Power vs. love

Jeff Sharlet reflects the growing paranoia about evangelical influence in politics | Marvin Olasky

Harper Collins

Some atheist assailers of Christianity are know-nothings; one of the thoughtful ones is Jeff Sharlet. His latest attack is The Family (Harper, 2008), which takes a shadow-puppet look at Doug Coe's loosely knit Washington-area organization (sometimes called "The Fellowship") and turns that rabbit into a monster that secretly runs the capital and is likely to make the Dark Night of Fascism descend over America.

Some of the NYU adjunct professor's fans have produced over-the-top blurbs. Thomas Frank called The Family "terrifying" and Barbara Ehrenreich wrote, "Sharlet's book is one of the most compelling and brilliantly researched exposés you'll ever read—just don't read it alone at night." Ooh!! But evangelicals might dismiss Sharlet's work because he commits howlers such as identifying hippie-ish L'Abri as where "a generation of fundamentalist intellectuals studied a reenchanted American past." When Sharlet is inaccurate in referring to my own work, that doesn't leave me with great confidence in his research or discernment.