Speaker 1: Here is a classic episode for our fellow conspiracy realist, Ben.
Speaker 2: Never never speak against the family ever again in front
Speaker 2: of outsiders.
Speaker 3: You never speak against the family, right.
Speaker 1: We can't. We don't speak against the family, and I
Speaker 1: hope you all hear Nol's capital T capital F on
Speaker 1: the family there. We don't speak against the family really
Speaker 1: in this episode, but we do ask why things seem
Speaker 1: so weird in Washington, DC.
Speaker 2: Right, Unless you think this is a story about like
Speaker 2: the LaCOSA Nostra or like the mafia or something, it's
Speaker 2: about a kind of a different mafia, a political mafia,
Speaker 2: one that purportedly pulls the strings on political machinations from
Speaker 2: behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: And this might also, as I recall, folks check us here,
Speaker 1: this might be one of the episodes where we get
Speaker 1: super into fundraiser dinners or breakfasts like eggs.
Speaker 2: And issues kind of eggs you remember that came up
Speaker 2: because we wanted to see the menu that this conspiracy.
Speaker 3: We did discuss that. I believe there were maybe waffles.
Speaker 3: I cannot confirm nor deny that, But now that you
Speaker 3: mentioned it, Ben, this is a real organization, right, and
Speaker 3: this is an organization that has a lot of kind
Speaker 3: of sinister whisperings about it about to what degree does
Speaker 3: it control what goes on in Washington and the kind
Speaker 3: of you know, christianification of politics. Now I don't use
Speaker 3: that term to say that's inherently like Christianity is bad,
Speaker 3: but there, you know, we did. We do have a
Speaker 3: nation that is sort of meant to be founded where
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff is a little bit its own thing,
Speaker 3: you know, hence separation of church and state. But there
Speaker 3: are organizations.
Speaker 2: That would seek to do away with that kind of thinking,
Speaker 2: which I don't think is great.
Speaker 1: Let's call this Shadows of Project.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty five a little bit. Yeah, let's roll.
Speaker 4: It from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
Speaker 4: is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
Speaker 4: or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noel.
Speaker 1: Our close compatriot Matt is on adventures but will be
Speaker 1: returning soon. They called me Ben. We are joined with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul Michigan, controlled decand and most importantly,
Speaker 1: you are you. You are here that makes this stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. In the course of
Speaker 1: the research for today's episode, it hit me and maybe
Speaker 1: it hit you guys as well, that there are so
Speaker 1: many groups that refer to them selves as the family.
Speaker 1: The original title for today's episode was going to be
Speaker 1: what is the family? But we had to be more
Speaker 1: specific because you know, different groups call themselves the family.
Speaker 1: Our families call themselves the family, yeah, or not.
Speaker 3: Even to mention like bluegrass groups like the Carter family,
Speaker 3: or like the Handsome Family or what have you, right,
Speaker 3: the Manson family.
Speaker 1: Right, cults as well. For a lot of listening today,
Speaker 1: this kind of Moniker sounds cultish. Today's story is a
Speaker 1: little bit different. It could touch on cults, it could
Speaker 1: touch on secret societies. It's kind of in the eye
Speaker 1: of the beholder, and we'd like your opinion on it.
Speaker 1: So we are going on a journey strap in. Here
Speaker 1: are the facts. Political influence, right, big money, A lot
Speaker 1: of stuff happens with it. It comes from a plethora of organizations,
Speaker 1: some of which are more transparent than others. Plethora, by
Speaker 1: the way, means an overabundance, so much of something that
Speaker 1: it's too much. And here in the United States, special
Speaker 1: interest groups use lobbyists to gain legislative support and I
Speaker 1: can't believe it. No, we still have not done an
Speaker 1: episode on lobbyists or lobbying, even though it's a weird thing.
Speaker 3: It's come up, for sure, piecemeal here and there, but
Speaker 3: I think it might be time for a deep dive.
Speaker 1: And some of our fellow listeners on our Facebook community
Speaker 1: page Here's where it Gets Crazy also pointed out we
Speaker 1: have yet to do an mk Ultra episode.
Speaker 3: That's not possible.
Speaker 1: I it's maybe it's one of those things where we're
Speaker 1: having a bit of a Mandela effect because it's come
Speaker 1: up in so many things, most recently and touched vaguely
Speaker 1: in the same sphere. In our interview with Russell Targ,
Speaker 1: it also.
