Flipping Tables 42. The Family- Christian Nationalist Power
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This episode uncovers the hidden history and modern influence of The Family. A secretive religious–political network that has shaped American power since the 1930s. Founded by Abraham Vereide and built on the belief that God works through “key men,” The Family cultivated presidents, senators, foreign leaders, and global elites through private prayer circles, back-channel diplomacy, and the National Prayer Breakfast. We trace their role in anti-labor politics, Cold War foreign policy, international human-rights abuses, scandal cover-ups, and their deep connections to the Trump era, where “Jesus plus nothing” theology helped justify Christian nationalism and the erosion of church–state separation. Drawing from documented scholarship and investigative reporting, this episode reveals a movement that has remained influential precisely because it operates in the shadows.
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Sources
Sharlet, Jeff. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. HarperCollins, 2008.
Sharlet, Jeff. C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy. Little, Brown and Company, 2010.
Kruse, Kevin M. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. Basic Books, 2015.
Williams, Daniel K. God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right. Oxford University Press, 2010.
Dochuk, Darren. From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism. W.W. Norton, 2011.
Gage, Beverly. The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in Its First Age of Terror. Oxford University Press, 2009.
Martin, William. With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America. Broadway Books, 1996.
Callahan, Richard J. Jr. “The Invention of Corporate America’s Invention of Christian America.” The Marginalia Review of Books, 2020.
Balmer, Randall. “The Religious Right and the Family Values Crusade.” Journal of Church and State, vol. 52, no. 3, 2010, pp. 370–394.
Butler, Anthea. “Race, Religion, and the American Presidency: The Faith Factor.” Journal of American History, vol. 99, no. 1, 2012.
Clark, Elizabeth A. “Invisible Hands and Divine Order: Theology and the Political Economy of American Fundamentalism.” Religion and American Culture, vol. 18, no. 2, 2008.
The Washington Post archives on the National Prayer Breakfast (1953-present).
The New York Times coverage of Doug Coe and Fellowship Foundation operations.
Religion Dispatches (University of Southern California Annenberg) – multiple investigations into The Family’s political network.
Guernica Magazine: “Christ Über Alles” interview with Jeff Sharlet.
The Humanist: “The Family: More Gilead than Godly.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica: “The Family (international religious movement).”
Library of Congress Congressional Records on the National Prayer Breakfast (1953-1970s).
Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College – correspondence and records on Vereide and early ICL initiatives.