Killing the Buddha editor Jeffrey Sharlet ends the second section of his Harper’s article recounting his immersion experience in the Family with this whopper:

The brothers of Ivanwald are the Family’s next generation, its high priests in training. I had been recommended for membership by a banker acquaintance, a recent Ivanwald alumnus, who had mistake my interest in Jesus for belief. Sometimes the brothers would ask me why I was there. They knew that I was “half Jewish,” that I was a writer, and that I was from New York City, which most of them considered to be only slightly less wicked than Baghdad or Amsterdam. I told my brothers that I was there to meet Jesus, and I was: the new ruling Jesus, whose ways are secret.

Strong words, and they smell of hyperbole. (And perhaps Sharlet does exaggerate his case.) But imagine with me for a moment a new totalitarian regime, in some fictional nation in a fictional time; our own dystopian novel. A key feature of totalitarianism is the mass surrender of the private wills of its individual subjects. That is, they cease to experience themselves as individuals at all, except through their decision to leave all other decisions to the Party, the Reich, etc. The “Great Leader”–or Big Brother, if you like–symbolizes and enacts the Great Will of the Party/State/Reich on behalf of the masses.

We learned from George Orwell and Hannah Arendt that who Big Brother is does not matter. Even Hitler admitted that his absolute power depended upon the Aryan masses continuing to surrender their will to him. Or rather, continuing to surrender their will to the symbolic Hitler seen on propoganda posters and hear giving maniacal speeches. In Iraq it was the statue of Hussein in the town square –and not Hussein himself– who enacted the Great Will upon the people. Big Brother is always present, and his avatars are a constant reminder of his omnipotence.

Given the relative unimportance of who takes on the role of Big Brother, imagine then a totalitarian regime whose Big Brother is not a living person at all. And I don’t mean that he has died but is still held to be alive by the submissive masses. No, imagine that this Big Brother is a god. Imagine that this Big Brother is Jesus Christ.

I am not saying that Jesus is a fascist dictator. What I am asking us to imagine is that this totalitarian regime in our imaginary dystopian novel is structured around a Big Brother like all other similar regimes, but that instead of picking a Family leader as Big Brother, they have chosen a god as their sponsor.

Imagine the possibilities for the regime. The regime’s power doesn’t depend upon a the symbolization of a real historical person who can use the masses as a foil against rivals within the regime’s elite. This messy problem is avoided entirely; Jesus Christ is not going to countermand anyone’s orders or launch a “Cultural Revolution” against intellectuals or Family elites (also known as the Core). Oh, there may well be purges from time to time, but the Family elite will have no reason to fear Big Brother. They will only have each other to fear.

Thus, the internecine struggle that always goes on behind closed doors is freed of all restraints. Whoever is actually in charge can do as he wishes and put the words into Jesus Christ’s mouth. There is no need for the messiness of the transition after the Great Leader’s death because he already is dead and has been dead all along. There is no waiting in the wings. The Family’s civil wars are constant. But because they are constant the regime as a whole cannot be weakened through targeted assasinations or other “accidental” deaths.

In fact, no one needs to be in charge at all. The situation behind the Family’s closed doors would more closely resemble internecine mafia struggles than the terror-driven sycophantism of earlier totalitarian regimes. In a word, Jesus’ totalitarian regime has more opportunity for Party leaders. Power is capital, and it can be merged, acquired, sold, and seized. Since everyone (officially, anyway) can play the game, your own failure to accumulate power can only be your own fault. You only have yourself to blame.

Worse still are religious dimensions of personal failure. Suppose the stated purpose of the regime is to unite the planet and get it up to speed so Jesus can return. Remember, David Coe, the Family’s heir apparent has said,

‘Get your vision straight, then relate.’ Talk to the people in the world, and help them obey. Obey [Jesus]. If I obey [Jesus] myself, I help others do the same. You know why? Because I become a warning. We become a warning. We warn everyone that the future king is coming. Not just of this country or that, but of the whole world.

In this dystopian novel-to-be, submission of your will to the will of the Family is held to be one and the same with submission to Jesus. And if Jesus hasn’t come back yet, well, you must not be fully submissive. Or perhaps someone else isn’t being submissive. Do you know who it is? If you tell us, maybe we can bring them back into the will of God™. And if they can’t be convinced, we’ll only be fulfilling the will of God™ because, after all, we are the Family. The same goes for naked grabs for power:

“Here’s this guy [(the biblical King David)] who slept with another man’s wife–Bathsheba, right?–and then basically murders her husband. And this guy is one of our heroes.” David [Coe] shook his head. “I mean, Jiminy Christmas, God[™] likes this guy! What,” he said, “is that all about?”

The answer, we discovered, was that King David had been “chosen.” To illustrate this point David Coe turned to Beau. “Beau, let’s say I hear you raped three little girls. And now you are here at Ivanwald. What would I think ofyou, Beau?”

Beau shrank into the cushions. “Probably that I’m pretty bad?”

“No, Beau. I wouldn’t. Because I’m not here to judge you. That’s not my job. I’m here for only one thing.”

“Jesus?” Beau said. David smiled and winked.

Or take this line of reasoning from a Family recruit at the end of his initiation period:

A line in Dostoevsky’s The Possessed reminded me of [this graduating recruit]: when the conservative nationalist Shatov asks Stavrogin, the cold-hearted radical, “Wasn’t it you who said that even if was proved to you mathematically that the Truth was outside Christ, you would prefer to remain with Christ outside the Truth?” Stavrogin, who refuses to be cornered, denies it.

“Exactly,” [the graduating recruit] said. In Africa he had seen the trappings of Christianity fall away. All that remained was Christ. “You can’t argue with absolute power.”

Or this bible study conversation about Psalm 139:

His lips curled into a half smile. “Man! I mean, that’s intense, right? ‘In my mother’s womb’–God’s[™] right there with you.” He grinned. “It’s like,” he said, “it’s like you can’t run. Doesn’t matter where you turn, ’cause Jesus is gonna be there, just waiting for you.”

Beau’s eyes cleared and Gannon nodded. “Yeah, brother,” Bengt said, an eyebrow arched. “Jesus is smart. He’s gonna get you.”

Gannon shook his head. “Oh, he’s already got me.”

“Me, too,” Beau chimed, and then each man clasped his hands into one fist and pressed it against his forehead or his chin and prayed, eyes closed and Jesus all over his skin.