Speaker 3: Came up with Targ that maybe it'd be fun to
Speaker 3: do an mk ultra esque episode with him as a
Speaker 3: guest talking about LSD research.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in general, yep, yep, yep. Was Sydney Gottlieb. That's right, right,
Speaker 1: because they they worked together. In the United States this
Speaker 1: with this lobbying thing. For anyone who's not familiar with that,
Speaker 1: in the US, it is legal for an individual or
Speaker 1: a group of people, whether that's whether that's a local
Speaker 1: community activist group or whether it's something big like the
Speaker 1: Koch brothers. It's legal for them to try to convince
Speaker 1: members of Congress to vote for things that they think
Speaker 1: will make themselves or the country better off.
Speaker 3: And since mind control is not really a universally accepted thing,
Speaker 3: it's technically legal for them to use that as well.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 1: So now some people will falsely claim that one lobby,
Speaker 1: now there are hundreds and hundreds of these, Some people
Speaker 1: will say that one lobby or another in particular exerts
Speaker 1: undue influence on the United States government. Typically, these claims
Speaker 1: are meant to paint the agenda of given group as
Speaker 1: inherently corrupt, smear tactics, smear tactics exactly somebody, And this
Speaker 1: goes across the political spectrum. Somebody will say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: the NRA secretly runs the US government, or they'll say
Speaker 1: APAC secretly runs the US government. But if we talk
Speaker 1: about pure traceable that's important funding. The biggest lobbies as
Speaker 1: of twenty seventeen are not geopolitical, and they're not really
Speaker 1: pushing a lot of the hot button issues that are
Speaker 1: so popular and divisive in the public eye. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not gun control or gun rights, it's not pro
Speaker 1: life or pro choice. As a matter of fact, it's
Speaker 1: not anything about partnerships with the foreign country. The biggest
Speaker 1: lobbying dollars come predominantly from the medical industry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like that great quote from the Wire. You
Speaker 3: follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers, but
Speaker 3: you start to follow money and you don't know where
Speaker 3: that rabbit hole is going to take you.
Speaker 1: Oh, perfect, yes, and in so astute, honestly, the top
Speaker 1: five we have a list. The top five are the
Speaker 1: US Chamber of Commerce. And you recognize the Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker 1: It's a business trade group. You probably have one in
Speaker 1: your city, right, There's one even here in Atlanta, the
Speaker 1: Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. Then there's the National Association
Speaker 1: of Realtors, which is a little surprising, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot of money in real estate. And then the other
Speaker 1: three are all healthcare or medicine related.
Speaker 3: You got your Blue Cross, Blue Shield, he got your
Speaker 3: American Hospital Association, and you've got your Pharmaceutical Research and
Speaker 3: Manufacturers of America, all very innocuous sounding names.
Speaker 1: And people who have listened to our previous episode on
Speaker 1: the opioid crisis will we'll probably look as scance at
Speaker 1: that last one, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. They're so straightforward, innocuous sounding names
Speaker 3: that have the potential to be the top of the
Speaker 3: umbrella of some very nefarious activities. Not a conspiracy theory,
Speaker 3: absolutely a fact people are going to jail or at
Speaker 3: least paying serious money for crimes there.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, yeah, And the big question is will they
Speaker 1: be the right people?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Will they be the brains of the operation? Just some
Speaker 1: Patsy's and justin patsy some scapegoats. We also see the
Speaker 1: emergence of super PACs. These are political action committees. They've
Speaker 1: opened the door for massive amounts of money, but again,
Speaker 1: for the most part, without making an entire episode about
Speaker 1: lobbying just yet. For the most part, this is all
Speaker 1: very legal and very cool. There are other more secretive groups, however,
Speaker 1: influencing American politicians. These groups have agendas that may be
Speaker 1: unfamiliar to most American citizens. Their cash and their influence
Speaker 1: are also much more difficult to trace. They're not necessarily
Speaker 1: filing a lot of reports. It's tough to follow the money.
Speaker 1: And this might sound like a fanciful conspiracy theory. But
Speaker 1: according to journalist Jeff Charlotte, at least one of these
Speaker 1: shadowy groups is very much real, incredibly effective, and quite
Speaker 1: possibly dangerous. Let's meet the Family after a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsor.
Speaker 3: Why not, Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1: So the Family. They've got another name.
Speaker 3: Too, right, Yeah, they're called like the what is it,
Speaker 3: the Fellowship? Not of the Ring necessarily low hanging fruit there, Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: the Fellowship. They are in fact a nonprofit evangelical Christian organization.
