Last week it was discovered that several powerful republicans at the heart of two sex scandals—Sens. John Ensign and Tom Coburn and Gov. Mark Sanford, among others—are members of The Family, reputed to be an “aggressively anti-democratic” Christian movement quietly steering us toward a “theocentric” state. Three scholars discuss The Family with the author. Sparks fly.
Jeff Sharlet
Jeff Sharlet is the New York Times best-selling author or editor of eight books, including The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, adapted into a Netflix documentary series, and The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. His writing and photography have appeared in many publications, including Vanity Fair, for which he is a contributing editor; the New York Times Magazine; GQ; Esquire; Harper’s; and VQR, for which he is an editor at large. He is the Frederick Sessions Beebe ’35 Professor in the Art of Writing at Dartmouth College, where he lives in the woods with many animals.
