Does a Fellowship 'Cult' Own Rep. Todd Tiahrt?

Sunday evening I had the chance to interview Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family about Kansas politicians: Congressman Todd Tiahrt, Senator Sam Brownback, and Rep. Jerry Moran and their connections to C Street. He had some tough words for Rep. Tiahrt whom he outed as a member of the religious cult on The Rachel Maddow show earlier this week.

Jeff Sharlet is a journalist who has been writing about religion for about 15 years and is a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone. He spent the last 5 years as a research scholar at the New York Research Center for Religion and Media.

In our interview, I asked Jeff about how he was able to uncover this secret conservative cult. Jeff was invited into the cult as everyone else is. Though he did not personally live in the C Street house, he did stay at one very similar and visited the C Street house. He was able to share information with me about the organization that goes much farther than one house in Washington...

The C Street house is one of many, not even the main one. The main one is gorgeous mansion over looking the Potomac river with a waterfall carved into the lawn called "The Cedar" in Arlington, Virginia. Around "The Cedar" there are about twenty properties associated with "The Family" one of which is this house called "Ivanwald" where at any given time maybe a dozen to eighteen men will live.

These men are "being groomed for leadership." They tend to be in their early twenties. When I was there, I was around thirty I was pushing the outer age limit. If you stick around long enough, you might get a mentor for a congressman; you have weekly sessions with politicians and business leaders and so on. In that capacity, actually living at "Ivanwald" for a little less than a month, I visited the "C Street" house a couple of times.

The way I got into all of this was I was invited; that's the only way you get it. I write a lot about religion. A friend of mine was afraid her brother had joined a cult and asked if I would talk to him. He said, "No, no really it's not a cult. You've got to come see this for yourself." He invited me.

I think they we're really interested in having me as a member even though I'm not really an "elite" - partly because I had been invited, partly because I'm a journalist so to say an influencer, and I think they we're pretty clear that part of what interested them was the fact that my father is Jewish. So they liked the idea of Jews bowing before Christ. So they brought me into "The Family" and made me a member.

When I asked Jeff about Congressman Tiahrt's involvement, he told me the story about his first time visiting the "C Street" home and seeing Rep. Tiahrt speaking with "The Family" leader Doug Coe as told in his book. Jeff laughed as he told us how he "brought them (Doug Coe, and Rep. Tiahrt) hot cocoa" as they spoke.

Tiahrt was a short shot glass of a man, two parts flawless hair and one part teeth. He wanted to know the best way “for the Christian to win the race with the Muslim.” The Muslim, he said, has too many babies, while Americans kill too many of theirs.

Doug agreed this could be a problem. But he was more concerned that the focus on labels like “Christian” might get in the way of the congressman's prayers. Religion distracts people from Jesus, Doug said, and allows them to isolate Christ's will from their work in the world.

“People separate it out,” he warned Tiahrt. “'Oh, okay, I got religion, that's private.' As if Jesus doesn't know anything about building highways, or Social Security. We gotta take Jesus out of the religious wrapping.”

“All right, how do we do that?” Tiahrt asked.

“A covenant,” Doug answered. The congressman half-smiled, as if caught between confessing his ignorance and pretending he knew what Doug was talking about. “Like the Mafia,” Doug clarified. “Look at the strength of their bonds.” He made a fist and held it before Tiahrt's face. Tiahrt nodded, squinting. “See, for them it's honor,” Doug said. “For us, it's Jesus.”

Coe listed other men who had changed the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their “brothers”: “Look at Hitler,” he said. “Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden.” The Family, of course, possessed a weapon those leaders lacked: the “total Jesus” of a brotherhood in Christ.

“That's what you get with a covenant,” said Coe. “Jesus plus nothing.”

Rep. Tiahrt denied any involvement with the "The Family" in Saturday's Kansas City Star:

Tiahrt would not respond to questions, but said in a statement he has “never lived at the C Street House, nor have I participated in any regular Bible studies orso-called counseling sessions there.”

Jeff Sharlet, as detailed in Sarah's post from last week, begged to differ, telling an intimate, and disturbing story about a counseling session between "The Family" leader Doug Coe and a younger Rep. Todd Tiahrt, as told above.

Yesterday, a special aired in Wichita called The Christian Mafia. In that program, Rep. Tiahrt was once again found denying any involvement with The Family and also attacked Jeff Sharlet.

In a statement, he (Tiahrt) calls Sharlet an unscrupulous author, and says "to be clear I have never lived at the C Street house nor have I participated in any regular bible studies or so-called counseling sessions there."

In my interview with Jeff yesterday, one of the many things that we covered was Tiahrt's denial of any involvement with "The Family." Jeff had much to say about Tiahrt.

At the very best, the very best, you can say about this is it is disingenuous, here we have a documented encounter and he (Tiahrt) needs to address that. If he wants to say you know what I went to this one session and it was so crazy this guy comparing Jesus to Hitler, then I would welcome him. Instead he claims to have no connections - when it is clear that he has had a connection. Moreover, he has an interesting connection.