Speaker 3: But the issue is their members regularly deny that this
Speaker 3: group exists in the first place. In a book called
Speaker 3: The Family, The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,
Speaker 3: Jeff Charlotte really digs deep into the secret and puts
Speaker 3: it as such quote. They believe they are most effective
Speaker 3: if they don't seek publicity and they minister to those
Speaker 3: who they consider what they call the up and up
Speaker 3: or key key men in positions of influence, if they
Speaker 3: minister to them privately, beyond the public eye. So to
Speaker 3: hear Charlotte describe their tactics, they tend to mins do
Speaker 3: direct ministry as opposed to open, publicly observable ministry directly
Speaker 3: to folks who they consider. They have these terms like
Speaker 3: up and out or key men, in other words, people
Speaker 3: in positions of influence or power. If they minister them
Speaker 3: in private, beyond the public eye, that gives them. It's
Speaker 3: a weird situation. It's like a direct line to these
Speaker 3: individuals as opposed to them having to attend a church
Speaker 3: that could be observed and reported on elsewhere. Is that right, Ben,
Speaker 3: which you said, yeah, yeah, absolutely, because it depends on
Speaker 3: who we It depends on the key man in question,
Speaker 3: and again these overwhelmingly going to be dudes, key dudes.
Speaker 3: What we found is that until Jeff Charlotte wrote this
Speaker 3: expose a, you would be hard pressed to find a
Speaker 3: lot of information about the family. But now, thanks to him,
Speaker 3: we have it. The family's origin dates all the way
Speaker 3: back to the nineteen thirties. Nineteen thirty five. There's a
Speaker 3: preacher named Abraham Verde and he experiences what he believes
Speaker 3: is a vision from God. So God speaks to Abraham
Speaker 3: and says, Christianity has been getting it wrong for two
Speaker 3: thousand years. It's been getting it wrong, Abraham, because it's
Speaker 3: got an undue focus on the poor and the weak
Speaker 3: and the down and out what's all this focus on,
Speaker 3: like helping the poor and ministering to the to the
Speaker 3: down trodden of the world. No, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 3: I say to you, Abraham, not that, Abraham, Abram.
Speaker 1: Abraham V.
Speaker 3: Abraham V. What God actually wants for you to do,
Speaker 3: Abraham and those who you deem worthy is to minister
Speaker 3: to what he refers to God as the up and
Speaker 3: out or the key man.
Speaker 1: Right, the movers, the shake, the geopolitical bakers, as it were.
Speaker 1: So he partners up with a businessman named Walter Douglas
Speaker 1: and they begin a weekly breakfast meeting. It starts with
Speaker 1: nineteen executives and during this time they do pray. They
Speaker 1: have breakfast, and they pray for divine intervention to redeem
Speaker 1: Seattle and crush the unions as the true God would
Speaker 1: want them.
Speaker 4: To.
Speaker 1: Fast forward a little bit later. Right now, the family's
Speaker 1: most public gathering is the famous National Prayer Breakfast. You've
Speaker 1: heard about this all the time. It happens on the
Speaker 1: first Thursday of every February. It's been attended by multiple
Speaker 1: US presidents every president since Eisenhower's gone. They created this
Speaker 1: as a recruiting device for their organization. Back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties and fifties, they were planning it, and their
Speaker 1: goal was to normalize this idea of prayer at the
Speaker 1: center of American political life, specifically Christian prayer, and they
Speaker 1: wanted this to be so normal that people would take
Speaker 1: it for granted. The first National Prayer Breakfast occurred in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three, and Eisenhower attended, albeit reluctantly. He owed
Speaker 1: a debt to Billy Graham because Billy Graham had worked
Speaker 1: with the family to swing the evangelical vote for Eisenhower,
Speaker 1: and that's back when Southern evangelicals didn't vote Republican. So
Speaker 1: he went and his idea was, look, I'm paying off
Speaker 1: a favor, don't want any press. I don't want this
Speaker 1: to become a thing essentially, but become a thing it did.
Speaker 1: You see, the family had tried this before with both
Speaker 1: Truman and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and they both said no.
Speaker 1: But it became a tradition because one president said yes.
Speaker 1: And now it's the family's only public event, and it
Speaker 1: is a pr caval case.
Speaker 3: It takes ben one president saying yes.
Speaker 1: No, I mean not really. I guess it's just the
Speaker 1: way that politics work here. Currently, if one president says
Speaker 1: yes to something faith based, especially Christian based, that's right,
Speaker 1: and another president says, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 3: But now, wouldn't you say that this is sort of
Speaker 3: the beginnings of the power of the evangelical vote that
Speaker 3: is now such an important base in Republican circles.
Speaker 1: It's definitely, it's definitely a facet of it. No religious vote,
Speaker 1: the religious vote is not necessarily a uniform block. It
Speaker 1: can swing in different directions, of course, of course. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is a huge, a huge piston in
Speaker 1: the engine of elections.
Speaker 3: Not to insult anyone's intelligence, but should we really quickly
Speaker 3: define what makes evangelical Christianity sure different than just standard Christianity? Sure?
