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June 17, 2008 | 2:15 pm

Rick Warren, fascism and ‘The Family’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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I’m currently reading “The Family,” Jeff Sharlet’s new book about the shadowy and incredibly influential organization behind the National Prayer Breakfast. Sharlet, who is Jewish, was, quite oddly, invited into The Family’s fundamentalist fold a few years back, from which he produced this Harper’s exposé. (The book is a scary read that expands heavily on that article, and which I’ll be reviewing for The Jewish Journal.)

Sharlet describes the organization’s theology as built upon Jesus the strongman and revolutionary, not the savior and street preacher. What seems to trouble him most is how this organization and its friends, which include many members of Congress and foreign leaders, often those with less than stellar human-rights records, combine religion with capitalism, fundamentalism with power. For example, this conversation between Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., and The Family’s longtime leader Doug Coe:

God’s law and our laws should be identical. “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 Coe answered. The congressman half smiled as if caught between confessing ignorance and pretending he knew what Doug Coe was talking about. “Like the Mafia,” Coe 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,” Coe said. “For us, it’s Jesus.”

Doug 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 possessed a weapon those leaders lacked: the “total Jesus” of a brotherhood in Christ.

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

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Hitler gets positive treatment by The Family’s leaders throughout the book; not praise for his atrocities but admiration for his ability to mobilize the masses. Sick indeed but not without precedent in American Christianity. There was once a man named Frank Buchman, an upper-class evangelist, who Sharlet discusses in the book and also in this excerpt, “The F-Word,” for Counterpunch, which I don’t make a habit of reading:

“There is tremendous power,” preached Buchman, “in a minority guided by God.” In a sympathetic portrait published by The New York World-Telegram, Buchman named names. “But think what it would mean to the world if Hitler surrendered to the control of God. Or Mussolini. Or any dictator. Through such a man, God could control a nation overnight and solve every last, bewildering problem.” He thought the process had already started: “I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism,” he told the reporter.

Before the war, when men such as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh openly admired Hitler, it was still safe to name the style of government to which these words pointed: Human problems, Buchman declared, require “a God-controlled democracy, or perhaps I should say a theocracy.” Just as good, he added, would be a “God-controlled Fascist dictatorship.”

What surprised me, aside from remembering a time, long before mine, when right-wing nuts had a thing for the resolve of fascist dictators, is what Sharlet writes next in a portion that doesn’t appear in the book:

That dream survives today. Not just in the political ambitions of Christian Right politicians, currently an embattled species, but even more so in the seemingly sanguine lifestyle fundamentalism preached by mega-pastors such as Joel Osteen (author of Become a Better You), whose very name is trademarked, and Rick Warren, author of the mammoth-selling Purpose-Driven Life—and, as of April 2008, the official sponsor of Rwanda, which under his guidance has submitted to soul surgery on a national scale to become the world’s first “Purpose Driven Nation,” embracing Warren’s amiably-phrased mixture of obedience theology and Bible-based capitalism as an antidote to godlessness, whether that comes in form of genocide or socialism. Warren, despite his mild-mannered demeanor – or maybe because of it – doesn’t make distinctions. Either you’re with God, or you’re against Him.

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Rick Warren

And yet, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, and the business-friendly fundamentalism of the post-Christian Right era don’t set off liberal alarms the way the pulpit pounders such as John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson do. The irony is that the agenda of this new lifestyle evangelicalism is more far-reaching than that of the traditional Christian Right: the Christian Right wanted a seat at the table; lifestyle evangelicalism wants to build the table. It wants to set the very terms in which we imagine what’s possible, and to that end it dispenses with terms that might scare off liberals. It’s big tent fundamentalism – everybody in.

But the ultimate goals remain the same. True, Osteen steers clear of abortion for the most part, and Warren, every bit as opposed to homosexuality as Jerry Falwell was, prefers to talk about AIDS relief.  But both men—and the new evangelicalism as a movement—continue to preach the merger of Christianity and capitalism pioneered three quarters of a century ago. On the surface, it’s self-help; scratch, and it’s revealed as a profoundly conservative ideology that conflates church and state, scripture and currency, faith and finance. There’s a sense in which Buchman’s vision of “God-controlled supernationalism” thrives today more surely than it ever did in the 1930s, a period of radical economic upheaval. Only, today we call it globalism.

