The Family (Christian political organization)
Encyclopedia
The Fellowship, also known as the Family, is a U.S.-based religious and political organization founded in 1935 by Abraham Vereide
. The stated purpose of the Fellowship is to provide a fellowship forum for decision makers to share in Bible studies
, prayer meetings, worship experiences and to experience spiritual affirmation and support.
The organization has been described as one of the most politically well-connected ministries in the United States. The Fellowship shuns publicity and its members share a vow of secrecy. The Fellowship's leader Doug Coe and others have explained the organization's desire for secrecy by citing biblical admonitions against public displays of good works, insisting they would not be able to tackle diplomatically sensitive missions if they drew public attention.
Although the organization is secretive, it holds one regular public event each year, the National Prayer Breakfast
held in Washington, D.C. Every sitting United States president since President Dwight D. Eisenhower
, up to President Barack Obama
, has participated in at least one National Prayer Breakfast during his term.
The Fellowship's known participants include ranking United States government officials, corporate executives, heads of religious and humanitarian aid
organizations, and ambassadors and high ranking politicians from across the world. Many United States Senators and Congressmen who have publicly acknowledged working with the Fellowship or are documented as having done so work together to pass or influence legislation.
In Newsweek
, Lisa Miller
wrote that, rather than calling themselves "Christians," as they describe themselves they are brought together by common love for the teachings of Jesus
and that all approaches to "loving Jesus" are acceptable. In contrast, Jeff Sharlet
, who was interviewed on NBC News
and wrote a book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
, and an article in Harper's about his experience serving as an intern in the Fellowship, has stated that the organization fetishizes power by comparing Jesus to "Lenin, Ho Chi Minh
, Bin Laden
" as examples of leaders who change the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their "brothers".
in Chicago
in 1942 as Fellowship Foundation, Inc. and also acquired the names International Christian Leadership (ICL), Fellowship House, and International Foundation as venues of global outreach ministry expanded.
The Fellowship Foundation, Inc. does most of its business as the International Foundation, which is its DBA
name.
The Fellowship was founded in 1935 in opposition to FDR's New Deal. Fellowship Foundation traces its roots to founder, Abraham Vereide, a Methodist clergyman and social innovator, and a month of prayer meetings he convened in 1934 in San Francisco. Vereide was a Norwegian
immigrant who founded Goodwill Industries
in Seattle
in 1916 to assist the city's unemployed Scandinavian immigrant population. Goodwill Industries soon occupied a city block, where they repaired and processed discarded clothing and furniture and converted "waste to wages". His work spread down the West coast and eventually to Boston.
In April 1935, Vereide, and Major J.F. Douglas invited 19 business and civic leaders for a breakfast prayer meeting. By 1937, 209 prayer breakfast groups had been organized throughout Seattle.
By 1936, Vereide had already made his first entrée into the White House.
In 1940, 300 men from all over the state of Washington attended a prayer breakfast for the new governor, Arthur Langlie. Vereide traveled through the Pacific Northwest, and later around the country, to develop similar groups. The nondenominational groups were meant to bring together civic and business leaders informally to share vision, study the Bible, and develop relationships of trust and support.
By 1942, there were 60 breakfast groups in major cities around the country, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington and Vancouver. That same year, Vereide began to hold small prayer breakfasts for members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, meetings of informal fellowship, mutual prayer and encouragement. Vereide began publishing a monthly newsletter called The Breakfast Luncheon Fireside and Campus Groups that contained a Bible study that could be used by the groups, as well as information about activities of different groups and international meetings. He also published a newsletter through the years under various names, including The Breakfast Groups Informer (ca. 1945–46), The Breakfast Groups (ca. 1944–53), International Christian Leadership Bulletin (ca. 1953–54), Bulletin of International Christian Leadership (ca. 1954–56), Christian Leadership (ca. 1957–61), ICLeadership Letter (1961–66), International Leadership Letter (ca. 1967), and Leadership Letter (ca. 1963–70).
In 1942, the Fellowship was incorporated in Chicago, Illinois, Vereide's center of national outreach to businessmen and civic and clergy leadership. Vereide had moved the group's offices from Seattle to the more centralized location of Chicago, headquarters of the businessmen's luncheon outreach, "Christian Businessmen's Committee", which Vereide led with industrialist C.B. Hedstrom. Also in 1942 the Fellowship Foundation established a delegation ministry on Massachusetts Avenue at Sheridan Circle named "Fellowship House". Vereide later described it as the nerve center of the breakfast groups.
In 1944 Vereide held his first joint Senate-House prayer breakfast meeting. He held another breakfast on June 16, 1946, attended by Senators H. Alexander Smith and Lister Hill, and US News and World Report publisher David Lawrence
.
In 1946 Vereide wrote and released a book with Reverend John G. Magee, chaplain to President Harry Truman, entitled Together(Abingdon Cokesbury). In the book, Vereide explained his philosophy of visionary discipleship and gathering together in what he termed spiritual cells:
In January 1947, a conference in Zurich led to the formation of the International Council for Christian Leadership (ICCL), an umbrella group for the national fellowship groups in the United States
, Canada
, Great Britain
, Norway
, Hungary
, Egypt
, and China
. ICCL was incorporated as a separate organization in 1953. ICL and ICCL were governed by different boards of directors, joined by a coordinating committee: four members of ICCL's board and four from the ICL's executive committee.
In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
attended the Senate Prayer Breakfast Group. He was invited by fellow Kansan, Frank Carlson
. By that time, Vereide’s congressional core members also included Senators Frank Carlson
, Karl Mundt, Everett Dirkson, and Strom Thurmond
.
By 1957, ICL had established 125 groups in 100 cities, with 16 groups in Washington, D.C.. It had set up another 125 groups in other countries. During 1958, a new small group mentor, from The Navigators
, Douglas Coe
, joined Vereide as assistant executive director of ICL in Washington, D.C.
After over 35 years of leading the Fellowship Foundation, Vereide passed away in 1969 and was succeeded by Richard C. Halverson as executive director, Halverson and Coe worked side by side until Halverson's death in 1995.
In 1972, according to the Fellowship archives, after consultations among leaders in the prayer breakfast movement, including Douglas Coe, Richard Halverson, Dr. Wallace Haines and Senator Mark Hatfield, and others, the organization was reprofiled to be "even more low key". The Fellowship archives reveal that, "in effect, the group adopted an even lower profile, serving as a channel of communication and a catalyst." of global outreach in the spirit of Jesus. The goal was to be less institutional in bearing and more relational and relevant to the global cultures, so that each geographic area had its own identity of personal ministry, not strictly metropolitan but relevant to ranchers, miners, people in jungles, deserts, villages and on remote islands. That they might experience fellowship in Christ in their own sphere of human identification.
D. Michael Lindsay
, a Rice University
sociologist who studies the evangelical movement, said “there is no other organization like the Fellowship, especially among religious groups, in terms of its access or clout among the country’s leadership.” He also reported that lawmakers mentioned the Fellowship more than any other organization when asked to name a ministry with the most influence on their faith.
In 1977, four years after he had converted to Christianity, Fellowship member and Watergate conspirator Charles Colson
described the group as a “veritable underground of Christ’s men all through the U.S. government.”
Former Senate Prayer Group member and current Kansas Governor Sam Brownback
has described group members' method of operation: “Typically, one person grows desirous of pursuing an action”—-a piece of legislation, a diplomatic strategy—-“and the others pull in behind.” Indeed, Brownback has often joined with fellow Family members in pursuing legislation. For example, in 1999 he joined together with fellow Family members, Senators Strom Thurmond
and Don Nickles
to demand a criminal investigation of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and in 2005 Brownback joined with Fellowship member Sen. Tom Coburn
to promote the Houses of Worship Act.
The Reverend Rob Schenck
, founder of the Washington, D.C. ministry Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital
, described the Family's influence as "off the charts" in comparison with other fundamentalist groups, specifically compared to Focus on the Family
, Pat Robertson
, Gary Bauer
, Traditional Values Coalition
, and Prison Fellowship
. (These last two are associated with the Family: Traditional Values Coalition uses their C Street House and Prison Fellowship was founded by Charles Colson
.) Schenck also says that "the mystique of the Fellowship" has helped it "gain entree into almost impossible places in the capital."
A talk from 1970 for college students encouraging mentoring and discipleship stated: “If you want... there are men in government, there are senators who literally find it their pleasure to give any advice, assistance, or counsel.”
Lindsay also interviewed 360 evangelical elites, among whom “One in three mentioned [Doug] Coe or the Fellowship as an important influence."
The Fellowship also has relationships with numerous non-U.S. government leaders. Lindsay reported that it "has relationships with pretty much every world leader—good and bad—and there are not many organizations in the world that can claim that."
“The Fellowship’s reach into governments around the world is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp,” says David Kuo, a former special assistant in George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
Newsweek
reported that the Fellowship has often been criticized by conservative and fundamentalist Christian groups for being too inclusive and not putting enough emphasis on doctrine or church attendance. NPR has reported that the evangelical group's views on religion and politics are so singular that some other Christian-right organizations consider them heretical.
David Kuo, staffer in President George W. Bush
's Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, who has been affiliated with the Fellowship since college, said of the Fellowship:
Current Fellowship prayer group member and former U.S. Representative Tony P. Hall
(D-OH) said, "If people in this country knew how many Democrats and Republicans pray together and actually like each other behind closed doors, they would be amazed." The Fellowship is simply, "men and women who are trying to get right with God. Trying to follow God, learn how to love him, and learn how to love each other." When he lost his teenage son to leukemia
, Hall says, "This family helped me. This family was there for me. That's what they do."
Hillary Clinton described meeting the leader of the Fellowship in 1993: “Doug Coe, the longtime National Prayer Breakfast organizer, is a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship to God.”
Journalist Jeff Sharlet did intensive research in the Fellowship's archives, before they were closed to the public. He also spent a month in 2002 living in a Fellowship house near Washington, and wrote a magazine article describing his experiences. In his 2008 book about the Family, he criticized their theology as an "elite fundamentalism" that fetishizes political power and wealth, consistently opposes labor movements in the U.S. and abroad, and teaches that laissez-faire
economic policy is "God's will." He criticized their theology of instant forgiveness for powerful men as providing a convenient excuse for elites who commit misdeeds or crimes, allowing them to avoid accepting responsibility or accountability for their actions.
Sharlet's book was endorsed by several commentators, including Frank Schaeffer
, once a leading figure of the Christian right, who called Sharlet's book a "must read ... disturbing tour de force," and Brian McLaren
, one of Times "25 most influential evangelicals" in the U.S., who said: “Jeff Sharlet [is] a confessed non-evangelical whom top evangelical organizations might be wise to hire—and quick—as a consultant." Lisa Miller, who writes a column on religion at Newsweek, called his book "alarmist" and says it paints a "creepy, even cultish picture" of the young, lower-ranking members of the Fellowship.
have described Fellowship leader Doug Coe
as preaching a leadership model and a personal commitment to Jesus Christ comparable to the blind devotion that Adolf Hitler
, Joseph Stalin
, Mao Zedong
, and Pol Pot
demanded from their followers. In one videotaped lecture series in 1989, Coe said:
Coe also compared Jesus's teachings to the Red Guard
during the Chinese Cultural Revolution
:
NBC News also reported that David Kuo stated that comparisons such as these are taken out of context and aren't representative of the picture Douglas Coe was trying to paint:
Jeff Sharlet, in contrast, told NBC News that when he was an intern with the Fellowship "we were being taught the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin and Mao" and that Hitler's genocide "wasn't an issue for them, it was the strength that he emulated."
