A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Pp. 460-463<\/em><\/p>\n The Supreme Court testimony is over, and Peter, Gwen, and Charlie debrief at a restaurant in Virginia named L\u2019Auberge Chez Francois.<\/p>\n Upon hearing the name Gwen smiled to herself, \u201cI guess I\u2019m not in Spokane anymore.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Gwen\u2019s such a sweet country girl.<\/p>\n As they had back to her hotel Gwen recalls the packet of financial information Cindy had sent, which she\u2019d glanced at and dismissed as unimportant the previous day. Peter\u2019s curiosity perks up.<\/p>\n \u201cI wonder what that stuff is?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI peeked,\u201d Gwen admitted weakly. \u201cIt\u2019s just a bunch of financial records.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat could be interesting,\u201d Peter said. \u201cI\u2019ve wondered about all the money they\u2019ve raised.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I find Gwen\u2019s lack of curiosity concerning. But more concerning actually, is an exchange later on the same page. Charlie jokes with Peter that he\u2019s going to win nine-to-nothing, and Peter objects.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, there\u2019s no way it\u2019s going to be unanimous in my favor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be, does it?\u201d Gwen asked.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, just five votes. You should start praying for five votes,\u201d the professor said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be close.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Oh, Gwen. Gwen, Gwen, Gwen. I suspect that Farris, as author, is using Gwen as a device to make sure the audience knows what they need is five votes, but there are other ways to do that, and this way\u2014and this has been done repeatedly\u2014makes Gwen look clueless and Peter look horrid. After all, even if Gwen had known nothing about the Supreme Court before this case, Peter should have made sure she knew the basics when her case headed in this direction.<\/p>\n They drop Charlie off at the airport to get back to his busy schedule\u00a0at the law school, and we cut to Donna for a moment. Donna is upset that Stephen made her come to his place separately so that they wouldn\u2019t be seen together because of the Supreme Court case. Donna is being ridiculous. Stephen risked his career attempting to get his boss to shelve\u00a0an interesting case because\u00a0the case involved his girlfriend. I\u2019d imagine Stephen could get disbarred for something like that. If I<\/em> were Stephen, I would have let Donna know it wasn\u2019t safe to see her at all this visit (she\u2019s in town for the Supreme Court, after all, and you never know what lengths reporters will go to)\u2014and if I were Donna, I\u2019d understand that!<\/p>\n Anyway, Donna had planned to go sight seeing but decides to instead mop around\u00a0Stephen\u2019s apartment because \u201cbeing shunned by Stockton while she was at the Supreme court was more than she could bear.\u201d WTF. I wrote before that Farris\u2019s male characters are essentially all deeply sexist or ethically dubious, and frequently both, but his female characters are no easier to admire. Back when Donna falsified records and lied before the court, one could attempt to put that down to her anger at the law not giving her enough leeway to protect children (although what she did was wrong regardless of her reasons). This whole thing between her and\u00a0Stephen, though, is weird<\/em>. She sees him as her ticket out of Spokane. Well guess what! She could just move out of Spokane<\/em>. She doesn\u2019t need a man to do that. Rita did it without a man.<\/p>\n I was so caught up in Donna being ridiculous that I almost forgot to mention that while moping around Stephen\u2019s apartment she finds a green barrette with three strands of long red hair in it under the couch cushions (she wasn\u2019t snooping\u2014she\u2019d lost an earring while laying on the couch). Farris tells us that \u201cCorliss\u2019s spirit welled up with fear and anger.\u201d The inclusion of fear is interesting\u2014she\u2019s afraid of losing Stephen, presumably.<\/p>\n Now we shift back to Peter and Gwen, who are on their way to the banquet. Peter has looked at the financial documents, but Farris has decided to have that happen off-book. Or something. I would say off-screen if it were a movie. Anyway, Peter notices the \u201cHeart of America\u2014Supreme Court Victory Banquet\u201d signs and this happens:<\/p>\n \u201cI hope no one gets in trouble for false advertising,\u201d Peter said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re gonna win,\u201d Gwen said confidently.<\/p>\n \u201cBlind loyalty always scores points with me,\u201d he replied.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now that\u2019s just uncomfortable. Blind loyalty should not score points with anyone<\/em>. Blind loyalty is not a good thing, and frankly, it\u2019s created a world of trouble throughout history and across the globe. But then, everything we\u2019ve seen so far suggests that Peter\u00a0likes his women blond, gorgeous, and blindly loyal. I can\u2019t even with this relationship.