Talk:The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power

Hi everybody. In the German Wikipedia a question came up how far The Family and World Vision is historically connected. The sentence "World Vision ist in seinen historischen Wurzeln verknüpft mit dem evangelikalen Netzwerk The Family." English translation: “World Vision is historically connected to the evangelical net “the Family”.

This sentence is part of the introduction and based on Sharlet, Jeff: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, page. 186 & p. 208-209. Are there any opinions to this? --Tecolótl (talk) 14:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Here is the response that I put in Talk:The Fellowship (Christian organization):
 * Here is the relevant sentence from German language's World Vision article:
 * World Vision ist in seinen historischen Wurzeln verknüpft mit dem evangelikalen Netzwerk The Family.
 * It has a reference to page 209 of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. The relevant part of that page is the following:
 * In later years, Halverson would help build up one of the world's largest relief agencies, World Vision, a Christian outfit that supplies food for the starving and medicine for the wounded and gospel tracts only to those who ask. Although it has long been plagued by accusations of serving as a CIA front, World Vision's verifiable record is admirable--the sort of Christian effort to which Abram paid lip service and nothing more.
 * I suggest that from these sentences, the link between World Vision and the Family is tenuous (i.e. not very well supported). They share one person in common. Also, they state that the Family's founder, Abram, only paid lip service to the type of Christian effort that World Vision does.--Kevinkor2 (talk) 23:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * thanks Kevinkor2. I read you answer Talk:The Fellowship (Christian organization) but I think it is not enough to convince the others to get rid of this. That´s the reason why I thought it might be helpful to make an edit here, too. --Tecolótl (talk) 09:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi There – I contributed this information on the World Vision English-language page as well. I work for World Vision in the United States, so I’m sure that you’ll want to continue to seek other third-party sources. Nonetheless, I’ve done some research with our finance, legal and partnership teams to see if there is any connection with the Fellowship Foundation (the group Sharlett refers to as “The Family.) According to our legal and financial records, World Vision does not have, nor has it historically had, an organizational relationship or connection with the Fellowship Foundation. In the 1950s, one of World Vision’s former leaders, Richard Halverson was also influential in the development of the National Prayer Breakfast, which the Fellowship Foundation coordinates. That connection, however, was personal and individual, not organizational. As far as I’ve been able to discover, the idea that the two groups are somehow linked seems to be a misunderstanding.Ap1053 (talk) 19:10, 3 May 2010 (UTC) Ap1053
 * You forgot to mention that, besides Richard Halverson who became later chairman of World Vision until 1983, the founder of World Vision, Robert Pierce, was also in the 1950s a reprenstative of "The Family". You also forgot US Senator Frank Carlson, who was on board of World Vision in 1950/60s and also a very important member of "The Family". Furthermore, also US Senator Mark Hatfield was on the Board of World Vision (since 1973) and was also a very influential member of "The Family". Winston Weaver, chairman of the board of WV in the 1980s was also member of "The Family" (and of the Council for National Policy). Also, since "The Family" is more a cell-like network that does not want to work through an organization but rather wants to work through personal relationships, it seem not a good way to prove or disprove a relationship with World Vision by looking for legal or financial records. Btw, you can find all the people I mentioned in this Archive of "The Family" at the Wheaton College. --75.93.177.208 (talk) 02:15, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Bogus Refs and Plagiarism?
What's up with all the bogus (non-link) footnote references? This suggests to me that someone copy-and-pasted text from somewhere else, without even bothering to edit out the footnote refs. I think the possibility of plagiarism should be investigated. 64.196.90.242 (talk) 14:52, 31 August 2011 (UTC)