How Marvin Olasky uncovered my secret yearnings

By Jeff Sharlet

Not long after I published The Family, my account of a network of elite evangelicals in government, military, and business, I received a surprising invitation: Marvin Olasky, about whom I’d written briefly in the book, wanted me to visit him at his Empire State Building office. Olasky, a Jewish convert to evangelicalism, is one of American fundamentalism’s most influential — and most thoughtful — intellectuals, the author of a book titled The Tragedy of Compassion that set the tone for more than a decade of “compassionate conservatism” and editor-in-chief of World magazine. He’s a compassionate guy, which is why, after we spoke for three hours, he still holds out hope for me:

Sharlet’s world is a loveless universe where the real mission of individuals and groups is expanding their own power and controlling the behavior of others. And that’s the second reason evangelicals should not dismiss Sharlet. Leo Tolstoy wrote, “I have learnt that all men live not by care for themselves but by love.” Sharlet has not yet learned that, but he’s only 36.

Olasky is only 58, but I hold out hope that he’ll be more careful the next time he reports on a conversation that’s being recorded. His article is a mess of factual errors and misrepresentations. I haven’t read his book Telling the Truth: How to Revitalize Christian Journalism. For all I know, maybe he thinks facts are heathenish.

Meanwhile, I don’t suppose I’m missing out on a lot of sales to readers of World, which I once described as “an angry, fierce magazine with a hard-to-believe veneer of sweetness — the Mike Tyson of evangelical publishing.” But in the spirit of interfaith dialogue, I’ll nonetheless offer a few corrections in the same gentle spirit in which Marvin teases that I “yearn for dominating power.” Hmm. Actually, that’s kind of kinky. I’ll stick to the straight facts. I’m vanilla that way.

I’m not, however, an atheist, as Marvin writes. I’m not sure how he forgot his rather lengthy interrogation of me on this subject. Perhaps his own yearning for dominating power overcame him. Nor do I think it’s fair to describe myself as an “assailer of Christianity.” Hell, I’m a promoter — I’ve published Christians from across the political and theological spectrum. If Marvin will correct this error, I promise not to assail him next time we meet. Lastly, Marvin calls me an adjunct professor. Well, Marvin, two can play at that game! You’re a, a, a — freelance graphic designer! Take that!

Only Marvin’s not a designer, and I’m not an adjunct professor. It’s that “not” that brings us together.

Marvin says that I see The Family as bringing down a “Dark Night of Fascism” on America. Marvin is clearly onto my insidious leftist code, according to which “No, the Family isn’t fascist” — that’s what I said to Marvin — becomes a yearning, dominating, dark night of the liberal imagination. In fact, Marvin and I talked for some time about our agreement that American fundamentalism isn’t fascist, a point to which I devote an entire chapter of the book to making. (Excerpted here.)

Marvin evidently belives that my delusions are the result of my upbringing. He quizzed me in great depth about the particulars — I imagine Freudian analysis is something like that — and then somehow managed to get me wrong. Especially offensive to my late great aunt Rosalyn would be his contention that I “never celebrated” Hannukkah. Guess I have to give back all thatgelt.

And then, in the end, there’s my loveless world. Sheesh! I hope Marvin doesn’t know something about my family he’s not telling me! I, on the other hand, know something about our conversation that he’s not telling his readers: We talked at length about the love ethic that ultimately trumps power. If Marvin forgot, he could have just checked the book: The last page is my terribly earnest declaration of hope for a democracy embraceable by “believers and unbelievers alike, all of us who love our neighbors more than we love power or empire or even the solace of certainty.”

Here’s hoping Marvin will one day meet us there.