Rachel Maddow: GOP Sex Scandal Exposes Secretive Conservative Religious Group -- 'The Family'

By Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show. Posted July 14, 2009.

So, when I heard about the Ensign money, that makes sense as a kind of thing that they might be comfortable with.  But you've got to pull it out into sort of a broader picture.  Doug Coe, the leader of the group has said, he said, "I loan or give money to all sorts of people or I have my friends do so."

Now, Coe takes no salary many years.  All of the money is sort of moving through this man method and when you apply that overseas -- as they do -- you start to see what the idea of this is.  They believe in something called "biblical capitalism," and biblical capitalism is the way they're going to bring the gospel to the already powerful.  Where the money goes they believe God goes.

Maddow: So, biblical capitalism, this idea of the man-to-man financial method, which is one of the more awkward terms of a summer full of awkward terms.  That -- it's not just part of the way that they exert power.  That is part of their theology, that's part of the way they understand how they are, their version of Christianity at least.

Sharlet: Absolutely yes.  It's a theological position.

And when they call themselves a Christian mafia and talk about sort of avoiding institutionalization, talk about avoiding, you know, the books and records and all of that kind of stuff -- all of this stuff allows them to avoid accountability.  What they see it as is avoiding the building up of an edifice.

There is a level in which they're almost antichurch.  They don't like an organized church because it's too democratic.  They like this sort of behind-the-scenes elite approach.

Maddow: Well, you write in the family about how Doug Coe has done political favors for dictators like Suharto of Indonesia and Siad Barre in Somalia, Jonas Savimbi in Angola.  What is the Family doing with these guys?  Why are there so many dictators that Doug Coe and the other members of the Family cross paths with?  How does that work?

Sharlet: Well, you know, we heard in that clip, we heard Coe talking about Mao's China and so on.  And we also hear him again and again using the model of Hitler as an ideal of strength.  And I've heard him -- this is really boilerplate sermon for Doug Coe.

It's not that he's a neo Nazi of some sort.  It's that they fetishize strength.  They look for the leader who they believe is chosen by God.  Evidence is his power, his wealth, and his willingness to align himself with their version of American power.

The dictator Suharto in Indonesia was one such.  They organized meetings for him with American defense contractors, with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the secretary of defense, and most notably, since Indonesia is a major oil producing company with American oil executives, who described their meetings in memos of Congress as great moments of spiritual honesty between themselves and the dictator.

Maddow: Jeff, briefly, we're just about out of time -- but religion is obviously a private matter in this country.  Do you think that the members of Congress who belong to this religious group should feel compelled to tell the country more about the group?  Do you feel that would be appropriate?

Sharlet: I think when you have -- when you have members of Congress who are looking to a particular religious group for a sense of authority, which is explicitly antidemocratic, that explicitly fetishizes strength and dictatorial power, if they want to do that, that it's their choice.  But I think they owe it to their constituents to say, "Here is why I have chosen to leave the mainstreams of American religion and affiliate myself with this sect that is so unorthodox and so really brutal in its theology."

More: Read Bruce Wilson's extended account of 'The Family.'

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