Last of two parts
The new five-part Netflix series “The Family,” directed by documentarian Jesse Moss, is streaming now. EJ Dickson of the Rolling Stones magazine submitted the following article. Part one was about some of the individuals involved in Washington, D.C.. This last part is about power.
“In its efforts to consolidate its power, the Family has extended its tentacles overseas. One episode of The Family, The Fellowship, focuses in large part on a trip that representative Robert Aderholt, a right-wing politician tied to the group, made it to Romania to campaign for anti-LGBTQ rights and advocate for Christian policy. Members of The Family have aligned themselves with global leaders who had committed atrocities in their home countries, including Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who once prayed with Coe. ‘In the face of all these dictators, they don’t say anything at all,’ said Jeff Sharlet. ‘They don’t ask any accountability.’
“Sharlet has been reporting on the Family since 2003, when he published an article in Harper’s Bazaar about his time as an intern at Ivanwald, a Fellowship house in D.C.. His work has been instrumental in lifting the veil of secrecy surrounding the organization, much to the chagrin of members of The Family: Even though the group has ties to ‘all these dictators and war criminals, [I’m] the only person they’ve ever described as evil,’ Sharlet said with a chuckle. The first episode of the Netflix series is based in large part on Sharlet’s personal experiences with The Family, featuring dramatic reenactments of his time at Ivanwald, interspersing shots of muscular young men playing football with somber shots of prayer circles.
“The focus on the Fellowship’s hypermasculine energy, combined with the stringent rules of the group (sex and dating are forbidden) and the Fellowship’s demonstrated anti-LGBTQ stance, creates a strong homoerotic undercurrent throughout the series that Sharlet said is fairly true to his experience. In fact, Moss said he actually toned down the sexual subtext of Sharlet’s description of Ivanwald, so it wouldn’t be too distracting in the context of the series. ‘There was a Norwegian politician while I was there who liked to walk around in tiny little zebra-striped underwear and his thing was walking around and jumping into guys’ laps and making homophobic jokes,’ said Sharlet. ‘[There’s] a lot of that uneasy joking about masculinity and the potential for it and, at the same time, this desire for intimacy that becomes really challenging for people who have a theological and ideological opposition to that.’
“Although it’s been more than 25 years since Sharlet began his reporting on The Family, the inner workings of the group arguably have more relevance than ever, with many members aligning with president Donald Trump despite his decidedly non-evangelical values. Sharlet attributes the Family’s alignment in part to the fact that Trump has assembled the most fundamentalist Cabinet in history, but to the group’s unique view of leadership: The Family believes that leaders govern by divine right, and that power is in itself evidence of God’s blessing. Now, ‘we have our very own strong leader and we have a movement that is willing to work with power,’ Sharlet said.
“The lack of transparency surrounding the Family’s inner workings, combined with an administration that is marked by ‘the accommodation of authoritarian leadership,’ as Moss puts it, raises extremely timely questions about the intersection of faith and power, and their potential to undercut the very basis of our democracy. ‘When you see alliances across international borders between religious right organizations and these authoritarian relationships.… I think the consequences are enormous for all of us. It’s more than just the story of the Fellowship. It’s the story of our democracy,”’ Dickson wrote.