The F-word, as I understand Sharlet, is not fascism but fundamentalism—“Nope,” he corrected me in an email I just received, “It’s ‘fascism,’ the most toxic word in American political discourse.” —though I’m not sure he sees much difference between the two Sharlet wrote:

fundamentalism has deep democratic roots as well as authoritarian inclinations. Fascism does not. In most of my interviews, I even defend Dobson and Robertson and co—I disagree with them, but they participate in the democratic process. Moreover, fascism reveres violence as redemptive; fundamentalism does not, even when it participates in state violence.

Certainly, I can agree with Sharlet that governments don’t work well when they are handed over to a dictator who claims to be doing the work of God; yes, God can use humans to further his kingdom on Earth, but humans have a mortal inclination to abusing power. King Henry VIII is an easy and clear example, as are a number of the popes of the Middle Ages. But this a critical—some would say cynical—way to look at Warren’s humanitarian efforts in Africa.

Maybe I’m naive for not seeing it the same.

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It seems to me that a Jew may not be the best one to write about this topic. You need a Christian theologian who understands the necessities and imperitives for the various novel features of Calvinism and so forth.

In any event, it’s a relief to see these Paleo-Evangelical movements and agendas explicitly portrayed. I was a little tired of feeling and being accused of being paranoid, y’know? Not shocked or anything at that old fruitcake Jimmy Carter having ties to this. Maybe he should have recused himself from the Presidency, at least from any dealings with the Jewish people and the Jewish homeland.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 6/17/08 at 5:07 pm

BP Said: “Maybe he should have recused himself from the Presidency, at least from any dealings with the Jewish people and the Jewish homeland.”

If that were the case… Every President since Harry Truman should have recused themselves, which means the current world would have been done and over with by 1958, after the countries surrounding Israel would have tried to stomp her into the dirt, and kickstarted the Rapture/Tribulation.

But never fear… One day, the Holy Spirit will restrain the US war machine, the Ishmael chuckleheads can have their one shot at the prize, and the Lord can get down to the business of closing up the books on Genesis 3:15 in 7 years flat.

Comment by Guy Vestal on 6/18/08 at 8:28 am

I think in that context that Jimmy Carter may be trying to kickstart the Rapture/Tribulation singlehanded. Giving people the benefit of the doubt as is my way, it is certainly easier for me to believe that he has a destructive agenda for Israel than that he is as moronic as he speaks, acts and writes.

However, the US did nothing for Israel at all, providing no aid or arms until much later, somtime after the Six day war which I recall was fought by Israel with French equipment. Truman reluctantly recognized Israel after the Soviet Union, after unsuccessfully trying to prevent Israel’s declaration of independence. But Truman did not have conscious religious motives in the middle east to my knowledge, nor did Eisenhower or Kennedy. We had to wait for Pat Buchanan for that.

Education is a wonderful thing, and I try to learn something new every day. Today I learned that Genesis 3:15 is considered a messianic prophecy by Christians. The verse is certainly evocative of a struggle between good and evil and so on, but not specifically messianic on the face of it. So what’s that all about?

By dipping a toe in the Internet I found the Jewish perspective on this issue at good old trusty website http://www.messiahtruth.com/gen315.html

Comment by Ben Plonie on 6/18/08 at 9:46 am

Tiahrt’s opponent is Democratic State Senator Donald Betts.  If you want to kick a reich-wing extremist out of office consider making a donation to the Betts campaign.
http://www.betts4congress.com/

Comment by Doug on 6/18/08 at 4:45 pm

As the alleged cynic in question, I’d like to say I’m feeling rather uncynical. Indeed, my concerns about Warren’s African adventurism are the farthest thing from cynical—they’re almost too earnest for Brother Greenberg, I suspect. And kind of wonky, too: Warren’s advice to Rwanda has been to demolish self-esteem—a central message of the Purpose Driven Life, which advises readers that they have no purpose other than to serve the Christian God—and to embrace entrepeneurial capitalism. I’ve nothing against mom and pop stores, but based on my understanding of Rwanda—I’ve been writing about it on and off for years—bodegas are not their highest priority right now. We might dismiss Warren as naive, but a closer examination of his operation reveals him, for better and worse, as anything but.