The Fellowship has long been a secretive organization. The Reverend Rob Schenck, who leads a Bible study on the Hill inspired by C Street, wrote that “all ministries in Washington need to protect the confidence of those we minister to, and I'm sure that’s a primary motive for C Street's low profile.” But he added, “I think The Fellowship has been just a tad bit too clandestine.”
Prominent political figures have insisted that confidentiality and privacy are essential to the Fellowship's operation. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan
said about the Fellowship, "I wish I could say more about it, but it's working precisely because it is private."
At the 1990 National Prayer Breakfast, President George H.W. Bush praised Doug Coe for what he described as “quiet diplomacy, I wouldn’t say secret diplomacy.”
In 2009, Chris Halverson, son of Fellowship co-founder Richard C. Halverson
, said that a culture of pastoral confidentialty is essential to the ministry: "If you talked about it, you would destroy that fellowship."
In 1975, a member of the Fellowship's inner circle wrote to the group's chief South African operative, that their political initiatives
In 1974, after several Watergate conspirators had joined the Fellowship, a Los Angeles Times columnist discouraged further inquiries into Washington's "underground prayer movement", i.e. the Fellowship: “They genuinely avoid publicity...they shun it.”
In 2002, Doug Coe denied that the Fellowship Foundation owns the National Prayer Breakfast. Jennifer Thornett, a Fellowship employee, said that "there is no such thing as the Fellowship".
Former Republican Senator Willliam Armstrong
said the group has “made a fetish of being invisible”.
In the 1960s, the Fellowship began distributing to involved members of Congress notes that stated that “the group, as such, never takes any formal action, but individuals who participate in the group through their initiative have made possible the activities mentioned.”
On January 5, 2010, Fellowship member Bob Hunter gave an interview on national television in which he stated:
The Fellowship maintains no public website and conducts no public fundraising activities.
, held each year on the first Thursday of February in Washington, D.C.
First held in 1953, the event is now attended by over 3,400 guests including dignitaries from many nations. The President of the United States
typically makes an address at the breakfast, following the main speaker's keynote address. The event is hosted by a 24-member committee of members of Congress. Democrats and Republicans serve on the organizing committee, and chairmanship alternates each year between the House and the Senate.
At the National Prayer Breakfast, the President usually arrives an hour early and meets with eight to ten heads of state, usually of small nations, and guests chosen by the Fellowship.
G. Philip Hughes
, the executive secretary for the National Security Council
in the George H.W. Bush administration, said, "Doug Coe or someone who worked with him would call and say, 'So and so would like to have a word with the president. Do you think you could arrange something?'"
However, Doug Coe has said that the Fellowship does not help foreign dignitaries gain access to U.S. officials. "We never make any commitment, ever, to arrange special meetings with the president, vice president or secretary of State," Coe said. "We would never do it."
At the 2001 Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearings for State Department officials, Sen. Bill Nelson
(D-FL), whose wife was on the board of the Fellowship, lamented that the State Department had blocked then-President Bush from meeting with four foreign heads of state (Rwanda, Macedonia, Congo and Slovakia) at the NPB that year.
Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) said of Nelson's complaint: "I'm not sure a head of state ought to be able to wander over here for the prayer breakfast and, in effect, compel the president of the United States to meet with him as a consequence.... Getting these meetings with the president is a process that's usually very carefully vetted and worked up. Now sort of this back door has sort of evolved."
“It [the NPB] totally circumvents the State Department and the usual vetting within the administration that such a meeting would require,” an anonymous government informant told sociologist D. Michael Lindsay
. “If Doug Coe can get you some face time with the President of the United States, then you will take his call and seek his friendship. That’s power.”
, the Pentagon
and at the Department of Defense
. By the early 1970s, prayer groups, breakfasts, and luncheons, including those sponsored by ICL, had become commonplace in the Pentagon.
J. Edwin Orr
, an advisor to Billy Graham and friend of Abraham Vereide, helped shape the prayer breakfast movement that grew out of ICL.
to issue a worldwide call to prayer with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin
and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat
.
President Carter hosted former Senator Harold E. Hughes, the President of the Fellowship Foundation, and Doug Coe, for a luncheon at the White House on September 26, 1978. Six weeks later, President Carter and the First Lady traveled by Marine helicopter to Cedar Point Farm, Hughes' home on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where he placed a telephone call to Menachim Begin.
The author Jeff Sharlet has criticized the fellowship's influence on US foreign policy. He argues that Doug Coe and the "networking" (or formation of prayer cells) between foreign dictators and US politicians, defense contractors, and industry leaders has facilitated military aid for repressive foreign regimes. Sharlet did intensive research at the Billy Graham Center
, before the Fellowship Foundation archives were closed to those other than divinity scholars. Sharlet published a book about the history of the groups and their influence on US domestic and foreign policy from the 1920s to the present. Sharlet in particular details the relationship with General Suharto of Indonesia
in the 1970s, and with Siad Barre
of Somalia
in the 1980s. Also, in the archives, there are at least two nearly full boxes of documents describing the relationship with Brazil
's long dictatorship of the Generals.
Regarding his relationships with foreign dictators, Coe said in 2007, “I never invite them. They come to me. And I do what Jesus did: I don’t turn my back to any one. You know, the Bible is full of mass murderers.”
The Fellowship has funded the travel expenses of members of Congress to various hot spots throughout the globe, including Rep. Robert Aderholt
(R-Al.) to Darfur
, Sen. Tom Coburn
(R-Ok.) to Lebanon, Rep. Aderholt to The Balkans, and Reps John Carter (R-Tex.) and Joseph Pitts (R.-Pa.) to Belarus
.
In 2002, Reps. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), Tony P. Hall
(D-Ohio) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) traveled to Afghanistan
and Pakistan
on a fact-finding congressional trip, meeting with the leaders of both Muslim
countries. According to Pitts, "The first thing we did when we met with [Afghan] President Karzai
and [then Pakistan] President Musharraf
was to say, 'We're here officially representing the Congress; we'll report back to the speaker, our leaders, our committees, our government. But we're here also because we're best friends.... We're members of the same prayer group'".
Doug Coe has been dispatched to foreign governments with the blessing of Congressional representatives and has helped arrange meetings overseas for U.S. officials and members of Congress. In 1979, for instance, Coe messaged the Saudi Arabia
n Minister of Commerce and asked him to meet with a Defense Department official who was visiting Riyadh
, the capital.
The Fellowship has brought controversial international figures to Washington to meet with U.S. officials. Among them are former Salvadoran Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova
, who in 2002 was found liable by a civil jury in Florida for the torture of thousands of civilians in the 1980s. He was invited to the 1984 prayer breakfast, along with Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, then head of the Honduran armed forces who was linked to a death squad and the Central Intelligence Agency
.
Coe was quoted in a rare interview regarding the Fellowship's associations with despots as explaining, "The people that are involved in this association of people around the world are the worst and the best, some are total despots. Some are totally religious. You can find what you want to find."
Coe also has claimed that the Fellowship does not help foreign dignitaries gain access to U.S. officials. "We never make any commitment, ever, to arrange special meetings with the president, vice president or secretary of State", Coe said. "We would never do it". The LA Times found that "the archives tell another story”.
In January 1991, Fellowship associate and financial supporter Michael Timmis met President Pierre Buyoya
of Burundi
on behalf of the Fellowship, then flew to Kenya
with Arthur (Gene) Dewey, the former second-in-command at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Sam Owen, then living in Nairobi
. Timmis wrote that he had obtained permission to fly over Tanzanian air space, even though the U.S. Department of State had ordered American citizens to stay clear of Tanzania.
The Fellowship has promoted reconciliation between the warring leaders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
, Burundi
, and Rwanda
. In 2001, the Fellowship helped arrange a secret meeting at The Cedars between Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila
and Rwandan President Paul Kagame
— one of the first discreet meetings between the two African leaders that led to a peace accord in July 2002.
In 1994 at the National Prayer Breakfast, the Fellowship helped to persuade South African Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi not to engage in a civil war with Nelson Mandela
.
According to Jeff Sharlet, Senator Sam Brownback
(R.-Kan.) is a Fellowship member who leads a secret "cell" of leading U.S. Senators and Representatives to influence U.S. foreign policy. Sharlet reports that the group has stamped much of U.S. foreign policy through a group of Senators and affiliated religious organizations forming the "Values Action Team" or "VAT". One victory for the group was Brownback's North Korea Human Rights Act, which establishes a confrontational stance toward North Korea and shifts funds for humanitarian aid from the UN to Christian organizations.
The Fellowship is behind an international project called Youth Corps, a network of Christian youth groups that attract teenagers, and only later steer them to Jesus. The Youth Corps web site does not mention an affiliation to the Fellowship or religion. A non-public, internal Fellowship document, “Regional Reports, January 3, 2002,” lists some of the nations where Youth Corps programs are in operation: Russia; Ukraine; Romania; India; Pakistan; Uganda; Nepal; Bhutan; Ecuador; Honduras and Peru.
Fellowship funds have gone to an orphanage in India
, a program in Uganda
that provides schooling, and a development group in Peru
.
programs to abstinence programs, thereby causing an evangelical revival, which included condom burnings.
In a November 2009 NPR
interview, Sharlet alleged that Ugandan Fellowship associates David Bahati
and Nsaba Buturo were behind the recent proposed bill
in Uganda
that called for the death penalty for gays.
Sharlet reveals that David Bahati, the Uganda legislator backing the bill, reportedly first floated the idea of executing gays during The Family's Uganda National Prayer Breakfast in 2008. Sharlet described Bahati as a "rising star" in the Fellowship who has attended the National Prayer Breakfast in the United States and, until the news over the gay execution law broke, was scheduled to attend the 2010 U.S. National Prayer Breakfast.
Fellowship member Bob Hunter gave an interview to NPR
in December 2009 in which he acknowledged Bahati's connection but argued that no American associates support the bill.
President Barack Obama
, in his address to the Fellowship at their National Prayer Breakfast in early 2010, directly criticized the Uganda legislation targeting gay people for execution. In calling for a renewed emphasis on faith and civility, Obama stated, "We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbian
s for who they are — whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary [Clinton] mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda."
, established a branch of the Family (International Christian Leadership Association) in the United Kingdom
. Ernest Williams, a member of the directing staff of the British Admiralty and a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury
’s Commission on Evangelism, served as its president in the 1960s. Williams worked closely with Harald Bredesen, a British intelligence operative who went on to personally mentor Rev. Pat Robertson
in the United States.
, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee in the Senate and the fourth ranking in his party’s Senate leadership, and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford
, immediate past Chair of the Republican Governors Association and U.S. Representative from 1995–2001, were considering running for President in 2012. The affairs of Ensign and then-Congressman Chip Pickering
, R-Miss., took place while they were living at the C Street Center.
The Washington Post
reported that the C Street "house pulsed with backstage intrigue, in the days and months before the Sanford and Ensign scandals" and that residents tried to talk each politician into ending his philandering, escalating into an emotional meeting to discuss "forgiveness" between Hampton, the husband of Ensign's mistress, and Senator Tom Coburn
.
Hampton said he was not directly advised by the Fellowship to cover up Ensign's affair with his wife, but instead to "be cool". Hampton said they felt they needed a more powerful voice to confront Ensign, and reached out to Coburn, a C Street resident. After initially denying it, Coburn admitted that he tried to broker a settlement between Hampton and Ensign that would have prevented Ensign's affair with Cindy Hampton and his dealings with Doug Hampton from being exacerbated in TV talk shows.
Coburn, with Timothy and David Coe, leaders of the Fellowship, attempted to intervene to end Ensign's affair in February 2008 by meeting with Hampton and convincing Ensign to write a letter to Hampton's wife breaking off the affair. Ensign was chaperoned by Coburn and other members from C Street, where Ensign lives with Coburn, to a Federal Express office to post the letter. Ensign called Hampton's wife hours later to tell her to ignore the letter and flew out to spend the weekend with her in Nevada
.
In connection with the affair, Ensign reportedly engaged in conduct which, if true, would amount to felonies, according to Melanie Sloan
, executive director of the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
. The reported misconduct includes a $96,000 payment from Ensign's parents which Hampton claims was an unreported severance payment for the termination of his position as co-chief of staff for Ensign; Hampton receiving a job as a lobbyist allegedly at Ensign's behest; Ensign allegedly helping Hampton in his role as a lobbyist to lobby the Senator in violation of a one year lobbying ban on ex-Senate staffers; and Hampton's additional charge that Ensign sexually harassed
his wife. The Senate Ethics Committee and the Department of Justice are investigating the charges related to illegal lobbying and subpoenas have been issued. Intimacy between government employees is reassessed as it affects the dignity of the environment.
Hampton said he feels his friends at C Street have abandoned him by choosing to close ranks around Ensign, and that for them the episode "is about preserving John [Ensign], preserving the Republican party, this is about preserving C Street."
, who served as a Congressman from 1995 to 2001, admitted in June 2009 to having an extramarital affair and said that during the months prior to news breaking he had sought counseling at the C Street Center.
Sanford’s affair was revealed when, during his last secret trip to Argentina
in June 2009, he left no contact information and told his staff that he was hiking the Appalachian trail
.
When asked during a press conference if his wife and family knew about his affair before his last trip to Argentina, Sanford said, “Yes. We've been working through this thing for about the last five months. I've been to a lot of different — as part of what we called "C Street" when I was in Washington. It was, believe it or not, a Christian Bible study
— some folks that asked members of Congress hard questions that I think were very, very important. And I've been working with them.”
Sanford "was a frequent visitor to the home for prayer meetings and meals during his time in Congress".
was a U.S. Reprentative from Mississippi
from 1997 through 2008. In 2009, his wife filed suit against Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd, his former college sweetheart and alleged mistress. Mrs. Pickering alleged that her husband restarted his relationship with Byrd while he was "a United States congressman prior to and while living in the well-known C Street Complex in Washington, D.C."
. The structure has 12 bedrooms, nine bathrooms, five living rooms, four dining rooms, three offices, a kitchen, and a small "chapel".
The facility houses mostly Republican members of Congress. The house is also the locale for:
C Street has been the subject of controversy over its claimed tax status as a church, the ownership of the property and its connection to the Fellowship, and the reportedly subsidized benefits the facility provides to members of Congress.
Coe has described Cedars as a place "committed to the care of the underprivileged, even though it looks very wealthy." He noted that people might say, "Why don't you sell a chandelier and help poor people?" Answering his own question, Coe said, "The people who come here have tremendous influence over kids." Private documents indicate that Cedars was purchased so that "people throughout the world who carry heavy responsibilities could meet in Washington to think together, plan together and pray together about personal and public problems and opportunities." Cedars is host to dozens of prayer breakfasts, luncheons and dinners for ambassadors, congressional representatives, foreign religious leaders and many others.
In March 1990, YWAM (which also previously owned the C Street Center) purchased a nearby property located at 2200 24th Street North for $580,000. The property, was used as another gathering place for bible study. Ownership of 2200 24th Street was transferred to the C Street Center on May 6, 1992, and again to the Fellowship Foundation on October 25, 2002. This house had been owned by Timothy Coe, who sold the property to his father, Douglas Coe on November 30, 1989, for $580,000.
A second property, located at 2224 24th Street North and assessed at $916,000, is used as a men's mentoring ministry, known as a Navigator house. This property was purchased by Jerome A. Lewis and Co. in 1986, and sold to the Wilberforce Foundation in 1987. In 2007, the Wilberforce Foundation transferred it to the Fellowship Foundation for $1 million. Jerome A. Lewis is a trustee emeritus of the Trinity Forum and the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Petro-Lewis Corporation.
Douglas Coe once owned a lot at 2560 North 23rd Road, which he sold to Ohio Congressman Tony P. Hall
(D-OH) and his wife on September 22, 1987, for $100,000. Upon leaving Congress in 2002, Hall donated some of his excess campaign funds including $20,000 to the Fellowship Foundation on September 4, 2002, $1,500 to the Wilberforce Foundation, and $1,000 to the Jonathan Coe Memorial of Annapolis, Maryland during the 2001 campaign cycle.
The residence located at 2244 24th Street North, assessed at $1,458,800, is owned by Merle Morgan, whose wife, Edita, is on the board of the Cedars. It also is identified as the offices of the greeting card firm of Morgan Bros. Corp. (d/b/a Capitol Publishing). Missionary Fred Heyn and his wife owned 2206 24th Street North.
LeRoy Rooker
, the one-time treasurer of Cedars and former Director of the Family Policy Compliance Office at the U.S. Department of Education, and his wife own 2222 24th Street North.
Arthur W. Lindsley, a Senior Fellow at the C.S. Lewis Institute
owns 2226 24th Street North.
traveled to Cedar Point Farm by Marine helicopter on November 12, 1978, to attend a Fellowship prayer and discussion group. President Carter placed a call to Menachim Begin while at Cedar Point Farm. The White House records reflect that Cedar Point Farm was owned by Harold Hughes
, a former Senator from Iowa and the President of the Fellowship Foundation. Cedar Point Farm was later used by the Wilberforce Foundation.
and the founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Three Swallows Foundation. Between 1998 and 2007, Three Swallows made grants totaling $1,777,650 to the International Foundation, including
$171,500 in 2004, $203,500 in 2005, and $145,500 in 2006.
Another supporter, Jerome (Jerry) A. Lewis, established Denver-based Downing Street Foundation to provide support to three organizations: the Fellowship Foundation, Denver Leadership Foundation, and Young Life
. Between 1999 and 2007, Downing Street donated at least $756,000 to the Family, in addition to allowing the group to use its "retreat center."
Madelynn Winstead, a Downing Street director, was paid $21,600 by the Fellowship Foundation as managing director of the retreat center.
The Kingdom Fund (Kingdom Oil Christian Foundation t/a Twin Cities Christian Foundation) also provides support to the Family and World Vision
.
The Fellowship Foundation earns more than $1,000,000 annually through its sponsorship of the National Prayer Breakfast.
Abraham Vereide
Abraham Vereide was a Norwegian-born Methodist clergyman and founder of Goodwill Industries of Seattle. In 1935, Vereide founded the prayer breakfast movement in the United States. In 1942, Vereide established International Christian Leadership, incorporated as Fellowship Foundation, in Chicago...
. The stated purpose of the Fellowship is to provide a fellowship forum for decision makers to share in Bible studies
Bible study (Christian)
In Christianity, Bible study is the study of the Bible by ordinary people as a personal religious or spiritual practice. Some denominations may call this devotion or devotional acts; however in other denominations devotion has other meanings...
, prayer meetings, worship experiences and to experience spiritual affirmation and support.
The organization has been described as one of the most politically well-connected ministries in the United States. The Fellowship shuns publicity and its members share a vow of secrecy. The Fellowship's leader Doug Coe and others have explained the organization's desire for secrecy by citing biblical admonitions against public displays of good works, insisting they would not be able to tackle diplomatically sensitive missions if they drew public attention.
Although the organization is secretive, it holds one regular public event each year, the National Prayer Breakfast
National Prayer Breakfast
The National Prayer Breakfast is a yearly event held in Washington, D.C., on the first Thursday of February each year. The founder of this event was Abraham Vereide...
held in Washington, D.C. Every sitting United States president since President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
, up to President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, has participated in at least one National Prayer Breakfast during his term.
The Fellowship's known participants include ranking United States government officials, corporate executives, heads of religious and humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises including natural disaster and man-made disaster. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity...
organizations, and ambassadors and high ranking politicians from across the world. Many United States Senators and Congressmen who have publicly acknowledged working with the Fellowship or are documented as having done so work together to pass or influence legislation.
In Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, Lisa Miller
Lisa Miller (journalist)
Lisa Miller is an American writer and journalist. She is the religion editor of Newsweek and is a Wilbur Prize-winning author and a commentator on religion, history, and religious faith.-Personal life:...
wrote that, rather than calling themselves "Christians," as they describe themselves they are brought together by common love for the teachings of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
and that all approaches to "loving Jesus" are acceptable. In contrast, Jeff Sharlet
Jeff Sharlet
Jeff Sharlet is an American journalist, bestselling author, and academic best known for writing about religious subcultures in the United States. He is a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone...
, who was interviewed on NBC News
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of American television network NBC. It first started broadcasting in February 21, 1940. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is...
and wrote a book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power is a 2008 book by American journalist Jeff Sharlet. The book investigates the political power of The Family or The Fellowship, a secretive fundamentalist Christian association led by Douglas Coe...
, and an article in Harper's about his experience serving as an intern in the Fellowship, has stated that the organization fetishizes power by comparing Jesus to "Lenin, Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
, Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
" as examples of leaders who change the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their "brothers".
History
Fellowship Foundation was incorporated by Abraham VereideAbraham Vereide
Abraham Vereide was a Norwegian-born Methodist clergyman and founder of Goodwill Industries of Seattle. In 1935, Vereide founded the prayer breakfast movement in the United States. In 1942, Vereide established International Christian Leadership, incorporated as Fellowship Foundation, in Chicago...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in 1942 as Fellowship Foundation, Inc. and also acquired the names International Christian Leadership (ICL), Fellowship House, and International Foundation as venues of global outreach ministry expanded.