<\/p>\n Humphrey sees them coming in, and we get this:<\/p>\n \u201cGood to see you, Peter. And this must be Gwen. You are lovely, my deer. Peter was really lucky\u2014I mean blessed, to have found you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThank you so much,\u201d Gwen said with a courteous but distant air. She instantly distrusted him. \u201cBut I think I am blessed far more.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Oh my gosh there is so much to unpack here. Why does Gwen instantly distrust Humphrey? Presumably because he\u2019s a creep, and good, godly people have an instant creep-detector. Except that they don\u2019t<\/em>. In fact, this suggestion\u2014that you should be able to sense a religious con artist when meeting him\u2014is highly dangerous. Some of the worst abusers are the best at getting people on their side, at making people comfortable with them, at signaling belonging.<\/p>\n Let me give you an example.\u00a0Farris, the book\u2019s author, recalls being\u00a0deeply impacted by attending a conference where Bill Gothard spoke in the late 1980s or early 1990s. In fact, Farris\u00a0was so impressed<\/a> with Gothard\u2019s message\u00a0that he\u00a0and his wife gave up birth control as a result. Gothard was exposed several years ago for having serially groomed and molested dozens teenage girls and young women sent to him by their parents to work as his secretaries over the\u00a0course of three decades. Good evangelical Christians do not have creep-meters. Suggesting that they do is dangerous.<\/p>\n Peter and Gwen are seated by a former Congressman, who is now retired and serves on the board of Heart of America. Farris introduces him as follows:<\/p>\n McElliot had a reputation as a true conservative, with a warm personality that made it difficult for even the most liberal person to dislike him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s how that works, but okay. It\u2019s also a lot of tell, don\u2019t show, but I suppose Farris probably didn\u2019t have much space to spare at this point.<\/p>\n Once everyone is seated the banquet begins with a patriotic song. Because of course it does. Then we get this very strange introduction by Humphrey:<\/p>\n \u201cAs you know, Heart of America is a conservative, non-sectarian organization dedicated to advancing the family. Our aim is to protect all families in America. Although we are not a religious organization, we recognize that the families of this nation are well-served by the three great religions of our land\u2014Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n Gwen gave Peter a surprised look as the word \u201cIslam\u201d was invoked.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are committed to families. We are committed to freedom. And we are committed to faith\u2014whatever faith one chooses.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Oh my god this is so sloppy. Who are Humphrey\u2019s audience, exactly? Who are the 250 people in attendance? By all appearances, Humphrey has been catering to an evangelical audience, pretending to be one of them and milking them for cash. If he\u2019s been able pull that off, he has to know that \u201cwhatever faith one chooses\u201d isn\u2019t going to go over well with an evangelical audience. It\u2019s incredibly tone deaf.<\/p>\n But I think I may know what is going on here. Farris has created a character who is posing as evangelical but in fact is a money-grubbing fraud. He wants to be very clear, though, that this figure is just posing<\/em> as an evangelical. A real<\/em> evangelical wouldn\u2019t do things like this. Farris is making it as clear as he can that Humphrey isn\u2019t actually<\/em> an evangelical. Humphrey can\u2019t even get the language right\u2014in other words, he\u2019s not actually \u201cone of us.\u201d\u00a0Writing so soon after the Jim Bakker scandal<\/a>, you\u2019d think Farris would know better than this.<\/p>\n Humphrey could have been written so much more interestingly than this. Humphrey offered an opportunity to delve into the problem of\u00a0fraud and financial mismanagement within the evangelical world. Instead, all we get is cardboard cutouts.<\/p>\n Also, notice Gwen\u2019s response to the inclusion of Islam\u2014and only Islam, the reference to Judaism didn\u2019t bother her. Presumably, if Humphrey had referenced our country\u2019s Christian and Jewish heritage, Gwen wouldn\u2019t have balked. After all, that would be right in line with conservatives\u2019 favored \u201cJudeo-Christian\u201d rhetoric. But Islam\u2014Islam is treated as a boogeyman. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I have problems with the limitations on women\u2019s rights that exist within many Islamic interpretations (it should be noticed that Hasidic Judaism places similar restrictions on women). But there\u2019s something cloying in the way evangelicals talk about Judaism that feels less like acceptance and more like erasure.<\/p>\n I could write reams about this, and probably should at some point, but not here.<\/p>\n Next week we\u2019ll find out how\u2014or if\u2014Peter exposes Humphrey for his unethical fundraising practices. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n