Speaker 3: I mean I've always thought of it as just being
Speaker 3: a more strict adherence to the Gospels and just like
Speaker 3: a little bit more more of a I don't know,
Speaker 3: pedantic sounds like a negative word, but I guess it
Speaker 3: just means a little bit almost like strict constructionism of
Speaker 3: the Constitution, you know, where you take everything literally and
Speaker 3: that face value is that is that your understanding?
Speaker 1: Ben So from an outsider's perspective, it's the difference is
Speaker 1: Protestantism is just being in protest against the Roman Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: The evangelical perspective stresses personal conversion, right like being born again?
Speaker 3: Aha, right, got it?
Speaker 1: Now, please write to us. I know we have several
Speaker 1: religious studies scholars and experts here in the audience, so
Speaker 1: it'd be great to hear the breakdown of the nuances here, right, And.
Speaker 3: I'm sure it's something that has evolved over time, as
Speaker 3: has the voting party of choice for this book, as
Speaker 3: as mentioned here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, good point. So the thing about this National
Speaker 1: Prayer Breakfast is that, as the family has described, it
Speaker 1: is a recruiting device. The actual breakfast does happen on
Speaker 1: that first Thursday, but it is surrounded by a.
Speaker 3: Week long.
Speaker 1: Deluge of lobbying events. We're talking three thousand dignitaries who
Speaker 1: come from all around the world and from all sorts
Speaker 1: of corporate interests. They all pay.
Speaker 3: Get that.
Speaker 1: I thought this was a pretty low price. I think
Speaker 1: we could actually go, you guys all, if we all
Speaker 1: make it a thing. They pay four hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars each to attend for the breakfast. But it
Speaker 1: comes with a breakfast, right, I know, Yeah, it does
Speaker 1: come with a breakfast. I don't know if it's a
Speaker 1: buffet thing. I don't know if there's like salmon that's.
Speaker 3: My Are there eggs, Benedict? Is it going to be?
Speaker 3: Is there a bagel bar? Will there be an omelet station?
Speaker 1: Four twenty five is a lot, you know, And I've
Speaker 1: been to some swank buffets. I actually I would prefer
Speaker 1: a buffet if I'm paying foreigner and twenty five dollars.
Speaker 1: You know, it gets how we try to eat four
Speaker 1: and get some crab legs on there. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: this is just for the ticket to the buffet, And
Speaker 1: for most people the breakfast is just that you have
Speaker 1: some muffins and some praying. But a lot of people
Speaker 1: stay on for days and days of seminars organized around
Speaker 1: the message that they think Jesus Christ, the actual Jesus
Speaker 1: Christ has for particular industries.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, the key industry is no doubt, right exactly
Speaker 3: the industry is dujure I suppose. I don't know. This
Speaker 3: is interesting. This sure sounds like a central leader who
Speaker 3: had this one on one with God and then is
Speaker 3: sort of allowing himself to be the conduit to God
Speaker 3: between God and his followers and he gets to decide
Speaker 3: what God's agenda is. Let's see if that's the direction
Speaker 3: that's going. It sure sounds like it. So we have
Speaker 3: the oil industry being a biggie right, and the defense industry,
Speaker 3: defense contractors and many others also hold events. We've got
Speaker 3: foreign dignitaries that are just thirsty for access to all
Speaker 3: of these powerful powerful men.
Speaker 1: Arms, manufacturers, the energy industry.
Speaker 3: Let me add them.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're Boeing, right, or you're a working member
Speaker 1: of Congress and Boeing is big in the state or
Speaker 1: district you represent. But the optics and you want to
Speaker 1: sell some stuff, sure do, But the optics towards your
Speaker 1: voters would would would just be fatal to your political
Speaker 1: career if they saw you selling or facilitating the cell
Speaker 1: of some sort of technology.
Speaker 3: To like a dictator, the gentleman must remain neutral, right.
Speaker 1: Right, right, right? Do you seed your time?
Speaker 3: The gentleman seeds his time? I do not, sir.
Speaker 1: I love parliamentary procedure est I diging it so hard
Speaker 1: I have tried to pitch it in my personal life.
Speaker 1: I don't think to you guys.
Speaker 3: Just in conversation of the bar, it would be a
Speaker 3: lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would like for the gentleman's time has expired.
