Jeff Sharlet is a writer, journalist, and contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone magazines. His 2008 book "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power," a New York Times bestseller, dissects the phenomenon known as "elite fundamentalism" and its gospel of "Biblical capitalism." In 2000 he founded a religion-themed online literary magazine, Killing the Buddha, which has spawned a book of the same title (Free Press, 2004, co-author Peter Manseau) and an anthology called "Believer, Beware" (Beacon Press, 2009).

Sharlet's work has appeared in publications as various as The Washington Post, The Nation, Salon, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. His next book, an essay collection called "What They Wanted," is forthcoming from W. W. Norton.