Of course, I am a Jew making these charges. So, if you think it takes a Christian to challenge a Christian, check out evangelical magazine Christianity Today, which has raised a similar critique. My friends at the Wittenburg Door, an evangelical magazine with a sense of humor and a sharp feeling for social justice, are critical in the same fashion.

The point here is that we need to pay attention to the details. Warren says he wants to help Africa; terrific. But how? What’s his idea of “help”? Makes all the difference.

Just like my distinction between fundamentalism and fascism. Thanks, Brad, for crossing out your original assessment; much of my book is dedicated to looking at how fundamentalism in the 30s and 40s absorbed SOME elements of fascism without becoming fascist. I’m opposed to fundamentalism and believe it is ultimately anti-democratic, despite its roots, but I don’t see it as evil. Fascism? That’s evil. Big difference.

Comment by Jeff Sharlet on 6/18/08 at 7:40 pm

Jeff,

Thanks for the clarification and exposition. I, in fact, thought you were being critical, not cynical, but I assumed some of my readers would think your tone the other way around. Additionally, as I said, I’m too ignorant about Warren’s Rwanda mission to see it as nothing more than big-tent, government-supported fundamentalism.

The important point I think we can agree on is that government and God don’t go well together. They didn’t always fit smoothly in the times of the Bible, and they certainly haven’t in modern times.

God saves, but not necessarily physically. God provides, but not in that Gospel of Wealth sense. And even though God expects his children to live, and if they are leaders govern, in a manner that is holy, He does not ask them to strong-arm others into kowtowing to His line.

I’m sure some readers will disagree with that reasoning, but it is one premise for my disapproval of Bible thumping on the campaign stump. The other main one being that politicians shouldn’t be trusted, especially when talking about their private life.

Comment by Brad A. Greenberg on 6/18/08 at 11:14 pm

And, again, I apologize for mistaking the “F-word.” I’ve obviously heard “fascism” referred as a political curse word, but I assumed too much on the connection you were making between that and fundamentalism.

Comment by Brad A. Greenberg on 6/18/08 at 11:15 pm

I’m actually a little ambivalent on the mixture of God and government. Not because I think it’s a good idea—it almost never is—but because I think it’s so pervasive as to be inevitable at this point. That’s bad for everybody, and especially bad for religious minorities, which is why I’m bothered by “nice guy” religious conservatives like Warren, or religious liberals like Jim Wallis. I’m glad Wallis a nice man, I’m glad he thinks the Bible tells him to support a welfare state (tho I can’t help but wondering why his Bible sounds so much like Keynes), but I don’t want him asserting the Bible as any kind of political authority in the U.S. Inspiration? sure, that’s fine. Authority, explicit or implicit? Big trouble for everyone.

But religion and politics do mix, brilliantly, in the prophetic voices of outsiders such as Abraham Heschel.

Comment by Jeff Sharlet on 6/19/08 at 1:09 pm

Brad,

Congratulations on successfully exposing the underbelly of the new “cosmo-communitarian-christianity” that Warren promotes.

Thank you for your thoughts on Sharlet’s book…I’d say you are both corect.

Comment by Jim on 6/20/08 at 6:35 am

How credible can Obama’s current religious statements be, when they follow a 20 year track record as a disciple of radical leaders like Wright, Farakan, Moss, and Phleiiger? Since Obama has done virtually nothing as a senator, is being a community organizer enough of a qualification to be President of the United States? Instead of listening to Obama’s words, we should look at his deeds, which are pretty empty. When you compare Obama’ resume to McCain’s, with decades in the military, and decades in the senate, it’s obvious that Obama is merely an empty suit, who will say, or do anything to get elected. P.S.
Are you going to report on Palestinian phone banks working for Obama?

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/AmandaCarpenter/2008/05/13/palestinians_phonebank_for_obama

Comment by Gina on 8/16/08 at 4:23 pm

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