The Fellowship Foundation, Inc. does most of its business as the International Foundation, which is its DBA
Doing business as
The phrase "doing business as" is a legal term used in the United States, meaning that the trade name, or fictitious business name, under which the business or operation is conducted and presented to the world is not the legal name of the legal person who actually own it and are responsible for it...
name.
The Fellowship was founded in 1935 in opposition to FDR's New Deal. Fellowship Foundation traces its roots to founder, Abraham Vereide, a Methodist clergyman and social innovator, and a month of prayer meetings he convened in 1934 in San Francisco. Vereide was a Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
immigrant who founded Goodwill Industries
Goodwill Industries
Goodwill Industries International is a not-for-profit organization that provides job training, employment placement services and other community-based programs for people who have a disability, lack education or job experience, or face employment challenges...
in Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
in 1916 to assist the city's unemployed Scandinavian immigrant population. Goodwill Industries soon occupied a city block, where they repaired and processed discarded clothing and furniture and converted "waste to wages". His work spread down the West coast and eventually to Boston.
In April 1935, Vereide, and Major J.F. Douglas invited 19 business and civic leaders for a breakfast prayer meeting. By 1937, 209 prayer breakfast groups had been organized throughout Seattle.
By 1936, Vereide had already made his first entrée into the White House.
In 1940, 300 men from all over the state of Washington attended a prayer breakfast for the new governor, Arthur Langlie. Vereide traveled through the Pacific Northwest, and later around the country, to develop similar groups. The nondenominational groups were meant to bring together civic and business leaders informally to share vision, study the Bible, and develop relationships of trust and support.
By 1942, there were 60 breakfast groups in major cities around the country, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington and Vancouver. That same year, Vereide began to hold small prayer breakfasts for members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, meetings of informal fellowship, mutual prayer and encouragement. Vereide began publishing a monthly newsletter called The Breakfast Luncheon Fireside and Campus Groups that contained a Bible study that could be used by the groups, as well as information about activities of different groups and international meetings. He also published a newsletter through the years under various names, including The Breakfast Groups Informer (ca. 1945–46), The Breakfast Groups (ca. 1944–53), International Christian Leadership Bulletin (ca. 1953–54), Bulletin of International Christian Leadership (ca. 1954–56), Christian Leadership (ca. 1957–61), ICLeadership Letter (1961–66), International Leadership Letter (ca. 1967), and Leadership Letter (ca. 1963–70).
In 1942, the Fellowship was incorporated in Chicago, Illinois, Vereide's center of national outreach to businessmen and civic and clergy leadership. Vereide had moved the group's offices from Seattle to the more centralized location of Chicago, headquarters of the businessmen's luncheon outreach, "Christian Businessmen's Committee", which Vereide led with industrialist C.B. Hedstrom. Also in 1942 the Fellowship Foundation established a delegation ministry on Massachusetts Avenue at Sheridan Circle named "Fellowship House". Vereide later described it as the nerve center of the breakfast groups.
In 1944 Vereide held his first joint Senate-House prayer breakfast meeting. He held another breakfast on June 16, 1946, attended by Senators H. Alexander Smith and Lister Hill, and US News and World Report publisher David Lawrence
David Lawrence (publisher)
David Lawrence was a conservative newspaperman and former student of Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University. After his reelection as U.S...
.
In 1946 Vereide wrote and released a book with Reverend John G. Magee, chaplain to President Harry Truman, entitled Together(Abingdon Cokesbury). In the book, Vereide explained his philosophy of visionary discipleship and gathering together in what he termed spiritual cells:
Man craves fellowship. Most of us want an opportunity to make our feelings known, to relate our personal experiences, to compare notes with others, and, in unity of spirit to receive renewal, inspiration, guidance, and strength from God. Such groups as we are thinking of have characterized every spiritual awakening. Jesus began with Peter and James and John. He had the twelve and the Seventy. At Bethany he established a cell... there you have the formula... faith embodied the same close informal fellowship... one common practice — gathering together in the name of Jesus.
In January 1947, a conference in Zurich led to the formation of the International Council for Christian Leadership (ICCL), an umbrella group for the national fellowship groups in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. ICCL was incorporated as a separate organization in 1953. ICL and ICCL were governed by different boards of directors, joined by a coordinating committee: four members of ICCL's board and four from the ICL's executive committee.
In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
attended the Senate Prayer Breakfast Group. He was invited by fellow Kansan, Frank Carlson
Frank Carlson
Frank Carlson was an American politician who served as the 30th Governor of Kansas and United States Representative and United States Senator from Kansas.-Biography:...
. By that time, Vereide’s congressional core members also included Senators Frank Carlson
Frank Carlson
Frank Carlson was an American politician who served as the 30th Governor of Kansas and United States Representative and United States Senator from Kansas.-Biography:...
, Karl Mundt, Everett Dirkson, and Strom Thurmond
Strom Thurmond
James Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes...
.
By 1957, ICL had established 125 groups in 100 cities, with 16 groups in Washington, D.C.. It had set up another 125 groups in other countries. During 1958, a new small group mentor, from The Navigators
The Navigators (organization)
The Navigators is a worldwide Christian para-church organization headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Its main purpose is the discipling of Christians with a particular emphasis on enabling them to share their faith with others....
, Douglas Coe
Douglas Coe
Douglas Evans Coe is associate director of the Christian organization the Fellowship . He has also been referred to as the "stealth Billy Graham." In 2005, Coe was named one of the 25 most influential Evangelicals in the United States by Time magazine...
, joined Vereide as assistant executive director of ICL in Washington, D.C.
After over 35 years of leading the Fellowship Foundation, Vereide passed away in 1969 and was succeeded by Richard C. Halverson as executive director, Halverson and Coe worked side by side until Halverson's death in 1995.
In 1972, according to the Fellowship archives, after consultations among leaders in the prayer breakfast movement, including Douglas Coe, Richard Halverson, Dr. Wallace Haines and Senator Mark Hatfield, and others, the organization was reprofiled to be "even more low key". The Fellowship archives reveal that, "in effect, the group adopted an even lower profile, serving as a channel of communication and a catalyst." of global outreach in the spirit of Jesus. The goal was to be less institutional in bearing and more relational and relevant to the global cultures, so that each geographic area had its own identity of personal ministry, not strictly metropolitan but relevant to ranchers, miners, people in jungles, deserts, villages and on remote islands. That they might experience fellowship in Christ in their own sphere of human identification.
Influence
Prominent evangelical Christians have described the organization as one of the most, or the most, politically well-connected ministries in the world.D. Michael Lindsay
D. Michael Lindsay
David Michael Lindsay, is a scholar in sociology and the current president of Gordon College, a private, liberal arts college on Boston's North Shore. Prior to arriving at Gordon, Lindsay was on faculty for five years at Rice University and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy...
, a Rice University
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
sociologist who studies the evangelical movement, said “there is no other organization like the Fellowship, especially among religious groups, in terms of its access or clout among the country’s leadership.” He also reported that lawmakers mentioned the Fellowship more than any other organization when asked to name a ministry with the most influence on their faith.
In 1977, four years after he had converted to Christianity, Fellowship member and Watergate conspirator Charles Colson
Charles Colson
Charles Wendell "Chuck" Colson is a Christian leader, cultural commentator, and former Special Counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973....
described the group as a “veritable underground of Christ’s men all through the U.S. government.”
Former Senate Prayer Group member and current Kansas Governor Sam Brownback
Sam Brownback
Samuel Dale "Sam" Brownback is the 46th and current Governor of Kansas. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1996 to 2011, and as a U.S. Representative for Kansas's 2nd congressional district from 1995 to 1996...
has described group members' method of operation: “Typically, one person grows desirous of pursuing an action”—-a piece of legislation, a diplomatic strategy—-“and the others pull in behind.” Indeed, Brownback has often joined with fellow Family members in pursuing legislation. For example, in 1999 he joined together with fellow Family members, Senators Strom Thurmond
Strom Thurmond
James Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes...
and Don Nickles
Don Nickles
Donald Lee Nickles is an American businessman and politician who was a Republican United States Senator from Oklahoma from 1981 until 2005. He was a fiscal and social conservative.-Early life:...
to demand a criminal investigation of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and in 2005 Brownback joined with Fellowship member Sen. Tom Coburn
Tom Coburn
Thomas Allen "Tom" Coburn, M.D. , is an American politician, medical doctor, and Southern Baptist deacon. A member of the Republican Party, he currently serves as the junior U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. In the Senate, he is known as "Dr. No" for his tendency to place holds on and vote against bills...
to promote the Houses of Worship Act.
The Reverend Rob Schenck
Rob Schenck
Rev. Rob Schenck is a leading Evangelical minister to elected and appointed officials in Washington, DC. Serving as President of the Christian outreach ministry Faith and Action, Rev. Schenck, works to build relationships with individuals in government while seeking to positively influence policy...
, founder of the Washington, D.C. ministry Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital
Faith and Action
Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital is a Christian outreach organization ministering to top-level government officials. The organizational headquarters is located in Washington, D.C. across the street from the east façade of the United States Supreme Court...
, described the Family's influence as "off the charts" in comparison with other fundamentalist groups, specifically compared to Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family is an American evangelical Christian tax-exempt non-profit organization founded in 1977 by psychologist James Dobson, and is based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Focus on the Family is one of a number of evangelical parachurch organizations that rose to prominence in the 1980s...
, Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson
Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....
, Gary Bauer
Gary Bauer
Gary Lee Bauer is an American politician notable for his ties to several evangelical Christian groups and campaigns.-Biography:...
, Traditional Values Coalition
Traditional Values Coalition
The Traditional Values Coalition is a conservative Christian organization that represents, by its estimate, over 43,000 Christian churches throughout the United States of America...
, and Prison Fellowship
Prison Fellowship
Prison Fellowship is a Christian prison outreach and criminal justice reform organization. Its programs reach prisoners, ex-prisoners, and families of prisoners throughout the United States and, through Prison Fellowship International , in 112 countries worldwide.- Leadership :Charles W...
. (These last two are associated with the Family: Traditional Values Coalition uses their C Street House and Prison Fellowship was founded by Charles Colson
Charles Colson
Charles Wendell "Chuck" Colson is a Christian leader, cultural commentator, and former Special Counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973....
.) Schenck also says that "the mystique of the Fellowship" has helped it "gain entree into almost impossible places in the capital."
A talk from 1970 for college students encouraging mentoring and discipleship stated: “If you want... there are men in government, there are senators who literally find it their pleasure to give any advice, assistance, or counsel.”
Lindsay also interviewed 360 evangelical elites, among whom “One in three mentioned [Doug] Coe or the Fellowship as an important influence."
The Fellowship also has relationships with numerous non-U.S. government leaders. Lindsay reported that it "has relationships with pretty much every world leader—good and bad—and there are not many organizations in the world that can claim that."
“The Fellowship’s reach into governments around the world is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp,” says David Kuo, a former special assistant in George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
Beliefs and theology
The Fellowship Foundation's 501(c)(3) mission statement is:To develop and maintain an informal association of people banded together, to go out as "ambassadors of reconciliation," modeling the principles of Jesus, based on loving God and loving others. To work with the leaders of many nations, and as their hearts are touched, the poor, the oppressed, the widows, and the youth of their country will be impacted in a positive manner. Youth groups will be developed under the thoughts of Jesus, including loving others as you want to be loved.
Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
reported that the Fellowship has often been criticized by conservative and fundamentalist Christian groups for being too inclusive and not putting enough emphasis on doctrine or church attendance. NPR has reported that the evangelical group's views on religion and politics are so singular that some other Christian-right organizations consider them heretical.
David Kuo, staffer in President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, who has been affiliated with the Fellowship since college, said of the Fellowship:
For all the hysteria about Christian organizations, the irony that the Fellowship is being targeted as a bad egg is jaw-dropping. This is so not Focus on the FamilyFocus on the FamilyFocus on the Family is an American evangelical Christian tax-exempt non-profit organization founded in 1977 by psychologist James Dobson, and is based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Focus on the Family is one of a number of evangelical parachurch organizations that rose to prominence in the 1980s...
, this is so not the Christian Coalition. There are other Christian groups that are truly insane. Who purport to follow Jesus Christ and who I would submit do not. The Fellowship is a loosely banded group of people who have an affinity for Jesus.
Current Fellowship prayer group member and former U.S. Representative Tony P. Hall
Tony P. Hall
Tony Patrick Hall is an American politician who served as a Democrat from Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than 20 years....
(D-OH) said, "If people in this country knew how many Democrats and Republicans pray together and actually like each other behind closed doors, they would be amazed." The Fellowship is simply, "men and women who are trying to get right with God. Trying to follow God, learn how to love him, and learn how to love each other." When he lost his teenage son to leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
, Hall says, "This family helped me. This family was there for me. That's what they do."
Hillary Clinton described meeting the leader of the Fellowship in 1993: “Doug Coe, the longtime National Prayer Breakfast organizer, is a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship to God.”
Journalist Jeff Sharlet did intensive research in the Fellowship's archives, before they were closed to the public. He also spent a month in 2002 living in a Fellowship house near Washington, and wrote a magazine article describing his experiences. In his 2008 book about the Family, he criticized their theology as an "elite fundamentalism" that fetishizes political power and wealth, consistently opposes labor movements in the U.S. and abroad, and teaches that laissez-faire
Laissez-faire
In economics, laissez-faire describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies....
economic policy is "God's will." He criticized their theology of instant forgiveness for powerful men as providing a convenient excuse for elites who commit misdeeds or crimes, allowing them to avoid accepting responsibility or accountability for their actions.
Sharlet's book was endorsed by several commentators, including Frank Schaeffer
Frank Schaeffer
Frank Schaeffer is an American author, film director, screenwriter and public speaker. He is the son of the late theologian and author Francis Schaeffer...
, once a leading figure of the Christian right, who called Sharlet's book a "must read ... disturbing tour de force," and Brian McLaren
Brian McLaren
Brian D. McLaren is a prominent, controversial evangelical pastor. He was recognized as one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" in 2005, and is the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland.-Biography:Born in 1956, Brian McLaren...
, one of Times "25 most influential evangelicals" in the U.S., who said: “Jeff Sharlet [is] a confessed non-evangelical whom top evangelical organizations might be wise to hire—and quick—as a consultant." Lisa Miller, who writes a column on religion at Newsweek, called his book "alarmist" and says it paints a "creepy, even cultish picture" of the young, lower-ranking members of the Fellowship.
Leadership model
Jeff Sharlet and Andrea MitchellAndrea Mitchell
Andrea Mitchell is an American television journalist, anchor, reporter, and commentator for NBC News based in Washington, D.C.. She is the NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, and has recently reported on the 2008 Race for the White House for NBC News broadcasts, including NBC Nightly...
have described Fellowship leader Doug Coe
Douglas Coe
Douglas Evans Coe is associate director of the Christian organization the Fellowship . He has also been referred to as the "stealth Billy Graham." In 2005, Coe was named one of the 25 most influential Evangelicals in the United States by Time magazine...
as preaching a leadership model and a personal commitment to Jesus Christ comparable to the blind devotion that Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
, and Pol Pot
Pol Pot
Saloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....
demanded from their followers. In one videotaped lecture series in 1989, Coe said:
Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler were three men. Think of the immense power these three men had.... But they bound themselves together in an agreement.... Two years before they moved into Poland, these three men had... systematically a plan drawn out... to annihilate the entire Polish population and destroy by numbers every single house... every single building in Warsaw and then to start on the rest of Poland." Coe adds that it worked; they killed six and a half million "Polish people." Though he calls Nazis "these enemies of ours," he compares their commitment to Jesus' demands: "Jesus said, ‘You have to put me before other people. And you have to put me before yourself.' Hitler, that was the demand to be in the Nazi party. You have to put the Nazi party and its objectives ahead of your own life and ahead of other people.
Coe also compared Jesus's teachings to the Red Guard
Red Guards (China)
Red Guards were a mass movement of civilians, mostly students and other young people in the People's Republic of China , who were mobilized by Mao Zedong in 1966 and 1967, during the Cultural Revolution.-Origins:...
during the Chinese Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
:
I’ve seen pictures of young men in the Red Guard of China... they would bring in this young man’s mother and father, lay her on the table with a basket on the end, he would take an axe and cut her head off.... They have to put the purposes of the Red Guard ahead of the mother-father-brother-sister -- their own life! That was a covenant. A pledge. That was what Jesus said.
NBC News also reported that David Kuo stated that comparisons such as these are taken out of context and aren't representative of the picture Douglas Coe was trying to paint:
Kuo says Doug Coe wasn’t lauding Hitler's actions.
“What Doug is saying, it’s a metaphor. He is using Hitler as a metaphor. Jesus used met....” Kuo said. For what? “Commitment,” Kuo answered.
[A] close friend of Coe told NBC News that he invokes Hitler to show the power of small groups—for good and bad. And, the friend said, most of the time he talks about Jesus."
Jeff Sharlet, in contrast, told NBC News that when he was an intern with the Fellowship "we were being taught the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin and Mao" and that Hitler's genocide "wasn't an issue for them, it was the strength that he emulated."
Secrecy
In a report on the Fellowship, the LA Times found:[Fellowship members] share a vow of silence about Fellowship activities. Coe and others cite biblical admonitions against public displays of good works, insisting they would not be able to tackle their diplomatically sensitive missions if they drew public attention. Members, including congressmen, invoke this secrecy rule when refusing to discuss just about every aspect of the Fellowship and their involvement in it."
The Fellowship has long been a secretive organization. The Reverend Rob Schenck, who leads a Bible study on the Hill inspired by C Street, wrote that “all ministries in Washington need to protect the confidence of those we minister to, and I'm sure that’s a primary motive for C Street's low profile.” But he added, “I think The Fellowship has been just a tad bit too clandestine.”
Prominent political figures have insisted that confidentiality and privacy are essential to the Fellowship's operation. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
said about the Fellowship, "I wish I could say more about it, but it's working precisely because it is private."
At the 1990 National Prayer Breakfast, President George H.W. Bush praised Doug Coe for what he described as “quiet diplomacy, I wouldn’t say secret diplomacy.”
In 2009, Chris Halverson, son of Fellowship co-founder Richard C. Halverson
Richard C. Halverson
The Reverend Richard Christian Halverson, D.D., , was born in Pingree, North Dakota. He attended Valley City State Teacher College in Valley City, North Dakota, before earning a Bachelor of Science degree from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, in 1939, participating in the Wheaton College Men's...
, said that a culture of pastoral confidentialty is essential to the ministry: "If you talked about it, you would destroy that fellowship."
In 1975, a member of the Fellowship's inner circle wrote to the group's chief South African operative, that their political initiatives
...have always been misunderstood by 'outsiders.' As a result of very bitter experiences, therefore, we have learned never to commit to paper any discussions or negotiations that are taking place. There is no such thing as a 'confidential' memorandum, and leakage always seems to occur. Thus, I would urge you not to put on paper anything relating to any of the work that you are doing...[unless] you know the recipient well enough to put at the top of the page 'PLEASE DESTROY AFTER READING.'
In 1974, after several Watergate conspirators had joined the Fellowship, a Los Angeles Times columnist discouraged further inquiries into Washington's "underground prayer movement", i.e. the Fellowship: “They genuinely avoid publicity...they shun it.”
In 2002, Doug Coe denied that the Fellowship Foundation owns the National Prayer Breakfast. Jennifer Thornett, a Fellowship employee, said that "there is no such thing as the Fellowship".
Former Republican Senator Willliam Armstrong
William L. Armstrong
William Lester "Bill" Armstrong is an American businessman and politician. He is member of the Republican party and was a United States Representative and Senator from Colorado. Armstrong was born in Fremont, Nebraska...
said the group has “made a fetish of being invisible”.
In the 1960s, the Fellowship began distributing to involved members of Congress notes that stated that “the group, as such, never takes any formal action, but individuals who participate in the group through their initiative have made possible the activities mentioned.”
On January 5, 2010, Fellowship member Bob Hunter gave an interview on national television in which he stated:
But I do agree with you, that The Fellowship is too secret. We don't have a Web site. We don't have – we have a lot of good ministers, 200 ministers doing good works that nobody knows about. I think that's wrong, and there's a debate going on among a lot of people about whether and how we should change that.
The Fellowship maintains no public website and conducts no public fundraising activities.
National Prayer Breakfast
Fellowship Foundation is best known for the National Prayer BreakfastNational Prayer Breakfast
The National Prayer Breakfast is a yearly event held in Washington, D.C., on the first Thursday of February each year. The founder of this event was Abraham Vereide...
, held each year on the first Thursday of February in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
First held in 1953, the event is now attended by over 3,400 guests including dignitaries from many nations. The President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
typically makes an address at the breakfast, following the main speaker's keynote address. The event is hosted by a 24-member committee of members of Congress. Democrats and Republicans serve on the organizing committee, and chairmanship alternates each year between the House and the Senate.
At the National Prayer Breakfast, the President usually arrives an hour early and meets with eight to ten heads of state, usually of small nations, and guests chosen by the Fellowship.
G. Philip Hughes
G. Philip Hughes
G. Philip Hughes is an American diplomat. He was Ambassador of the United States to Barbados, Dominica, St Lucia, Antigua, St. Vincent, and St. Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla from 1990 to 1993, under George H. W. Bush.-Biography:...
, the executive secretary for the National Security Council
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
in the George H.W. Bush administration, said, "Doug Coe or someone who worked with him would call and say, 'So and so would like to have a word with the president. Do you think you could arrange something?'"
However, Doug Coe has said that the Fellowship does not help foreign dignitaries gain access to U.S. officials. "We never make any commitment, ever, to arrange special meetings with the president, vice president or secretary of State," Coe said. "We would never do it."
At the 2001 Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearings for State Department officials, Sen. Bill Nelson
Bill Nelson
Clarence William "Bill" Nelson is the senior United States Senator from the state of Florida and a member of the Democratic Party. He is a former U.S. Representative and former Treasurer and Insurance Commissioner of Florida...