Speaker 1: Does the gentleman seed his time? The gentleman does not
Speaker 1: seed his time. It would be a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: I say that now, but we'd have to take it
Speaker 1: out on the road and try it, and probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: do it during a live show, which just do it
Speaker 1: we're hanging out. But anyhow, Yes, you're absolutely right. They
Speaker 1: the group's real strength lies in its influential members working
Speaker 1: to facilitate this networking, but also to push their agenda,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to in a second. Critics will tell
Speaker 1: you that the NPB or National Prayer Breakfast, is used
Speaker 1: by the Family to essentially circumvent the State Department. The
Speaker 1: meetings read like a rogues gallery. Charlotte called it a
Speaker 1: who's who of nasty figures, people who might not otherwise
Speaker 1: be able to go have a conversation with an arms
Speaker 1: manufacturer or a nuclear power a nuclear power con colomerate. Right, So,
Speaker 1: they have this vision as as you as we established earlier,
Speaker 1: they have this vision of Jesus as a strong man,
Speaker 1: as a dictator, Jesus Christ, that is, and of helping
Speaker 1: not the sheep, but helping the wolves because they're more powerful,
Speaker 1: and the family believes that anyone who is in power
Speaker 1: like that, or those those people who are dictators and such,
Speaker 1: that they are there because they are supposed to be,
Speaker 1: that they've been anointed by God to be in charge,
Speaker 1: and so they want to broker power. And this is
Speaker 1: this is weird, right, But these dictators and you can
Speaker 1: you can find list of suspected and confirmed members these days.
Speaker 1: Taters in many cases are the same people that the
Speaker 1: US publicly shuns, including including the Russian government that came
Speaker 1: to head quite recently. It turns out that the National
Speaker 1: Prayer Breakfast is home to a Russian connection.
Speaker 3: Do you think they offer a little borsch on the
Speaker 3: on the on the buffet?
Speaker 1: You know what? The hardest thing for me to find
Speaker 1: in all the research here, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: you found it yet either. I couldn't find the menu.
Speaker 1: And when we're talking about the buffet, I started. I
Speaker 1: try not to not to mess around too much on
Speaker 1: the computer when we're recording, No, but I had to
Speaker 1: try to search again and I could not find the menu. Serious,
Speaker 1: and it's haunting me because what if you're paying for
Speaker 1: four hundred and twenty five dollars just for muffins.
Speaker 3: I just typed in who caters the National Prayer? Oh good,
Speaker 3: that's a way to go at it. Let's see. Ah,
Speaker 3: now we've got who attends, who spoke. I don't care
Speaker 3: about any of that. I want to know who caters it. Nope, Man,
Speaker 3: that is the most closely guarded secret surrounding this entire event. Man,
Speaker 3: we should do an episode entirely the menu at the
Speaker 3: National Prep breakfast. Well, i'llt us have to use our imagination.
Speaker 3: I'm hoping that it's a little bit a cut above
Speaker 3: like Shawney's breakfast buffet. Yeah, you know, And I'm hoping.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm hoping for seafood.
Speaker 3: And I'm hoping they have some international choices for their
Speaker 3: foreign dignitaries, because that would only be fair.
Speaker 1: That would only be fair. Yeah, yeah, especially when considered
Speaker 1: cultural dietary restrictions and so course.
Speaker 3: And also the fact that like our idea of breakfast,
Speaker 3: I mean, I have to get it on a high
Speaker 3: horse here. But we've had this conversation. Breakfast food, you know,
Speaker 3: here is such a specific thing in other countries they
Speaker 3: eat like regular food for breakfast. In an Asian country especially,
Speaker 3: it's all like, you know, rice and noodles and things
Speaker 3: you eat any other time of the day, And I
Speaker 3: support that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too, Me too. I mean, if Edward Brenez
Speaker 1: had not come along, breakfast in the US would be
Speaker 1: a much different affair. But let's get back to this
Speaker 1: Russian connection. So remember Marie Buthina recently came up in
Speaker 1: the news as being an agent of a foreign government.
Speaker 1: According to the affidavit from the Department of Justice, she
Speaker 1: used the National Prayer Breakfast twice to set up some
Speaker 1: backdoor diplomacy between members of the US government and members
Speaker 1: of the Russian power structure. She even brought Prayer Breakfast
Speaker 1: organizers with her to Moscow, where Charlotte suspects that they
Speaker 1: brainstormed the guest list for the Russian delegation. They saw
Speaker 1: her as access to and from the Family's perspective, we
Speaker 1: have to understand this is sort of the work that
Speaker 1: they pursue. They feel they are right.
Speaker 3: In doing this.
Speaker 1: Tensions are high between the US and Russia, and the
Speaker 1: Family sees itself as a power broker but also a peacemaker.
Speaker 1: So they think these two strong men, for lack of
Speaker 1: a better phration, meet and hammer things out, and that
Speaker 1: then Jesus Christ or God will shape these things to
Speaker 1: what is appropriate and Christian. So as far as they're concerned,
Speaker 1: they were not helping a Russian spy. They were helping
Speaker 1: bring peace between two worthy and strong leaders. They again
Speaker 1: believe that if you were in power, you are supposed
Speaker 1: to be there. You are in power because God put
Speaker 1: you there. Never mind the voters. It's a dangerous attitude.