As I know from my review of 600 boxes of "The Family" documents, they believe in a concentric theology. What this means is Christ has one message for the masses, but the masses can't handle the truth. Then there's an inner-circle and they get a different message, and then there's an even more inner-circle and they get the real truth - and that's how Christ operates the world today - he reveals a different set of truths for the masses and the elites.

It's anti-Democratic and anti-Christian, but that's their approach to things. The Rhetoric about a "Totalitarian of Christ" - that's inner-circle stuff. Whether they decided Todd Tiahrt was such a strong figure that they wanted to jump start him into the core teachings of the group or whether he had more of relationship with them, he's got to defend that. He definitely had a connection with them and he ought to explain what it was.

With accusations of Rep. Jerry Moran and documented cases of Congressman Todd Tiahrt being involved I asked Jeff what he thought about the race for fellow Family member Sen. Brownback's U.S. Senate between the two, and whether the family would prefer one over the other or run two Family members against each other.

I can't tell you much about Jerry Moran, this is just one of the scoops that has come out during this whole "C Street" scandal. The only people I identify as being involved I have personally witnessed, been told personally by them or documented from The Family's own records. I've never said Moran before this, because I didn't have this information. But it is research that now needs to be done...

This (two Family members running against each other) happens all the time actually. That is one of the ways "The Family" survives. They don't endorse candidates. They try to have as much access and influence as they can. Doug Coe, the leader of the group, says the work with power where they can and build new power where they can not. Based on a lot of research on the group, Jerry Moran is more their type of candidate, their problem with Tiahrt is the guy is a buffoon. They are looking for polished people.

It appears that "The Family" is bigger than just the "C Street" scandal. What was once described as just a place of religious gathering is starting to look more like a place of backroom dealings and secrets. It's time we demanded answers from our local, state and national politicians as to what their involvements are in "The Family" and how far this really goes.

This Sam is no Uncle of mine

Many of us at Everyday Citizen have been keeping you up to date on all the C street news, as we get it. On Sunday, Sarah posted about Kansas Rep Jerry Moran. On Monday, I postedabout my interview with Jeff Sharlet, author of The Familyand what he told me about Kansas Congressman Todd Tiahrt and his involvement in the Conservative Cult know as "The Family". One of the more well known Kansas elected officials believed to be involved with "The Family" is Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, who happens to also be running for Kansas Governor in 2010.

Through out my interview with Jeff Sharlet, one Kansas elected official came up substantially more than the others, Sen. Sam Brownback.

Sam Brownback out there (in Kansas) is one of the politicians who I would say is more intimately involved than most and I think has a bit of a leadership role.

Since the controversy about C Street has emerged many politicians involved would like the public to believe that it is simply a group of people coming together with a common religious believe, however Jeff told me a different story.

The Bible is not the main purpose of the organization; never has been. You can look through 600 boxes of documents, they're public anyone can see them. Very few of them have to do with Bible study that is not what this group is designed to do. From the very first day when the formed the group in Seattle in 1935, it was because they wanted to break the bind of organized labor, they thought "The New Deal" was a devilish type of thing. So nineteen leading businessmen in Seattle got together and said we need one of us to run for office, and everyone else will put their money behind them. That's the kind of work they've always been doing.

These "C Streeter's" travel around the world on "The Family" dime, doing lobbying work. A lot of times the Bible studies don't even involve the Bible. I wanted to ask Sen. Brownback about some of the Bible verses he uses to justify is position against homosexuality. When I asked him about it, he just looked at me with a blank stare. He didn't know what those verses were, he said Jesus had just laid it on his heart personally. Someone laid it on his heart, because when I interviewed his parent's back in Kansas they said they had no idea where he had gotten that from.

So what you really see is these powerful guys getting together talking about their personal issues and political issues, someone may quote a word from the Bible sometimes but in the meetings I sat in on, I sat in on a meeting with Ed Meese, the Bible was never opened.

KillingTheBuddha.com, winner of an Utne/Alternative Press Award, which in 2004 led to a book coauthored with Peter Manseau, Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible. In 2006, Jeff Sharlet wrote an article in Rolling Stone on Sen. Brownback. In the article, Sharlet sheds some light on what Sen. Brownback is really after.

After little more than a decade in Washington, Brownback has managed to position himself at the very center of the Christian conservative uprising that is transforming American politics. Just six years ago, winning the evangelical vote required only a veneer of bland normalcy, nothing more than George Bush's vague assurance that Jesus was his favorite philosopher. Now, Brownback seeks something far more radical: not faith-based politics but faith in place of politics. In his dream America, the one he believes both the Bible and the Constitution promise, the state will simply wither away. In its place will be a country so suffused with God and the free market that the social fabric of the last hundred years -- schools, Social Security, welfare -- will be privatized or simply done away with. There will be no abortions; sex will be confined to heterosexual marriage. Men will lead families, mothers will tend children, and big business and the church will take care of all.