(D-FL), whose wife was on the board of the Fellowship, lamented that the State Department had blocked then-President Bush from meeting with four foreign heads of state (Rwanda, Macedonia, Congo and Slovakia) at the NPB that year.
Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) said of Nelson's complaint: "I'm not sure a head of state ought to be able to wander over here for the prayer breakfast and, in effect, compel the president of the United States to meet with him as a consequence.... Getting these meetings with the president is a process that's usually very carefully vetted and worked up. Now sort of this back door has sort of evolved."
“It [the NPB] totally circumvents the State Department and the usual vetting within the administration that such a meeting would require,” an anonymous government informant told sociologist D. Michael Lindsay
D. Michael Lindsay
David Michael Lindsay, is a scholar in sociology and the current president of Gordon College, a private, liberal arts college on Boston's North Shore. Prior to arriving at Gordon, Lindsay was on faculty for five years at Rice University and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy...
. “If Doug Coe can get you some face time with the President of the United States, then you will take his call and seek his friendship. That’s power.”
| Year | Keynote Speaker | Chairpersons |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | King Abdullah II of Jordan Abdullah II of Jordan Abdullah II ibn al-Hussein is the reigning King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He ascended the throne on 7 February 1999 after the death of his father King Hussein. King Abdullah, whose mother is Princess Muna al-Hussein, is a member of the Hashemite family... and humanitarian/musician Paul Hewson (Bono Bono Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his... ) |
Senators Norm Coleman Norm Coleman Norman Bertram Coleman, Jr. is an American attorney and politician. He was a United States senator from Minnesota from 2003 to 2009. Coleman was elected in 2002 and served in the 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses. Before becoming a senator, he was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, from 1994 to 2002... (R-MN) and Mark Pryor Mark Pryor Mark Lunsford Pryor is the senior United States Senator from Arkansas, serving since 2003. He is a member of the Democratic Party and former Attorney General of Arkansas.... (D-AR) |
| 2007 | Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Human Genome Project Human Genome Project The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional... |
Reps. Emanuel Cleaver Emanuel Cleaver Emanuel Cleaver II is a United Methodist pastor and the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2005. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and in January 2010 became chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.... II (D-MO) and Jo Ann Davis Jo Ann Davis Jo Ann Davis was a Representative in the U.S. Congress. A member of the Republican Party from the United States Commonwealth of Virginia, she represented the state's from 2001 until her death in 2007. She was the second woman—after Leslie L... (R-VA) |
| 2008 | Edward Brehm, Chairman of the United States African Development Foundation African Development Foundation The United States African Development Foundation is an "Independent United States Government Agency" which provides grants of up to $250,000 to community groups and small enterprises that benefit under served and marginalized groups in Sub-Saharan Africa... |
Senators Ken Salazar Ken Salazar Kenneth Lee "Ken" Salazar is the current United States Secretary of the Interior, in the administration of President Barack Obama. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a United States Senator from Colorado from 2005 to 2009. He and Mel Martinez were the first Hispanic U.S... (D-CO) and Mike Enzi Mike Enzi Michael Bradley "Mike" Enzi is the senior U.S. Senator from Wyoming and a member of the Republican Party.Raised in Thermopolis, Wyoming, Enzi attended George Washington University and the University of Denver. He expanded his father's shoe store business in Gillette before being elected mayor of... (R-WY) |
| 2009 | Former Prime Minister Tony Blair Tony Blair Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007... |
Reps. Heath Shuler Heath Shuler Joseph Heath Shuler is a businessman, a former NFL quarterback, and the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party.... (D-NC) and Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) |
| 2010 | Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party . He was elected for two terms as Prime Minister of Spain, in the 2004 and 2008 general elections. On 2 April 2011 he announced he will not stand for re-election in 2012... and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton |
Senators Johnny Isakson Johnny Isakson John Hardy "Johnny" Isakson is the junior United States Senator from Georgia and a member of the Republican Party. Previously, he represented in the House.... (R-GA) and Amy Klobuchar Amy Klobuchar Amy Jean Klobuchar is the senior United States Senator from Minnesota. She is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, an affiliate of the Democratic Party... (D-MN) |
| 2011 | Screenwriter Randall Wallace Randall Wallace Randall Wallace is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and songwriter who came to prominence by writing the screenplay for the 1995 film Braveheart. His work on the film earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay and a Writers Guild of America award for Best... |
Rep. Jeff Miller Jeff Miller Jefferson B. "Jeff" Miller is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2001. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district includes all of Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Holmes, and Washington Counties.... (R-FL) and former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick Ann Kirkpatrick Ann Kirkpatrick is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 2009 until 2011. She is a member of the Democratic Party. She earlier served in the Arizona House of Representatives. She was defeated by Republican Paul Gosar in the 2010 election... (D-AZ) |
Prayer Breakfast movement
A primary activity of the Fellowship is to develop small support groups for politicians, including Senators and members of Congress, Executive Branch officials, military officers, foreign leaders and dignitaries, businesspersons, and other influential individuals. Prayer groups have met in the White HouseWhite House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
and at the Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
. By the early 1970s, prayer groups, breakfasts, and luncheons, including those sponsored by ICL, had become commonplace in the Pentagon.
J. Edwin Orr
J. Edwin Orr
James Edwin Orr was a Baptist minister, lecturer and author.At the time of his death, J. Edwin Orr was professor emeritus of the history of awakenings at Fuller Theological Seminary's School of World Missions. He had been born in the North of Ireland of American-British parentage. He had a Ph....
, an advisor to Billy Graham and friend of Abraham Vereide, helped shape the prayer breakfast movement that grew out of ICL.
Role in international conflicts
The Fellowship was a behind-the-scenes player at the Camp David Middle East accords in 1978, working with President Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
to issue a worldwide call to prayer with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat
Anwar Sadat
Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981...
.
President Carter hosted former Senator Harold E. Hughes, the President of the Fellowship Foundation, and Doug Coe, for a luncheon at the White House on September 26, 1978. Six weeks later, President Carter and the First Lady traveled by Marine helicopter to Cedar Point Farm, Hughes' home on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where he placed a telephone call to Menachim Begin.
The author Jeff Sharlet has criticized the fellowship's influence on US foreign policy. He argues that Doug Coe and the "networking" (or formation of prayer cells) between foreign dictators and US politicians, defense contractors, and industry leaders has facilitated military aid for repressive foreign regimes. Sharlet did intensive research at the Billy Graham Center
Billy Graham Center
The Billy Graham Center was founded and opened in 1981 on the campus of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Named after Billy Graham, the center is the primary location for many of Wheaton College's bible and theology classes, as well as the graduate school's main headquarters, and host to...
, before the Fellowship Foundation archives were closed to those other than divinity scholars. Sharlet published a book about the history of the groups and their influence on US domestic and foreign policy from the 1920s to the present. Sharlet in particular details the relationship with General Suharto of Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
in the 1970s, and with Siad Barre
Siad Barre
Mohamed Siad Barre was the military dictator and President of the Somali Democratic Republic from 1969 to 1991. During his rule, he styled himself as Jaalle Siyaad ....
of Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
in the 1980s. Also, in the archives, there are at least two nearly full boxes of documents describing the relationship with Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
's long dictatorship of the Generals.
Regarding his relationships with foreign dictators, Coe said in 2007, “I never invite them. They come to me. And I do what Jesus did: I don’t turn my back to any one. You know, the Bible is full of mass murderers.”
Private diplomacy
The Los Angeles Times examined the Fellowship Foundation's ministry records and archives (before they were sealed), as well as documents obtained from several presidential libraries and found that the Fellowship Foundation had extraordinary access and significant influence over U.S. foreign affairs for the last 75 years.The Fellowship has funded the travel expenses of members of Congress to various hot spots throughout the globe, including Rep. Robert Aderholt
Robert Aderholt
Robert Brown Aderholt is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1997. He is a member of the Republican Party.The district includes most of the far northern suburbs of Birmingham, as well as the southern suburbs of Huntsville and Decatur.- Early life, education and career :Aderholt was born in...
(R-Al.) to Darfur
War in Darfur
The Darfur Conflict was a guerrilla conflict or civil war centered on the Darfur region of Sudan. It began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and Justice and Equality Movement groups in Darfur took up arms, accusing the Sudanese government of oppressing non-Arab Sudanese in...
, Sen. Tom Coburn
Tom Coburn
Thomas Allen "Tom" Coburn, M.D. , is an American politician, medical doctor, and Southern Baptist deacon. A member of the Republican Party, he currently serves as the junior U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. In the Senate, he is known as "Dr. No" for his tendency to place holds on and vote against bills...
(R-Ok.) to Lebanon, Rep. Aderholt to The Balkans, and Reps John Carter (R-Tex.) and Joseph Pitts (R.-Pa.) to Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
.
In 2002, Reps. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), Tony P. Hall
Tony P. Hall
Tony Patrick Hall is an American politician who served as a Democrat from Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than 20 years....
(D-Ohio) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) traveled to Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
on a fact-finding congressional trip, meeting with the leaders of both Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
countries. According to Pitts, "The first thing we did when we met with [Afghan] President Karzai
Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai, GCMG is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking office on 7 December 2004. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001...
and [then Pakistan] President Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...
was to say, 'We're here officially representing the Congress; we'll report back to the speaker, our leaders, our committees, our government. But we're here also because we're best friends.... We're members of the same prayer group'".
Doug Coe has been dispatched to foreign governments with the blessing of Congressional representatives and has helped arrange meetings overseas for U.S. officials and members of Congress. In 1979, for instance, Coe messaged the Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
n Minister of Commerce and asked him to meet with a Defense Department official who was visiting Riyadh
Riyadh
Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of Riyadh Province, and belongs to the historical regions of Najd and Al-Yamama. It is situated in the center of the Arabian Peninsula on a large plateau, and is home to 5,254,560 people, and the urban center of a...
, the capital.
The Fellowship has brought controversial international figures to Washington to meet with U.S. officials. Among them are former Salvadoran Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova
Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova
Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova was head of the Salvadoran national guard and later defense minister. He was sued in the federal civil court of Miami, Florida in the United States in two precedent-setting cases. The cases are referred to by the surname of his co-defendant, José Guillermo García:*...
, who in 2002 was found liable by a civil jury in Florida for the torture of thousands of civilians in the 1980s. He was invited to the 1984 prayer breakfast, along with Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, then head of the Honduran armed forces who was linked to a death squad and the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
.
Coe was quoted in a rare interview regarding the Fellowship's associations with despots as explaining, "The people that are involved in this association of people around the world are the worst and the best, some are total despots. Some are totally religious. You can find what you want to find."
Coe also has claimed that the Fellowship does not help foreign dignitaries gain access to U.S. officials. "We never make any commitment, ever, to arrange special meetings with the president, vice president or secretary of State", Coe said. "We would never do it". The LA Times found that "the archives tell another story”.