Speaker 3: It really is in a slippery slope, my friend.
Speaker 1: So we mentioned their agenda right now, what exactly is there?
Speaker 1: Is their agenda?
Speaker 3: Well, according to our writer Pal Charlotte, the family believes
Speaker 3: that most Christians tend to misread, misinterpret the New Testament,
Speaker 3: and that at the heart of Christ's message was a
Speaker 3: message of not not peace, not kindness to the poor
Speaker 3: and downtrodden, but power, pure, abject unbridled power. Not love,
Speaker 3: no power, right right. Love through power is very aggressive read,
Speaker 3: very aggressive read of Christ because we think of Jesus
Speaker 3: as this kind of barefoot hippie. Well, I mean, we
Speaker 3: know he had a temper with like flipping over the
Speaker 3: tables and the money changers and all that, and we
Speaker 3: knew that he meant business, but he's always been like
Speaker 3: kind of made out to seem like more of a
Speaker 3: you know, affecting change through non violence kind of way,
Speaker 3: and more like changing hearts and minds, rather than wielding
Speaker 3: some sort of iron fist.
Speaker 1: Right right, helping the poor and downtrodden, the lepers, those
Speaker 1: outcasts from society. No no, no, no, no, no, no no no,
Speaker 1: say the members of the family. And then, according to
Speaker 1: an article by Lisa Getter in The La Times, the
Speaker 1: group wants to take this family global, a family of
Speaker 1: friends that will spread their agenda across the world. And
Speaker 1: when we see a global family of friends, we have
Speaker 1: to realize that, like many organizations, we can think of
Speaker 1: it being arranged in concentric circles or domains. So, according
Speaker 1: to former Nixon aide and Watergate fell in Charles W. Coulson,
Speaker 1: the family numbered in nineteen seventy nine, family numbered about
Speaker 1: twenty thousand people, although the number of dedicated associates around
Speaker 1: the globe was much smaller, maybe as much as three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty in two thousand and six.
Speaker 3: So you can buy a ticket to the Prayer breakfast
Speaker 3: and doesn't make you like a member of the organization,
Speaker 3: right exactly? I would imagine do you apply to become
Speaker 3: a member? Do you have to be invited? Is it
Speaker 3: very closed door policy.
Speaker 1: I think you need to be in power for them
Speaker 1: to have interest, and you got to be a key people. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not for somebody who just came for the salmon,
Speaker 1: which is again would be me.
Speaker 3: That's right. So it's almost more of a Builderberg or
Speaker 3: Trilateral Commission kind of situation, right close.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's similar. So they have a closely
Speaker 1: guarded database of these associates members in Keyban, but they
Speaker 1: don't issue cards, they collect no official dues, and members
Speaker 1: are asked not to speak about the group or its activities.
Speaker 1: A member of the family's inner circle once said to
Speaker 1: the group's chief South African operative, the movement is simply
Speaker 1: inexplicable to people who are not intimately acquainted with it.
Speaker 3: First rule of breakfast club. You don't talk about breakfast.
Speaker 1: Club literally, the first rule.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, So they say that their initiatives have always been
Speaker 1: misunderstood by outsiders, and that they learn the hard way
Speaker 1: to never commit to paper any discussions or negotiations. There
Speaker 1: are no such things as confidential memos, because if you
Speaker 1: write something down, it will inevitably leak, so they urge
Speaker 1: people not to put anything relating to any of the
Speaker 1: work they're doing on paper unless you know the recipient
Speaker 1: well enough to put. Please destroy after reading at the
Speaker 1: top of the page. Not exactly free and clear transparency.
Speaker 3: See they ought to do it in Spectra Gadget style,
Speaker 3: this mass edge well self destruct. Yes, that'd be pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yes they should.
Speaker 3: I'd be fun.
Speaker 1: So they are longtime leader Doug co who ministered in
Speaker 1: private and led the organization kind of behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: He had a pretty rare interview in two thousand and
Speaker 1: one and he said, if I told you who has
Speaker 1: participated and who participates until this day, you would not
Speaker 1: believe it. You'd say, you mean that scoundrel, that despot.
Speaker 1: He passed away in twenty seventeen, but the practice continues,
Speaker 1: the institution exists. And this leads us to a question
Speaker 1: is this legal? I mean, on the surface, it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily illegal.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: People should be able to get together and at breakfast
Speaker 1: have a chat, and people constantly network, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: the secrecy is creepy, but there are hundreds of religious
Speaker 1: groups working to bring their values to a wider audience.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, there's you know, they're all.
Speaker 1: There are spaghetti dinners across the world. There are breakfast
Speaker 1: meetings in and at churches all the time, and a
Speaker 1: lot of nonprofits and charities have religious roots as well.
