you do behind closed doors, a ‘members only’ sort of thing? A. It can be. I mean the Bible studies are, yes, sort of, members only.” Collin Hansen, “Q&A: John Thune,” ChristianityToday.com, February 10, 2005, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/februaryweb-only/42.0a.html.
Sen. Chuck Grassley: On pp. 280–82 of The Family I discuss Grassley’s participation in the Family’s disastrous attempt to trade access to American power for the submission of Somali dictator Siad Barre to Christ, documented in folders 18–24, box 254, collection 459, BGCA. Grassley’s work with the organization in Uganda was more recently confirmed in an interview with Bob Hunter, designated by the Family as a spokesman for its controversial relationship with that East African nation. On December 11, 2009, a spokesman for Grassley told MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show that the senator had never had any relationship at all with the organization.
Sen. Mike Enzi: Author’s interviews with Sam Brownback and Mark Pryor. “Youth Corps Update November 2004” (Jen Thomson, December 20, 2004), a document provided to me by a whistle-blower in the organization, notes that Enzi and a Family employee traveled in South Africa, where they visited several of the Family’s associates.
Rep. Frank Wolf: Author’s interview with Wolf. Wolf’s extensive travel for the Family is discussed in chapter 3.
Rep. Zach Wamp: “ ‘C Street is one of the most misinterpreted, miscommunicated things I’ve ever seen in my life,’ Wamp said. ‘My experience is nothing like all these things I’ve read. I hated that two people, out of the 17 that lived in the house, have raised all this suspicion.’ ” Liz Engel, “Zach Wamp Speaks on Health Care, Education in Stop Here,” Cookville (TN) Herald Citizen, September 3, 2009. Earlier that year, Wamp, who moved into the house in 1997, declined to comment on discussions that had been held about Sen. Ensign’s affair and cover-up: “I don’t want to go into details about what he said or I said or they said. That’s almost like this Michael Jackson ordeal.” Michael Collins, “Wamp, Housemates Linked to Scandals,” Knoxville News Sentinel, July 10, 2009. In an interview with a Christian student journalist, Wamp seemed to suggest scripture as a license to dispense with public accountability altogether: “The principle of [the Fellowship] is based on 1 John 1:7. ‘If we walk in the light with each other, you know, He will cleanse us from our sin, and we will have fellowship with one another.’ ” Sara Horn, “Faith & Power,” Unionite, fall 2000, http://www.uu.edu/Unionite/fall00/faithandpower.html.
Rep. Joe Pitts: Pitts was a frequent guest at the Family’s Arlington headquarters when I lived across the road at its house for younger men in 2002, an experience I recount in the first chapter of The Family. He is well represented in the Family’s archives, going back thirty-four years, when he received a “Briefing Introductory Letter,” dated March 5, 1976, folder 1, box 362, collection 459, BGCA. In 2009, Pitts used semantics to separate himself from the scandal-plagued C Street House: “I am not involved in any way…. I have not lived there.” Louis Jacobson, “Divisive Amendment to Health Care Bill Caps Pitts’ Anti-Abortion Career,” PoliticsPA, December 14, 2009, http://www.politicspa.com/divisive-amendment-to-health-care-bill-caps-pitts%E2%80%99-anti-abortion-career/3654/. Pitts’s statement is technically correct, but money has flowed both ways between the congressman and the Family, which has paid for his overseas travel (see chapter 3) and received donations from him in turn. In a video interview with fundamentalist activist Rev. Rob Schenck, Pitts describes the movement as “a leadership led by God…. First of all, pray for kings.” Rob Schenck, “Rob Speaks with Congressman Joe Pitts,” Faith and Action, February 5, 2009, http://www.faithandaction.org/2009/02/05/rob-speaks-with-congressman-joe-pitts/.
Rep. Mike McIntyre: Author’s interview with Sam McCullough of C Street’s sister ministry, Christian Embassy. McIntyre later acknowledged his attendance at a weekly C Street meeting: “McIntyre Has Ties to Christian Group,” News & Observer, July 28, 2009, http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/mcintyre_has_ties_to_secretive_christian_group.
Rep. Heath Shuler: Emily Belz, “The C Street House,” World, June 26, 2009, http://www.worldmag.com/webextra/15584.
