The Family
The Heavenly BMW
Gawker, where KtB gets all its religion news, reports that police found Zachery Tims, Jr., pastor of New Destiny Christian Center, an 8,000-strong megachurch in Orlando, dead with what appeared to be drugs in his pocket in Times Square this week. As it happens, I’m pretty certain it was Tims that KtB cofounder Peter Manseau…
Files from The Family: The Psychotic and the Spy
The other day I had lunch with a Presbyterian minister who had some minor but firsthand experience with elitist theology of the Family, the avant-garde of American fundamentalism that I’ve written about in two books, The Family and C Street. The clergyman had read The Family and wondered, in the end, whether the Family’s abuses of…
Mr. Enigma, C Street Defender
Last week, the Wall Street Journal’s online edition asked me to write a short commentary on C Street, one of the subjects of my new book, C Street, and the 2010 midterm elections. A supporter of the organization behind C Street, the Family, posted a response, not so much to the commentary but to the…
Breakfast with The Family
As I watch Obama’s speech at yesterday’s National Prayer Breakfast, I find that many of his words ring true, though not for the reasons he intended. The elephant in that room—and it was, quite literally, in that room—was The Family, the self-described “invisible” organization forced into visibility by KtB’s own Jeff Sharlet. So when Obama…
Jeff Sharlet and Rev. Sekou Duke It Out
Okay, actually it’s not so much a brass-knuckles match-to-the-death as it is a friendly conversation about the not-so-friendly religious right. And at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, no less. These videos, thanks to Ty Whitfield and Damal Edmond at the Society, capture some of the highlights of the October 29 Killing the Buddha/Forum for…
How To Did My Boyfriend Back In My Love
In general, it’s a bad idea to use the forum of re How To Did My Boyfriend Back In My Love latively small blogs like this one to argue with foolish columnists like this one. You don’t have the audience to make your rebuttal effective, so you just end up adding a drop in the…
The Christian Right’s Heart for Africa
I’ll be joining African gay activists on Canada’s morning affairs show, “The Current,” tomorrow morning at 8:30 am eastern to discuss Uganda’s soon-to-be-law “Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009,” which will impose the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” — queer sex with disabled people or anyone under 18, or any sex a queer HIV-positive person engages in. Anyone…
Family vs. family, An Open Letter to Congressman Wamp
This morning in the Jackson Sun, weekend editor Jason Tippitt, declares “Congressman Wamp, we have a problem….” You can’t choose your family. But you, congressman, have chosen The Family, and that’s a problem. That townhouse where you live in Washington with the other lawmakers – it’s registered as a church, but it seems more like…
“They exploited in us what is great about us”
I’ve been getting a lot of reader mail since my book, The Family, hit the bestseller lists this summer. Most of it is simple, some of it is thoughtful, and a few missives have been menacing. But my favorite responses, by far, are those like this one, which just came in tonight via Killing the…
Bring Us Your Loud, Your Brash, Your Foolish
In response to John D. Boy’s piece, Icons of the New Evangelicalism, this morning, Bruce Illig writes in: Mr. Boy, I think it would be a grave mistake to assume that a change of appearance would signal any change in the basic beliefs of the evangelicals, or their influence. Would this not be the time,…
The End of the Atheists’ Road
GOP presidential musing is turning toward Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana. Given the C Street affiliation of two now-former contenders, Senator John Ensign and G Order Cheap Cialis overnor Mark Sanford, I thought it worth a google to check Daniels out. Is he a C Streeter? I don’t know. Is he confused about First Amendment…
Jeff Is on The Daily Show Tonight!
That’s right, KtB’s illustrious co-founder Jeff Sharlet is appearing tonight on the most important show in the universe, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, spreading the word about The Family and what it means for American democracy. We’re holding a pool about whether Jeff gets on The View next. It’s looking pretty good, the way…
“Real Time With Bill Maher,” Tonight
I’ll be talking about my book The Family tonight on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher.” One of the other guests is MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who through her seven invitations to me to appear on her program has almost single-handedly turned my sleepy paperback sales into bestselling numbers — #16 on this week’s NYT list,…
A Taste of the Old (New?) World
Emails from my ex-boyfriend rarely include any of his own words. Instead, he forwards messages that originate from another friend of ours without so much as a word of introduction. The communiques appear like unidentified birds—words, or images or rants against the right-wing—flying in from the high desert valley of Washington where our mutual friend…
Card Check Religion
In light of the news that Senator Mark Pryor (D, Wal Mart), played the central role in killing the #1 piece of progressive legislation — scrap that, the #1 piece of legislation, left or right, with real potential to turn the American economy around — it’s worth revisiting the role religion — at least, as…