Hillary Clinton's Controversial Pastor--Daily Kos (from Hillary's First Run for President)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/03/19/480201/-Hillary-Clinton-s-Controversial-PastorOver at Talk to Action, (and here on Daily Kos) I have highlighted the strange relationship between Hillary Clinton and the secretive Religious Right network known as "The Family." Jeff Sharlet and Kathryn Joyce wrote about this in Mother Jones and wanted to ask her about it, but she declined.
In the wake of the controversy over Barack Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, Barbara Erenreich, writing at The Nation, thinks it is only fair and reasonable to ask Hillary Clinton about her relationship with Doug Coe, the controversial leader of The Family, and for that matter, The Family itself.
I raise this again at the urging of a friend, who thinks this should be aired. In fairness, it is going to be aired no matter what I do or don't do, so you might as well hear it from me first. This diary really only scratches the surface of what is truly a deeper matter, and goes to what is an important dimension of the sometimes shadowy power game in the nation's capital. Hillary Clinton is far from alone in participating in the "Family;" and the network is bipartisan. But Sen. Clinton is the only one who happens to be running for president, and like Obama and McCain, she really ought to step-up and explain herself.
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Here is an excerpt from Erenreich's article:
There's a reason Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.
You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that "through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as "The "Fellowship," a k a The Family. But it won't be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet's shocking exposé The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.
This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, The Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."
Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.
What drew Clinton into the sinister heart of the international right? Maybe it was just a phase in her tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles and names: Hillary Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and now Hillary Clinton. She reached out to many potential spiritual mentors during her White House days, including New Age guru Marianne Williamson and the liberal rabbi Michael Lerner. But it was the Family association that stuck.
Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the under-appreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define The Family's theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power--cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't."
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Here is more about The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.
http://www.harpercollins.com/9780060559793/the-family
= new reply since forum marked as read
Someone might try to debunk this. Or hide it 
If it is getting that bad out there.....then we are in Deep Trouble!
Getting rid of our Mainstream Resources? 
We know why. Unfortunately
I was responding, here, because when I saw the OP's post about being Hidden in "GD" and remembered Jeff Sharlit's piece in Harpers...I went back in search to get the info from that time because it was an important article back then and deserves another look since Hillary is running again. I thought PMRG would be a better place to post the info since GD didn't work out for the OP with the Lock.
Her background sure seems to deserve scrutiny about her involvement with "The Family." That a post was locked about it did seem like a Jury who wasn't aware of her background with "The Family" and the questions that were raised about Hillary's involvement back then.
About how unfair the media are to Hillary Clinton.
In the dictionary, next to "puff piece", you will find a picture of that article. 
who decides to run for office claiming God had something to do with that decision--is not subject to laws of man OR God.
Now, when you get that "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is one of the Big Ten laws of God......
This is what Governor Hiking the Appalachian Trail meant when he started muttering about King David after Gov got caught with his honey.
King David had tried to kill the husband of Bathsheba because David was lusting after Bathsheba. And David was still so beloved by God that he was chosen to be the ancestor of Christ (in theory anyway)*. So, from that, I gues, they got the concept that anything goes if you've been chosen to lead, including murder. (Shades of House of Cards.)
Most of the time, I try not to think about it because the more I think about it, the more awful it seems.
I posted something very similar Friday on another DU thread where the Family was discussed.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026748033
peacebird recently got an OP on this topic hidden. IIRC, it consisted solely of a subject line mentioning Hillary's connection to the Family and some links to articles on that subject, including one from that famous RW source, Huffpo.
Word to the wise.
