Let me put in the words of a Washington insider who’s an admirer of the group: David Kuo, White House aide in Bush’s term, calls it “the most powerful group in Washington that nobody knows.” That’s actually been quantified by a Rice University sociologist, who surveyed 360 Christian politicians, including two former presidents, and discovered that more respondents — 1 in 3 — named the Family as a key player than any other organization. That shouldn’t be surprising, given that it’s also the oldest Christian conservative organization, dating back to a 1935 new revelation from God (so Family founder Abraham Vereide believed) that Christians should work on behalf not of the down and out — the poor, the suffering, the meek — but the “up and out,” the powerful “key men,” as the Family calls them, who will dispense blessings to the rest of us. One evangelical Senate aide describes that as “trickle down religion.” So why haven’t you heard of them before? The Family believes it’s most effective behind the scenes. “The more invisible you can make your organization,” says Family leader Doug Coe, “the more influence it will have.”

Doug Coe was named by Time Magazine as one of the top 25 evangelicals in America. What is his relationship with The Family?

Doug has been the leader of the Family since founder Abraham Vereide was “promoted to Heaven” in 1969. He’s been referred to as “first brother,” and spoken of by his supporters as the “shadow Billy Graham.” Many members of the Family believe he’s closer to Jesus than anyone alive, and that he can successfully ask for anything he wants from God. He’s getting on in years now, though, so day-to-day leadership has passed to a man named Dick Foth. Foth is just as secretive. When I teamed up with NBC Nightly News last year for a segment on the Family, Foth told them that there is no organization. Fortunately, they’d just spent days reviewing the tax records.

Describe the overall ethos of the Family.

When you’re in it, it’s radically utopian. If you accept all the premises of the movement, it’s idyllic, a community in which all are brothers and sisters, all are exceptionally blessed, and the outside world is weak and of little concern. But if you’re bothered by taking leadership lessons that invoke Hitler, if you think democracy depends on transparency, if you think Christ had a message more meaningful than “obey,” it’s deeply unsettling. The real constants in the Family are the fetishization of strength and the worship of the invisible hand — free market fundamentalism backed up by American military power.

Briefly elaborate how you came into contact with this group.

The way you become a member is you get invited. I was invited. A friend — a conservative Christian, as it happens — asked me to talk with her brother, who she feared had joined a cult. He invited me to join his movement, too. I’m less of an investigative reporter than I am a religiously curious writer, so I agreed, moving in to a house the Family runs for young men they’re grooming for leadership.

How is embattled Governor Mark Sanford connected to the Family’s C Street House?

Gov. Sanford says he turned to the C Street House for spiritual counsel. He was aware of it from his days in Congress. What’s disturbing is that he brought this news to his political peers months before it was disclosed by someone who hacked into his mistress’s computer, and these guys kept Sanford’s secrets for him. They consider that accountability; I think most people would call it a cover up. Because when you’re a governor, your actions impact far more people than just you and those around you. Here was a man besotted with love or infatuation, going off the rails, and, eventually, abandoning his post — and the Family brothers thought it appropriate to protect his interests before the people of South Carolina.

What’s The Family’s role with the Senator John Ensign scandal?

Senator Ensign has been living at the C Street House for some time now. (I met him there in 2002). He was part of a prayer group to which, according to Family documents, he would have given “veto rights” over his life. If we believe the allegations of Doug Hampton, his former friend and aide whom he cuckolded — and I think we should — we saw those exercised when the Family learned of his affair. Their first instinct, however, was not to look out for the people of Nevada — it was to protect their “brother.” They forced him against his will to break it off, and then, according to Hampton, urged him to make large cash payments to his mistress and her family. That’s what we call hush money. The Family, however, saw it as a means to make the “victims” whole. Of course, the real victims here are the people of Nevada, who sent this guy to Washington to be his own man, to make his own decisions, and to be open with them about the influences in his life.

Moving on to Senator Zach Wamp.

Wamp has been living in the house for 12 years. A rep from Tennessee, he’s a front runner to become governor of that state. He says his “Christian fellowship” through the Family won’t hurt him in his state. That might be true, but how Christian is it when the leader of the group rejects the label Christian all together and cites Hitler and Pol Pot as models of the kind of strength his followers should pursue on behalf of their version of God? Wamp’s been a real acrobat since the scandals broke, hopping about on one foot with the other in his mouth, defending the secrecy of the Family and then insisting he wasn’t doing so, trying to bully media and coming up with the bizarre rationale I can imagine: saying that politicians wouldn’t participate in this wonderful spiritual opportunity if voters knew about it. But wait — I thought “Christian fellowship” never hurt a politician?

And Chip Pickering and Steve Largent.

It certainly hasn’t hurt Pickering’s pocketbook. Pickering’s wife alleged in divorce papers filed recently that Pickering actually used the C Street House to conduct his affair. Most of the media picked it up as yet another example of hypocrisy. But there was more to it than that — Pickering’s mistress is an heiress to and executive for Cellular South. As a congressman, Pickering became a champion of the cell phone industry; then, in a bit of kinky role play reversal, Pickering left Congress and became a lobbyist for his secret lover’s fortune.