In January 1991, Fellowship associate and financial supporter Michael Timmis met President Pierre Buyoya
Pierre Buyoya
Major Pierre Buyoya is a Burundian politician who has ruled Burundi twice, from 1987 to 1993 and from 1996 to 2003...
of Burundi
Burundi
Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura...
on behalf of the Fellowship, then flew to Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
with Arthur (Gene) Dewey, the former second-in-command at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Sam Owen, then living in Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
. Timmis wrote that he had obtained permission to fly over Tanzanian air space, even though the U.S. Department of State had ordered American citizens to stay clear of Tanzania.
The Fellowship has promoted reconciliation between the warring leaders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...
, Burundi
Burundi
Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura...
, and Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
. In 2001, the Fellowship helped arrange a secret meeting at The Cedars between Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila
Joseph Kabila
Joseph Kabila Kabange is a Congolese politician who has been President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since January 2001. He took office ten days after the assassination of his father, President Laurent-Désiré Kabila...
and Rwandan President Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame is the sixth and current President of the Republic of Rwanda. He rose to prominence as the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front , whose victory over the incumbent government in July 1994 effectively ended the Rwandan genocide...
— one of the first discreet meetings between the two African leaders that led to a peace accord in July 2002.
In 1994 at the National Prayer Breakfast, the Fellowship helped to persuade South African Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi not to engage in a civil war with Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
.
According to Jeff Sharlet, Senator Sam Brownback
Sam Brownback
Samuel Dale "Sam" Brownback is the 46th and current Governor of Kansas. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1996 to 2011, and as a U.S. Representative for Kansas's 2nd congressional district from 1995 to 1996...
(R.-Kan.) is a Fellowship member who leads a secret "cell" of leading U.S. Senators and Representatives to influence U.S. foreign policy. Sharlet reports that the group has stamped much of U.S. foreign policy through a group of Senators and affiliated religious organizations forming the "Values Action Team" or "VAT". One victory for the group was Brownback's North Korea Human Rights Act, which establishes a confrontational stance toward North Korea and shifts funds for humanitarian aid from the UN to Christian organizations.
The Fellowship is behind an international project called Youth Corps, a network of Christian youth groups that attract teenagers, and only later steer them to Jesus. The Youth Corps web site does not mention an affiliation to the Fellowship or religion. A non-public, internal Fellowship document, “Regional Reports, January 3, 2002,” lists some of the nations where Youth Corps programs are in operation: Russia; Ukraine; Romania; India; Pakistan; Uganda; Nepal; Bhutan; Ecuador; Honduras and Peru.
Fellowship funds have gone to an orphanage in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, a program in Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
that provides schooling, and a development group in Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
.
The Fellowship and Uganda
The Fellowship, through Representative Joe Pitts (R.-Pa.), redirected millions in US aid to Uganda from sex educationSex education
Sex education refers to formal programs of instruction on a wide range of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, reproductive health, emotional relations, reproductive rights and responsibilities, abstinence, contraception, and...
programs to abstinence programs, thereby causing an evangelical revival, which included condom burnings.
In a November 2009 NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
interview, Sharlet alleged that Ugandan Fellowship associates David Bahati
David Bahati
David Bahati is a Ugandan politician and MP in the Ugandan parliament. He is the MP for the constituency of Ndorwa West and is a member of the National Resistance Movement, the ruling party of Uganda...
and Nsaba Buturo were behind the recent proposed bill
Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill is a legislative proposal that would broaden the criminalisation of same-sex relations by dividing homosexual behavior into two categories: "aggravated homosexuality", in which an offender would receive the death penalty, or "the offense of homosexuality" in which...
in Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
that called for the death penalty for gays.
Sharlet reveals that David Bahati, the Uganda legislator backing the bill, reportedly first floated the idea of executing gays during The Family's Uganda National Prayer Breakfast in 2008. Sharlet described Bahati as a "rising star" in the Fellowship who has attended the National Prayer Breakfast in the United States and, until the news over the gay execution law broke, was scheduled to attend the 2010 U.S. National Prayer Breakfast.
Fellowship member Bob Hunter gave an interview to NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
in December 2009 in which he acknowledged Bahati's connection but argued that no American associates support the bill.
President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, in his address to the Fellowship at their National Prayer Breakfast in early 2010, directly criticized the Uganda legislation targeting gay people for execution. In calling for a renewed emphasis on faith and civility, Obama stated, "We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
s for who they are — whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary [Clinton] mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda."
Relationships with other organizations
The Fellowship Foundation is linked to numerous other organizations:- Wilberforce Foundation IRS Form 990 filings confirm that Wilberforce is related to and shares common management with the Fellowship Foundation.
- Traditional Values CoalitionTraditional Values CoalitionThe Traditional Values Coalition is a conservative Christian organization that represents, by its estimate, over 43,000 Christian churches throughout the United States of America...
. Uses the C Street Center for “faith-based diplomacy” in the fight against what Louis P. Sheldon calls the “Marxist/Leftist/Homosexual/Islamic coalition.” - Three Swallows Foundation
- International Center for Religion & DiplomacyInternational Center for Religion & DiplomacyThe International Center for Religion & Diplomacy is a non-profit organization located in Washington, DC. Its mission statement reads: "The mission of ICRD is to address identity-based conflicts that exceed the reach of traditional diplomacy by incorporating religion as part of the solution."The...
- Young Life InternationalYoung LifeYoungLife is a worldwide, non-profit, Evangelical Christian organization. YoungLife consists of many branches of ministry , but most commonly the name "YoungLife" refers to the outreach arm of the organization directed toward high school students...
- Trees for the Future
- National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise
- Cornerstone Development
- World ConcernWorld ConcernWorld Concern is a Christian humanitarian organization that operates relief and development programsin 13 countries, and funds partnership programs in nine other countries. The organization’s mission...
- Project MercyProject MercyProject Mercy, Inc. is a Christian, non profit organization located in Yetebon, Ethiopia, founded in 1977 by Marta Gabre-Tsadick and Deme Tekle-Wold...
- Timothy Trust
- Associación Desarrollo en Democracia
- World VisionWorld VisionWorld Vision, founded in the USA in 1950, is an evangelical relief and development organization whose stated goal is "to follow our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of...
International roots
Sir Vivian Gabriel, a British Air Commission attaché in Washington during World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, established a branch of the Family (International Christian Leadership Association) in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Ernest Williams, a member of the directing staff of the British Admiralty and a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
’s Commission on Evangelism, served as its president in the 1960s. Williams worked closely with Harald Bredesen, a British intelligence operative who went on to personally mentor Rev. Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson
Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....
in the United States.
Current and former members
Fellowship involvement in extra-marital affairs of politician members
In 2009, the Fellowship received media attention in connection with three Republicans politician members who reportedly engaged in extra-marital affairs. Two of them, Senator John EnsignJohn Ensign
John Eric Ensign is a former United States Senator from Nevada, serving from January 2001 until he resigned amid an investigation of an ethics violation in May 2011...
, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee in the Senate and the fourth ranking in his party’s Senate leadership, and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford
Mark Sanford
Marshall Clement "Mark" Sanford Jr. is an American politician from South Carolina, who was the 115th Governor of South Carolina from 2003 to 2011....
, immediate past Chair of the Republican Governors Association and U.S. Representative from 1995–2001, were considering running for President in 2012. The affairs of Ensign and then-Congressman Chip Pickering
Chip Pickering
"Charles Willis Pickering" redirects here. For this former congressman's father, see Charles W. Pickering.Charles Willis "Chip" Pickering, Jr. is a politician in the U.S. state of Mississippi. He represented as a Republican in the United States House of Representatives...
, R-Miss., took place while they were living at the C Street Center.
Role in the affair of John Ensign
Ensign, a Fellowship member and longtime resident of the C Street Center, admitted in June 2009 to an extra-marital affair with Cindy Hampton, his campaign treasurer and the wife of his co-chief of staff, longtime friend and fellow worshipper Doug Hampton.The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
reported that the C Street "house pulsed with backstage intrigue, in the days and months before the Sanford and Ensign scandals" and that residents tried to talk each politician into ending his philandering, escalating into an emotional meeting to discuss "forgiveness" between Hampton, the husband of Ensign's mistress, and Senator Tom Coburn
Tom Coburn
Thomas Allen "Tom" Coburn, M.D. , is an American politician, medical doctor, and Southern Baptist deacon. A member of the Republican Party, he currently serves as the junior U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. In the Senate, he is known as "Dr. No" for his tendency to place holds on and vote against bills...
.
Hampton said he was not directly advised by the Fellowship to cover up Ensign's affair with his wife, but instead to "be cool". Hampton said they felt they needed a more powerful voice to confront Ensign, and reached out to Coburn, a C Street resident. After initially denying it, Coburn admitted that he tried to broker a settlement between Hampton and Ensign that would have prevented Ensign's affair with Cindy Hampton and his dealings with Doug Hampton from being exacerbated in TV talk shows.
Coburn, with Timothy and David Coe, leaders of the Fellowship, attempted to intervene to end Ensign's affair in February 2008 by meeting with Hampton and convincing Ensign to write a letter to Hampton's wife breaking off the affair. Ensign was chaperoned by Coburn and other members from C Street, where Ensign lives with Coburn, to a Federal Express office to post the letter. Ensign called Hampton's wife hours later to tell her to ignore the letter and flew out to spend the weekend with her in Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
.
In connection with the affair, Ensign reportedly engaged in conduct which, if true, would amount to felonies, according to Melanie Sloan
Melanie Sloan
Melanie Sloan is the Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit government watchdog group.-Early Life and Family:...
, executive director of the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is a nonprofit 501 organization that describes itself as "dedicated to promoting ethics and accountability in government and public life by targeting government officials – regardless of party affiliation – who sacrifice the common good to...
. The reported misconduct includes a $96,000 payment from Ensign's parents which Hampton claims was an unreported severance payment for the termination of his position as co-chief of staff for Ensign; Hampton receiving a job as a lobbyist allegedly at Ensign's behest; Ensign allegedly helping Hampton in his role as a lobbyist to lobby the Senator in violation of a one year lobbying ban on ex-Senate staffers; and Hampton's additional charge that Ensign sexually harassed
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment, is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment is illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and...
his wife. The Senate Ethics Committee and the Department of Justice are investigating the charges related to illegal lobbying and subpoenas have been issued. Intimacy between government employees is reassessed as it affects the dignity of the environment.
Hampton said he feels his friends at C Street have abandoned him by choosing to close ranks around Ensign, and that for them the episode "is about preserving John [Ensign], preserving the Republican party, this is about preserving C Street."
Role in affair of Mark Sanford
South Carolina Governor Mark SanfordMark Sanford
Marshall Clement "Mark" Sanford Jr. is an American politician from South Carolina, who was the 115th Governor of South Carolina from 2003 to 2011....
, who served as a Congressman from 1995 to 2001, admitted in June 2009 to having an extramarital affair and said that during the months prior to news breaking he had sought counseling at the C Street Center.
Sanford’s affair was revealed when, during his last secret trip to Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
in June 2009, he left no contact information and told his staff that he was hiking the Appalachian trail
Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian National Scenic Trail, generally known as the Appalachian Trail or simply the AT, is a marked hiking trail in the eastern United States extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. It is approximately long...