Rep. Bart Stupak: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, [the] Family and all this other stuff,” Stupak told Michigan reporters, when asked about his residence in the house following the 2009 scandals. Ed Brayton, “Stupak Denies Knowledge of Connections to Mysterious ‘C Street’ House He Lives In,” Michigan Messenger, July 23, 2009, http://michiganmessenger.com/23484/stupak-denies-knowledge-of-connections-to-mysterious-c-street-house.
“God’s leadership”: In a letter to Pitts dated September 2, 1980, in which Family organizer Fred Heyn pledged to support Pitts’s anti-abortion activism, Heyn wrote, “We pray for you and God’s leadership in the days ahead as you work on it,” folder 8, box 386, collection 459, BGCA.
“Christ ministered to a few”: From a response to my March 2003 Harper’s article, “Jesus Plus Nothing,” posted on Free Republic by “Blessed,” April 29, 2003: “Having been loosly [sic] involved with some of the Fellowship for over 10 years I can tell you this is a hit piece…. The basic message of this group is Christ ministered to a few and did not set out to minister to large throngs of people. He just invited a few people to follow him and be in a relationship. What the lost world fails to realize is that true Christians don’t have plans for Theocracies or Armagedan [sic], we believe in a soveriegn [sic] God that controls it all,” http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-religion/902630/posts.
“tools”: Author’s interview with Bob Hunter.
registered as a church: A thorough description of C Street-as-church can be found in the complaint against C Street’s status as a tax-exempt church filed with the Internal Revenue Service by Clergy VOICE, a group of pastors from six mainline Protestant denominations on March 29, 2010, available as a PDF download from The Wall of Separation, the blog of Americans United for Separation of Church and State: http://blog.au.org/2010/02/23/street-fight-ohio-clergy-seeks-end-of-tax-exemption-for-d-c-structure-owned-by-%E2%80%98the-family%E2%80%99/.
“I’ve seen pictures”: I provided video of this sermon to NBC producers for an April 13, 2008, NBC Nightly News segment titled “The Fellowship.”
“a thing called slavery”: The Ed Show, MSNBC, June 23, 2009, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31525810/ns/msnbc_tv-the_ed_show/.
$450,000: Brian Naylor, “GOP Freshmen Weigh Medicare Reform Against Re-Election,” Morning Edition, NPR, September 25, 1995.
“presidential material”: Donald Rothberg, “GOP Revolutionaries Run into Reality,” Associated Press, July 25, 1997.
“Mark Sanford literally likes to go his own way”: Mark McKinnon, “Sanford for P
resident,” Daily Beast, June 23, 2009, http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-23/sanford-crazy-like-a-fox/.
a reporter for the Columbia State: Gina Smith, interview by research assistant Paige Boncher.
“lay out that larger story”: CQ Transcript Wire, “South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford Holds a News Conference to Discuss Disappearance and Admits Affair.”
“spiritual weaponry”: Cubby Culbertson, “Am I Truly a Christian?” Cubby’s Talks, http://www.ciu.edu/seminary/resources/articles/ztemp/am_i_a_christian.php.
“Never underestimate the influence”: Cubby Culbertson, “Is the Old Testament Law Still Valid?” Cubby’s Talks, http://www.ciu.edu/resources/displaypdf.php?359. Yes and no, is Cubby’s answer. Feel free to eat pork and wear wool with linen, he argues; what matters is obedience not to rules but to the mystically perceived word of God, a subject on which he approaches fire and brimstone: “Lawlessness is Satan’s vomit costumed to resemble Bathsheba’s beauty. Lawlessness is treasonous unholiness seducing man to dine upon a disordered love.”
“The ostrich”: Culbertson, “Am I Truly a Christian?”
“heart connection”: Jenny Sanford, Staying True (New York: Ballantine, 2010), 187.
“We sort of don’t talk”: Lisa Getter, “Showing Faith in Discretion,” Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2002.
“The C Street residents have all agreed”: Collins, “Wamp, Housemates Linked to Scandals.”
Not in 1952: Associated Press, “Wiley Trip Declared in U.S. Interest,” Washington Post, May 21, 1952.
No questions at all: Andrew Kopkind, “The Power of Prayer,” New Republic, March 6, 1965.
In 1975 Playboy: Robert Sherrill, “Elmer Gantry for President,” Playboy, March 1975.
The New York Times noted that President Ford: Paul Wilkes, “Prayer: The Search for a Spiritual Life in Washington and Elsewhere: A Country on Its Knees?” New York Times, December 22, 1974. The other members of the group were Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and Republican congressmen John Rhodes of Arizona and Al Quie of Minnesota.