As Netflix documentaries go, “The Family” is just about as outlandish as they come. Who is this group Netflix  named “The Family”? It is a Christian group, whose real name is The Fellowship Foundation whose primary responsibility is to host an annual Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast. The trailer below is scandalous, if not plainly unhinged. The following is some of the content:

“In my 20’s, I stumbled my way in,” spills the first alleged insider. “And what I found was a secretive Christian organisation called The Family, that had been hiding in plain sight for 80 years.”

Another breathlessly warns that this is a group “with tentacles around the world”; a gaggle of power-hungry fundamentalists led by the “most powerful man you’ve never heard of” — a man by the name of Doug Coe, who passed away in 2017.

Coe was, by all accounts, a quiet man with a penchant for world peace. In 2001, he organised a historic meeting between two warring leaders, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Congo’s Joseph Kabila. This would be the first of a series of covert diplomacy moves that would eventually lead to the signing of a historic peace accord that likely saved thousands of lives.

Does that sound like a slick political operator who was hell-bent on world domination? The Netflix program’s claims are farcical and absurd.

But what of the prayer breakfast itself? “The Family” is, after all, solely responsible for the popular annual event. So, are there clandestine side-room policy meetings and code-words being muttered into the ear of the president? Is the room scattered with secret handshakes?

Well, not according to Christian author, Jeff Lucas, who attended the gathering back in 2017.

“We ate eggs and bacon,” he told Premier UK. “ No agenda was shared that might lead to world domination. [We] met some interesting people, and…. prayed.”

The documentary lays claim to the uncovering of a secretive religious organisation, “The Family,” that it alleges has been secretly pulling the strings of the United States government for the past 80 years. 

Citing covert meetings with the president and the commissioning of sleeper agents to far-flung lands, the documentary paints a wildly sensationalist picture of “The Fellowship Foundation”, who as mentioned, its primary responsibility is to host the annual Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast.

Still, the hype keeps growing, with one British outlet, The Manchester Evening News declaring that streamers of the docu-series have found themselves “too horrified to sleep.”

Hopefully, people will see it for what it is — a ham-fisted attempt at smearing well-connected people of faith.