Speaker 1: With this in mind, the Family's not really unique, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I have a question for you man.
Speaker 3: You mentioned the name of Coulson, right, is the name
Speaker 3: of their their high level Are the names of their
Speaker 3: high level people, their board or whatever you want to
Speaker 3: call it. Is that public information or do they keep
Speaker 3: that pretty under wraps too?
Speaker 1: They keep a lot of it pretty tight. We do
Speaker 1: know that membership includes people are serving in the US government,
Speaker 1: like Pence is a member being Commander in chief. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and Barack Obama and Bill Clinton all attended the
Speaker 1: National Prayer Bakfast. But how intimately involved were they? We
Speaker 1: know that Hillary Clinton for a long long time received
Speaker 1: personal ministry services from Doug co. So that's the part
Speaker 1: that we have to emphasize here. The family itself, their
Speaker 1: mission feels politicized, with a trend toward you know what
Speaker 1: they see as strong, powerful authoritarians, but their fan club
Speaker 1: goes across all sides of the political.
Speaker 3: Right and My question is, what does this personal ministry business?
Speaker 3: What does that look like? Is that like hitting a
Speaker 3: house call?
Speaker 4: They?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, man, it's a closed door thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and come into my office. Close the door.
Speaker 1: Let's pray together about the best way to help raytheon
Speaker 1: make a sale. You know, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm being a little oglib, but we should talk about
Speaker 1: what the critics say and where this institution operating. After
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor, we're back. So here's the thing, Noel.
Speaker 1: A lot of critics say, what's your take on this?
Speaker 1: A lot of critics say that there's more than breakfast
Speaker 1: going on. It's not just some mag's benedict.
Speaker 3: They are you saying they have lunch items as well?
Speaker 3: Then not in public behind the closed doors though there
Speaker 3: could be sandwiches. There could be like a deli tray,
Speaker 3: some soups, some fruit and cheese. I'll bets are of barbecue.
Speaker 3: I love the idea of this being exclusively food based organizations.
Speaker 3: I love that too.
Speaker 1: So the fear is that they may be influencing politicians
Speaker 1: and voters have no control over their behavior whatsoever. That's
Speaker 1: what that's what the critics say, but I.
Speaker 3: Mean, isn't that like we were talking about lobbying. Isn't
Speaker 3: that what lobbying is in general?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: We don't have access to the lobbyist because they're paid
Speaker 3: by the corporations to interface directly with politicians, and we
Speaker 3: can sort of say, hey, politicians, please let me write
Speaker 3: your letter my congressman, please don't be swayed by the
Speaker 3: siren song of lobbyists. But that's only gonna take you.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I see.
Speaker 1: Exactly what you're saying, though, Like if we if we
Speaker 1: got together and we crowdfunded five dollars from each of
Speaker 1: us and everyone listening, then we we could make a
Speaker 1: donation to a politician and then get their attention to
Speaker 1: say here's what I think you should do about a
Speaker 1: certain issue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Ben, even you saying that it requires a
Speaker 3: donation goes against the entire system. It's they're supposed to
Speaker 3: listen to our phone calls, whether we give them money
Speaker 3: or not. Sure, that's what I'm saying. I think we're
Speaker 3: on the same pitch. I think our glibness, our glibnesses
Speaker 3: are aligned.
Speaker 1: We've earned the citizens, and I think, so where where
Speaker 1: do they operate though. Do they do they just stay
Speaker 1: in DC?
Speaker 3: No, I think not, ben because they need to branch out.
Speaker 3: They need to wield these powers beyond Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: And where do they do this. That's a very important question,
Speaker 3: especially in a modern nation that prizes the separation of
Speaker 3: church and state. We haven't even talked about that yet
Speaker 3: because that's the thing too. Lobbying is one thing, but
Speaker 3: at least that doesn't necessarily go against the separation of
Speaker 3: church and state. This, on the other hand, very very
Speaker 3: weird gray area, especially when it has such across the
Speaker 3: aisle kind of support, you know, at least in terms
Speaker 3: of like the optics of it. So here the question
Speaker 3: to the families supporters, this organization has an ability to
Speaker 3: bridge political gas and unite antagonistic groups through a mutual
Speaker 3: spiritual understanding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's that's the thing. We have examples of
Speaker 1: the kind of scandals they've encountered. They're most well known
Speaker 1: probably for now. It came about in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: Some investigators claimed the family had, through they're key men,
Speaker 1: influenced u Ganda's anti homosexuality legislation. This was this is
Speaker 1: a series of laws that allowed the death penalty for
Speaker 1: people who were attracted to the same sex or also
Speaker 1: for quote harboring a known homosexual. So let's say you've
Speaker 1: got a friend or a family member and they are gay,
Speaker 1: and you live in Uganda, and they say they're coming
Speaker 1: to kill me because of my sexual orientation, and you say,
Speaker 1: that's fine, just hide here and we'll wait till the
Speaker 1: soldiers leave. If they are found, then the way the
Speaker 1: law was written or the way the law was proposed,
Speaker 1: then not only the person they were searching for, but
Speaker 1: the person hiding that person would be put to death.
