The movement was founded in Seattle in 1935 by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant and traveling preacher. He opposed President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and was worried that socialist politicians were about to take over Seattle's municipal government. Vereide organized a small group of businessmen sympathetic to European fascism, fusing the far right with his own polite but authoritarian faith
Prominent members of Seattle's business community recognized his success with those who were "down and out" and asked him to give spiritual direction to their group who were "up and out." He organized prayer breakfasts for politicians and businessmen that included anti-Communism and anti-union discussions. Vereide was subsequently invited to set up similar meetings among political and business leaders in San Francisco and Chicago.
Abraham Vereide believed he was contacted by God in 1935 who told the message in the Bible was misinterpreted. It was his mission to bring community leaders to Christ. This elite would then use private means the help the less fortunate. Verveide was pro-capitalist and anti-union. He was the trickle down advocate of the 1930s.
Doug Coe,the modern leader of the Family, has told his C street followers In Washington DC that they are above the Madding Crowd and that normal rules don't apply to the elite. The family consider themselves the “new chosen,” congressmen, generals, and foreign dictators who meet in confidential “cells,” to pray and plan for a “leadership led by God,” to be won not by force but through “quiet diplomacy.”
Coe believes his followers are above the law and has used King David as an example. King David stole his general's wife and then had the general assassinated. Coe believes such behavior is appropriate for his special group of right wing Republicans. This philosophy may explain why Republicans presidents such as Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush authorized extralegal activities that were unconstitutional.
In his preaching, Coe repeatedly urges a personal commitment to Jesus Christ. It’s a commitment Coe compares to the blind devotion that Adolph Hitler required from his followers.
"Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler were three men. Think of the immense power these three men had, these nobodies from nowhere,” Coe said.
Later in a 2008 sermon, Coe said: "Jesus said, ‘You have to put me before other people. And you have to put me before yourself.' Hitler, that was the demand to be in the Nazi party. You have to put the Nazi party and its objectives ahead of your own life and ahead of other people."
Coe also quoted Jesus and said: “One of the things [Jesus] said is 'If any man comes to me and does not hate his father, mother, brother, sister, his own life, he can't be a disciple.’ So I don't care what other qualifications you have, if you don't do that you can't be a disciple of Christ."
Writer Jeff Sharlet lived among Coe's followers six years ago and was troubled by their secrecy and rhetoric.
“We were being taught the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin and Mao. I would say, ‘Isn’t there a problem with that?’ They [The Family] seemed perplexed by the question. Hitler’s genocide wasn’t really an issue for them. It was the strength that he emulated,” said Sharlet, who is a Contributing Editor at Rolling Stone and is an Associate Research Scholar at the NYU Center for Religion and Media in New York.
http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Coe
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http://
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