.
When asked during a press conference if his wife and family knew about his affair before his last trip to Argentina, Sanford said, “Yes. We've been working through this thing for about the last five months. I've been to a lot of different — as part of what we called "C Street" when I was in Washington. It was, believe it or not, a Christian Bible study
Bible study (Christian)
In Christianity, Bible study is the study of the Bible by ordinary people as a personal religious or spiritual practice. Some denominations may call this devotion or devotional acts; however in other denominations devotion has other meanings...
— some folks that asked members of Congress hard questions that I think were very, very important. And I've been working with them.”
Sanford "was a frequent visitor to the home for prayer meetings and meals during his time in Congress".
Pickering case
Chip PickeringChip Pickering
"Charles Willis Pickering" redirects here. For this former congressman's father, see Charles W. Pickering.Charles Willis "Chip" Pickering, Jr. is a politician in the U.S. state of Mississippi. He represented as a Republican in the United States House of Representatives...
was a U.S. Reprentative from Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
from 1997 through 2008. In 2009, his wife filed suit against Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd, his former college sweetheart and alleged mistress. Mrs. Pickering alleged that her husband restarted his relationship with Byrd while he was "a United States congressman prior to and while living in the well-known C Street Complex in Washington, D.C."
C Street Center
The Fellowship runs a $1.8 million three story brick mansion in Washington D.C. known as "C Street." It is the former convent for nearby St. Peter's Church. It is located a short distance from the United States CapitolUnited States Capitol
The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...
. The structure has 12 bedrooms, nine bathrooms, five living rooms, four dining rooms, three offices, a kitchen, and a small "chapel".
The facility houses mostly Republican members of Congress. The house is also the locale for:
- Wednesday prayer breakfasts for United States Senators, which have been attended by Senators Sam BrownbackSam BrownbackSamuel Dale "Sam" Brownback is the 46th and current Governor of Kansas. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1996 to 2011, and as a U.S. Representative for Kansas's 2nd congressional district from 1995 to 1996...
, Tom CoburnTom CoburnThomas Allen "Tom" Coburn, M.D. , is an American politician, medical doctor, and Southern Baptist deacon. A member of the Republican Party, he currently serves as the junior U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. In the Senate, he is known as "Dr. No" for his tendency to place holds on and vote against bills...
, James Inhofe, John EnsignJohn EnsignJohn Eric Ensign is a former United States Senator from Nevada, serving from January 2001 until he resigned amid an investigation of an ethics violation in May 2011...
, Susan CollinsSusan CollinsSusan Margaret Collins is the junior United States Senator from Maine and a member of the Republican Party. First elected to the Senate in 1996, she is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs...
and Hillary Clinton.
- Tuesday night dinners for members of Congress and other Fellowship associates.
- An annual Ambassador Luncheon. The 2006 event was attended by ambassadors from TurkeyTurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, MacedoniaRepublic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, PakistanPakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, JordanJordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, AlgeriaAlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
, ArmeniaArmeniaArmenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
, EgyptEgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, BelarusBelarusBelarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
, MongoliaMongoliaMongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
, LatviaLatviaLatvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, and MoldovaMoldovaMoldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
.
- Receptions for foreign dignitaries, including the Prime Minister of AustraliaPrime Minister of AustraliaThe Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
.
C Street has been the subject of controversy over its claimed tax status as a church, the ownership of the property and its connection to the Fellowship, and the reportedly subsidized benefits the facility provides to members of Congress.
Arlington
Fellowship Foundation purchased a large old house in 1978, named the Doubleday Mansion. The home which also has a detached two story garage and a gardener's cottage, is zoned as a worship and teaching center. The home is used as a center for Bible studies, counseling, hymn sings, life mentoring, prayer groups, prayer breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, and hospitality receptions for international reconciliation and conflict resolution iniatives. The home was once surrounded by cedar trees and so was renamed Cedars. Its location is near Georgetown University in the Arlington Woodmont community. It is a historic landmark house and is situated adjacent to a commemorative recreational county park, once the homestead of writer C. F. Henry.Coe has described Cedars as a place "committed to the care of the underprivileged, even though it looks very wealthy." He noted that people might say, "Why don't you sell a chandelier and help poor people?" Answering his own question, Coe said, "The people who come here have tremendous influence over kids." Private documents indicate that Cedars was purchased so that "people throughout the world who carry heavy responsibilities could meet in Washington to think together, plan together and pray together about personal and public problems and opportunities." Cedars is host to dozens of prayer breakfasts, luncheons and dinners for ambassadors, congressional representatives, foreign religious leaders and many others.
In March 1990, YWAM (which also previously owned the C Street Center) purchased a nearby property located at 2200 24th Street North for $580,000. The property, was used as another gathering place for bible study. Ownership of 2200 24th Street was transferred to the C Street Center on May 6, 1992, and again to the Fellowship Foundation on October 25, 2002. This house had been owned by Timothy Coe, who sold the property to his father, Douglas Coe on November 30, 1989, for $580,000.
A second property, located at 2224 24th Street North and assessed at $916,000, is used as a men's mentoring ministry, known as a Navigator house. This property was purchased by Jerome A. Lewis and Co. in 1986, and sold to the Wilberforce Foundation in 1987. In 2007, the Wilberforce Foundation transferred it to the Fellowship Foundation for $1 million. Jerome A. Lewis is a trustee emeritus of the Trinity Forum and the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Petro-Lewis Corporation.
Douglas Coe once owned a lot at 2560 North 23rd Road, which he sold to Ohio Congressman Tony P. Hall
Tony P. Hall
Tony Patrick Hall is an American politician who served as a Democrat from Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than 20 years....
(D-OH) and his wife on September 22, 1987, for $100,000. Upon leaving Congress in 2002, Hall donated some of his excess campaign funds including $20,000 to the Fellowship Foundation on September 4, 2002, $1,500 to the Wilberforce Foundation, and $1,000 to the Jonathan Coe Memorial of Annapolis, Maryland during the 2001 campaign cycle.
The residence located at 2244 24th Street North, assessed at $1,458,800, is owned by Merle Morgan, whose wife, Edita, is on the board of the Cedars. It also is identified as the offices of the greeting card firm of Morgan Bros. Corp. (d/b/a Capitol Publishing). Missionary Fred Heyn and his wife owned 2206 24th Street North.
LeRoy Rooker
LeRoy Rooker
LeRoy Rooker is the director of the United States Department of Education's Family Policy Compliance Office , since 1988. The FPCO primarily oversees implementation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment.In that capacity, he administers the...
, the one-time treasurer of Cedars and former Director of the Family Policy Compliance Office at the U.S. Department of Education, and his wife own 2222 24th Street North.
Arthur W. Lindsley, a Senior Fellow at the C.S. Lewis Institute
C.S. Lewis Institute
The C.S. Lewis Institute is an organization founded in 1976. According to their website, their mission statement is "to develop disciples who will articulate, defend, and live their faith in Christ in personal and public life."...
owns 2226 24th Street North.
Cedar Point Farm
According to White House records dating from 1978, President Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
traveled to Cedar Point Farm by Marine helicopter on November 12, 1978, to attend a Fellowship prayer and discussion group. President Carter placed a call to Menachim Begin while at Cedar Point Farm. The White House records reflect that Cedar Point Farm was owned by Harold Hughes
Harold Hughes
Harold Everett Hughes was the 36th Governor of Iowa from 1963 until 1969; he had been a Republican earlier in his life. He also served as a Democratic United States Senator from 1969 until 1975.-Background:...
, a former Senator from Iowa and the President of the Fellowship Foundation. Cedar Point Farm was later used by the Wilberforce Foundation.
Other Fellowship properties
- "Southeast White House", located at 2909 Pennsylvania Avenue, Southeast, which is a center of urban reconciliation, youth mentoring, community prayer breakfasts, Bible studies, life principle teaching and racial relational healing initiatives. University students come for internships in urban reconciliation and in community service for the bereft. This property is assessed at $736,310 for 2009 tax year.
- "19th Street House," a two-story, brick apartment building located at 859 19th Street NE, in the Trinidad neighborhood of northeast Washington, D.C., which is assessed at $358,250 for the 2009 tax year. The 19th Street Center is used for afterschool activities.
- Mount Oak Estates, Annapolis, Maryland. One residential property, formerly owned by Timothy Coe, was sold to Wilberforce Foundation, Inc. for $1.1 million. A second residence is owned by David and Alden Coe and a third is owned by Fellowship associate Marty Sherman. Another nearby property, 1701 Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard, was owned by the Fellowship Foundation.
- Until 1994, the Fellowship Foundation owned the aged French revival historic "Fellowship House", the former base of Vereide's ministry located at 2817 Woodland Drive in Washington, D.C., which was sold to the Ourisman Chevrolet family for $2.5 million and which was then fully architecturally and historically restored and preserved.
Finances
The Fellowship Foundation, which since 1935 has conducted no public fundraising programs, relies totally on private donation. In 2007, the group received nearly $16.8 million to support the 400 ministries. Among the Fellowship's key supporters are billionaire investor Paul N. Temple, a former executive of Esso (Exxon)Exxon
Exxon is a chain of gas stations as well as a brand of motor fuel and related products by ExxonMobil. From 1972 to 1999, Exxon was the corporate name of the company previously known as Standard Oil Company of New Jersey or Jersey Standard....
and the founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Three Swallows Foundation. Between 1998 and 2007, Three Swallows made grants totaling $1,777,650 to the International Foundation, including
$171,500 in 2004, $203,500 in 2005, and $145,500 in 2006.
Another supporter, Jerome (Jerry) A. Lewis, established Denver-based Downing Street Foundation to provide support to three organizations: the Fellowship Foundation, Denver Leadership Foundation, and Young Life
Young Life
YoungLife is a worldwide, non-profit, Evangelical Christian organization. YoungLife consists of many branches of ministry , but most commonly the name "YoungLife" refers to the outreach arm of the organization directed toward high school students...
. Between 1999 and 2007, Downing Street donated at least $756,000 to the Family, in addition to allowing the group to use its "retreat center."
Madelynn Winstead, a Downing Street director, was paid $21,600 by the Fellowship Foundation as managing director of the retreat center.
The Kingdom Fund (Kingdom Oil Christian Foundation t/a Twin Cities Christian Foundation) also provides support to the Family and World Vision
World Vision
World Vision, founded in the USA in 1950, is an evangelical relief and development organization whose stated goal is "to follow our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of...
.
The Fellowship Foundation earns more than $1,000,000 annually through its sponsorship of the National Prayer Breakfast.
External links
- The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power Audio and transcript on Democracy Now interview of Jeff SharletJeff SharletJeff Sharlet is an American journalist, bestselling author, and academic best known for writing about religious subcultures in the United States. He is a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone...
about the organization and international connections on August 12, 2009 - Republican Sex Scandal meets Spirituality on C Street by Lisa Lerer, PoliticoPolitico (newspaper)The Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage of Washington, D.C., includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, media and the Presidency...
, July 20, 2009