Speaker 3: That legislation was recently changed, I believe.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, they were instrumental in pushing it through.
Speaker 3: Not to mention that if I just typed in. There's
Speaker 3: a website called Focus on the Family. I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's their direct website, but it's definitely affiliated with them,
Speaker 3: and they have a resource page called when a loved
Speaker 3: One Says I'm Gay Research List, and it has things
Speaker 3: like titles like bringing Home the Prodigals, Is God Anti gay?
Speaker 3: And other questions about homosexuality. The Secret Thoughts of an
Speaker 3: Unlikely convert An English Professor's journey into Christian faith. It
Speaker 3: feels largely like there is a negative, inherently negative spin
Speaker 3: on the treatment of LGBT individuals in the church. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. The thing is that because they're pushing this power
Speaker 1: based authoritarian agenda, of course they will naturally tend to
Speaker 1: gravitate toward despots, toward dictators, but they see this as
Speaker 1: an effort of reconciliation. They also, for instance, in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four, they helped persuade South African Zulu chief Buthalse
Speaker 1: to avoid civil war with Nelson Mandela. And their defenders
Speaker 1: such as former President George W. Bush, have praised their
Speaker 1: work and they say, yeah, they're out of the public sphere,
Speaker 1: but they're making the world a better place because they're
Speaker 1: stopping war. And this leads us to the question just
Speaker 1: how much influence does the family wield in Washington, DC?
Speaker 1: You know, like you said, The supporters say it can
Speaker 1: bridge political gaps and unite antagonistic groups. But to the critics,
Speaker 1: this kind of combination of political power and religious zeal
Speaker 1: historically leads to disaster, and there are some very strong
Speaker 1: precedents for that throughout human civilization. And for critics, the
Speaker 1: most important and most frightening part of the entire equation
Speaker 1: is that citizens everywhere it can be affected by this
Speaker 1: secretive legislation process without having any input upon it, Like
Speaker 1: Uganda may just be the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Speaker 1: There are other things like the Youth Core, which is
Speaker 1: a network of Christian youth groups that attract teenagers and
Speaker 1: then later steer them to Jesus. And this youth Core
Speaker 1: is active in places like Russia, Ukraine, Romania, India, Pakistan, Yuganda,
Speaker 1: of course, Nepaul, Bhutan, Ecuador, Honduras, and Peru. This is
Speaker 1: big stuff. We might not hear about it a lot
Speaker 1: here in the States other than that national prayer breakfast,
Speaker 1: but powerful geopolitical things are happening outside of the public eye.
Speaker 1: And at this point we know the family is still
Speaker 1: working quietly behind the scenes in the US and abroad,
Speaker 1: but on what specifically for now, that's something they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. I have to ask you, though, Noel,
Speaker 1: do you think this kind of thing should be legal
Speaker 1: or illegal? It's tough.
Speaker 3: It feels like a loophole to me. I mean, it
Speaker 3: feels like extra legal in a lot of ways, because
Speaker 3: lobbying is not leg is not illegal, but we are
Speaker 3: supposed to have separation of church and state, and it
Speaker 3: feels like hiding behind the guise of like this feel
Speaker 3: good kind of let's bridge the gap between the aisle,
Speaker 3: when it also has this legacy that sort of forces
Speaker 3: participation because of not wanting to offend the evangelical voter base.
Speaker 3: And it just feels kind of inherently like dirty money.
Speaker 3: I don't like it. I don't like it one bit,
Speaker 3: especially when you consider their ideology and their very exclusionary
Speaker 3: attitude towards LGBTQ or or the poor exactly. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's it's just it feels like a very like Tom
Speaker 3: Cruise's character in Magnolia kind of pyramid scheme reinterpretation of
Speaker 3: something that you know, say what you will about Christianity,
Speaker 3: I think at its heart there is goodness. There is
Speaker 3: a sort of do unto others' mentality, and people use
Speaker 3: it in all kinds of horrible ways, But I think
Speaker 3: at its heart there's a good message there. Some in
Speaker 3: some parts of the Bible, it feels to me like
Speaker 3: a little bit of a bastardization of that and turning
Speaker 3: it into a tool to manipulate people more than even
Speaker 3: some forms of Christianity. Well tell us what you think.
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