Brownback believes that every spiritual path has its own unique scent, and he wants to inhale them all. When he ran for the House he was a Methodist. By the time he ran for the Senate he was an evangelical. Now he has become a Catholic. He was baptized not in a church but in a chapel tucked between lobbyists' offices on K Street that is run by Opus Dei, the secretive lay order founded by a Catholic priest who advocated "holy coercion" and considered Spanish dictator Francisco Franco an ideal of worldly power. Brownback also studies Torah with an orthodox rabbi from Brooklyn. "Deep," says the rabbi, Nosson Scherman. Lately, Brownback has been reading the Koran, but he doesn't like what he's finding.

Brownback turned the position into a platform for a high-profile war against gay marriage, porn and abortion. Casting Bush and the Republican leadership as soft and muddled, he regularly turns sleepy hearings into platforms for his vision of America, inviting a parade of angry witnesses to denounce the "homosexual agenda," "bestiality" and "murder."

Brownback doesn't demand that everyone believe in his God -- only that they bow down before Him.

In my interview with Sharlet, I asked him what he could tell me about Sen. Brownback and his experience with him, as well as what he really thought about Sen. Brownback after spending so much time with him.

I've spent a lot of time with Brownback, both in Washington and in Kansas. I had been wanting to go to church with Brownback in Topeka and he kept saying "no". Once Brownback discovered I had already written about "The Family" for Harper's Magizine he said I could come with him. He seemed to think that if I could just understand what he was all about I could be converted. The more I learned what he was about the more I think he's very sincere about his politics but I think he is very clueless in his understanding of Democracy.

During our talk about Sen. Brownback, Sharlet also revealed to me another Kansan connected to "The Family" back some time ago. Sen. Frank Carlson, also known as "The no deal dealer".

I asked Brownback about his connection to Carlson (Sen. Frank Carlson). Early on in his (Brownback's) career in politics he drove out to Sen. Carlson's house in, I believe, Concordia, KS and sat with the old Senator on the porch and asked him about his religious work over the years and modeled himself after that.

Most the media attention lately has seemed to be focused on Congressman Tood Tiahrt (partially because of his asking of what if Obama's mother had had an abortion on the House floor) and even Kansas Rep. Jerry Moran has been linked to the scandal. Sen. Brownback has managed to not have to speak on this much and I think it is time we start asking him about his true involvement with "The Family" and not let a conservative cult take over Kansas in the next election cycle.

The Waves of Social Networking

Originally published at www.everydaycitizen.com

This past weekend many activist from around the state gathered in Wichita to attend the Democracy for America Campaign Academy. At the two day campaign training we learned about many aspects of running a campaign. There were sessions on everything from canvassing to budgeting to GOTV efforts, needless to say this weekend was extremely valuable to us all. This weekend we also saw an unexpected flex of the power of social networking. As many of you may know on Saturday Kansas State Rep. Raj Goyle (D) made the announcement that he intends to run for U.S. Congress in 2010, in House District KS-04. This announcement was to be released the next day in the paper. As Rep. Goyle announced there were multiple people at the training who immediately sent the exciting news out on Twitter (I am proud to say I was the 3rd person to tweet it). As a result of all of our tweets and all the people retweeting what we said multiple media sources picked up the story and released it only hours after the announcement was made to us.

Read more about Rep. Goyle''s annoucement in P.J. Pohly's post.

What we saw this weekend is not an isolated incident of social networking changing the way we communicate and the way information travels in our society. The true power of social networking sites like Twitter was shown when Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN in the race to 1 million followers, Ashton won, his point was to show that any person can be just as powerful as one of the biggest news networks out there.

Social networking is changing the way our world works and thinks. It enables use to communicate quicker, outreach to people we would never be able to before, and it gives a voice to people who with out blogs would not be able to advocate for their issue or write about their experience (i.e. with out Everyday Citizen you would not be reading anything I write).

I believe that social networking has a huge number of benefits, especially when used in the political world. Now politicians can respond to events or stories personally with out having to count on a reporter to paint the picture they want, or to publicize an event with out having to worry about it being covered. Sites like Twitter and Facebook allow candidates to connect with their constituents and people all around the world on a daily basis. These sites also allow people to get to know their candidate better and for the candidate to be more transparent.

Social networking has become huge part of our society, a testament to that is the live blogging coverage happening now at the Sotomayor confirmation hearing. What used to be a room full of reporters who would write down everything then a day later publish it so that everyone could read it, has become a room full of bloggers giving us the run down as it happens. Social networking will only continue to play an important role in our society and continue to grow and change the power of media as we know it.

I encourage everyone to join Twitter and experience it for themselves. I especially encourage politicians to join Twitter and be apart of the media change that is happening now.