Which is where Steve Largent comes in. Largent, another former congressman and C Streeter, made the news in Tulsa when he came to the C Street House’s defense by declaring a double standard — once a fierce critic of Clinton’s infidelity, he now expresses no interest in the political fallout of his friend’s affairs — or their responsibilities to their constituents, since Largent says the well being of his brothers in Christ trumps all other concerns, including, apparently, transparency and honesty. Of course, Largent has a financial incentive — like Pickering, he left Congress to work for the cellular industry he’d been a loyal servant of on Capitol Hill, taking a job as head of an industry association of which Cellular South is a member — a capacity in which he then paid for Pickering’s travel. Round and round it goes.

What’s the significance of Senator Mark Pryor’s connection to the Family?

I interviewed Senator Pryor, a pro-war, anti-labor Democrat from Arkansas, a few years ago for a Rolling Stone story about Ron Luce, the leader of the fundamentalist Battlecry movement. Luce had claimed Pryor as an ally. Pryor demurred, suggesting that his style was really more that of the “prayer breakfast folks,” with whom he then said he was active. As an example, he cited their bipartisanship, and then offered me a definition: “Jesus didn’t come to take sides,” he said, “he came to take over.” More recently, Pryor’s representative told an Arkansas paper that they had no record of me speaking with the senator. When I offered to share with them MY records, they called me to offer a correction — along with a plea for me to lay off Pryor, who now insists that he has no knowledge of the group. He’s not the only backpedaler. Rep. Bart Stupak, a conservative Democrat from Michigan who’s lived in the C Street House for at least seven years, is now telling Michigan media that he has no knowledge whatsoever of the goings on in his own house.

How does the Family involve itself in global affairs?

My five year study of the Family’s archives reveal an astonishing track record of anti-labor activism and interventions on behalf of dictators ranging from Suharto to Siad Barre to, back in the day, former Nazis like Baron Ulrich von Gienanth, a Gestapo agent deported before the war, whom the Family made a key advisor to American congressmen in the early days of the Cold War. Whereas most Christians read the Gospels and find a message of love, or forgiveness, or mercy, or justice, the Family believes it’s all about power. That’s why leader Doug Coe routinely cites Hitler, Stalin, and Mao as examples of the kind of strength he wants to see in service of God, and why the Family went to bat for General Siad Barre of Somalia as he turned his American-supplied guns on his own people, reducing that nation to the lawless haven for terrorism and piracy that’s become today.

Cite a few other examples of where the Family’s intervention in global affairs had negative consequences.

The LA Times was able to link them to Central American death squad leaders in the 80s, noting that in some instances it was the Family that made the introductions to the Reagan White House. Since the Ensign story broke, I’ve been looking at more recent travel records, and I’ve come across Family-financed travel for Ensign and Coburn. Coburn’s is especially disturbing, since he traveled as an official representative of the US government to Lebanon, where he sought to create “Christian” cells in the Lebanese government of the same kind that covered for Ensign. That’s the last thing Lebanon, so long torn between Christians and Muslims, needs. And it’s no good for America, either. Groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban propagandize against the U.S. by calling it a Christian nation on a crusade. It’s hard to rebut them when you have U.S. senators traveling to majority Muslim nations to declare as much themselves.

What’s the significance of Coe citing King David a model for present-day political power?

It’s important to recognize which aspect of King David they’re drawn to. It’s not the repentant king or the wise king or even simply the powerful king. It’s the bad king. David Coe — the son — explained it by way of example, asking a Family man what he thought Coe would think of him if Coe heard he’d raped three little girls. The guy of course said he assumed Coe would think he was awful; but Coe assured him he wouldn’t, because he was chosen. That’s dumbed down Calvinism, and very dangerous politics. It means that guys like Mark Sanford and John Ensign have a justification for staying in power, even though both in the past called for Bill Clinton — NOT chosen — to resign for the very same actions. But much more importantly, it’s the justification by which the Family supports some of its most brutal overseas allies, dictators such as the late Suharto. The CIA called the massacre of some 600,000 Indonesians by which he came to power one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century. The Family called it a “spiritual revolution,” and Suharto God’s man for Indonesia. Suharto was a Muslim, but that didn’t bother them — as far as they were concerned, he was chosen to keep Indonesia from going red.

Who are the primary funders for the Family?

I don’t think you can say there are any primary funders. Rather, it’s a big network of little big men, the kind of minor moguls who want to feel important and are happy to write a check in exchange for breakfast with a senator. I’m sure some of them get involved with the best of intentions — or, at least, honest egotism — but working through what the Family calls the man-to-man financial method, they not only fund a religious movement that would frighten any honest pastor in the country, they also participate in the kind of off-the-books financial maneuvering that gives a special edge to the Family’s self-designation as a “Christian Mafia.” Only, they’re not very Christian.

How has the Family managed to stay off the radar?

Mainly through the religious illiteracy of the American political press corps. A lot of my friends who are strictly political reporters are very wary of asking questions about religion. In part because they respect the First Amendment and liberty of conscience — they don’t want to inadvertently contribute to creating a de facto religious test for public office. And, in part, for commercial considerations — they’re afraid of offending their Christian readers and viewers. But the truth is, that kind of tip-toe approach is a lot more offensive. If politicians like Senator Coburn and Senator Ensign are declaring their religious affiliations central to their political identities, we have a responsibility to ask them tough questions about that entails. Had those questions been asked a long time ago, I don’t think the Family would have grown as powerful as it has.

About Becky Garrison

Becky Garrison is featured in the documentaries Nailin’ it to the Church (http://www.nailinittothechurch.com) and The Ordinary Radicals (http://www.theordinaryradicals.com).