Moss also adopts a bit of “both sides-ism” by including footage of current members, such as former representative Zach Wamp of Tennessee, talking about how they’d like to diversify the largely white, male organization and make it more transparent. (That latter issue may have been difficult to uncover given the group’s notorious secrecy.) For example, the series doesn’t make clear that, historically, Democrats have been involved in the Fellowship, too, nor does it explain what role, if any, Democrats currently play in the organization. It wasn’t that there’s no “there” there - there’s more than enough “there” - but Moss leaves out some crucial pieces of the puzzle that would make it complete. ![]() While it provides some context about what may drive a person to seek the fellowship of the Fellowship, its unorthodox approach distracts from understanding the nuts and bolts of this complicated story.Įven after watching all five episodes, I was left feeling like I still couldn’t fully wrap my arms around the implications of what I’d just consumed. That episode toggles - more than any of the others - between a standard documentary approach and scripted reenactments that star David Rysdahl as a young Sharlet and James Cromwell as Coe. The series starts off on somewhat odd and shaky footing with a first episode that focuses a lot of time - I would argue too much - on Sharlet’s experience in his twenties, living at Ivanwald, the equivalent of a Christian fraternity house in Arlington, Virginia, with ties to the Family. “And that’s what they were doing.” (Full disclosure: Getter, who acts as a source for the series, is a neighbor and friend of mine.)Ĭlearly, The Family is trying to run a lot of threads through the needle here, and director Jesse Moss, who directed the excellent documentary The Overnighters, lets some of them hang a little too loosely. “If you go off to meet with a head of state, you can’t suddenly become unofficial,” says journalist Lisa Getter, who wrote about the Fellowship for the L.A. The Family also outlines relationships the Fellowship has brokered over the years with leaders overseas, including controversial figures such as former Libyan Prime Minister Muammar Qaddafi, through the guise of spreading Christianity, particularly to those the Fellowship believed it could “save.” Even if you’re charitable enough to believe that their intentions - as some members of the Family insist - are purely in the name of Christ, the mere fact that members of congress have engaged in such behavior, even in an unofficial capacity, makes it problematic. It is owned by a foundation connected to the Fellowship and, the series implies, helps foster the idea that these leaders have not merely been elected, but were chosen to do God’s work. As the docuseries notes, a townhouse not far from Capitol Hill dubbed C Street houses a handful of representatives and subsidizes much of their living expenses. Some allegedly have Marina Butina, the Russian woman who pleaded guilty last year to acting as an illegal foreign agent, attended the event.īut the Fellowship’s vast, complicated web extends far beyond the National Prayer Breakfast. “If I were a bad-faith actor from another country, that is exactly the kind of meeting that I would want to exploit,” says Jack Jenkins, a reporter for Religion News Service. But as The Family notes, political connections are a pretty blatant byproduct. every February, ostensibly for spiritual reasons. Eisenhower, is sponsored by the Fellowship, and brings thousands of leaders and influencers from around the world to Washington, D.C. The National Prayer Breakfast, an annual event attended at least once by every sitting president dating back to Dwight D. Coe believed the work of Jesus was most effectively done out of the public eye - “The more you can make your organization invisible, the more influence it will have,” he says in a speech - and created a network of highly influential people, in Washington and beyond, who quietly prayed together and, according to the docuseries, attempted to influence policy through back channels. ![]() The five-part docuseries, based on the books The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power and C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy by Jeff Sharlet, who serves as a frequent on-camera interview subject, traces the history of the group, which was presided over for several decades by the well-connected Doug Coe. But by the end, the viewer is left with only a basic outline, as opposed to a full picture, of what the Family, also known as the Fellowship, is really about. The Family, a new Netflix docuseries that digs into the purpose and influence of a clandestine Christian organization, highlights and connects some important dots regarding the religious right and American politics. ![]() The Reagans, pictured with Doug Coe of the Family (circled).
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