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Various information…
Political ties to a secretive religious group
By Andrea Mitchell and Jim Popkin, NBC News
For more than 50 years, the National Prayer Breakfast has been a Washingtoninstitution. Every president has attended the breakfast since Eisenhower, elbow-to-elbow with Democrats and Republicans alike. “I am really proud to carry onthat tradition,” President Bush said at this year’s breakfast. “The people in thisroom come from many different walks of faith. Yet we share one clear conviction:We believe that the Almighty hears our prayers -- and answers those who seekHim.”Besides the presidents and first ladies--Bill and Hillary Clinton attended in 1997--the one constant presence at the National Prayer Breakfast has been DouglasCoe. Although he’s not an ordained minister, the 79-year-old Coe is the mostimportant religious leader you've never seen or heard.But Doug Coe is well known to scores of senators in both parties--and manyfaiths--including Sam Brownback, Mike Enzi, Mark Pryor and Bill Nelson. Theygo to small weekly Senate prayer groups that Coe attends. Participants tell NBCNews that so have senators John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton,which those campaigns confirm.Senator Clinton’s participation is surprising to observers who have investigated
Coe’s group, called The Fellowship Foundation
, which critics have describedas a secretive organization populated mostly by conservative Republicans. “Ithink in part through her involvement with the Fellowship’s prayer group she wasable to meet with some of these Republican senators and get to know them on aone-on-one basis,” said Joshua Green, a Senior Editor at The Atlantic magazine.In her autobiography, “Living History,” Senator Clinton describes Coe as "agenuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party orfaith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.” She writes that“Doug became a source of strength and friendship" during her often-troubledWhite House years.Their relationship began in February 1993 with a prayer lunch at
The Cedars
,the Fellowship’s Virginia estate on the Potomac River. NBC News reviewed theFirst Lady’s official daily calendar, recently made public by the National Archives,and found other gatherings including a “Private Meeting” with Coe in her WestWing office on December 19, 1997, and a “Meet & Greet with Business Leaders”on Feb. 4, 1998. “Doug Coe introduces business leaders to the First Lady,” thecalendar states.
 
So who is Doug Coe? He shuns almost all interview requests, including ours. Butin hours of audiotape and videotape recordings obtained exclusively by NBCNews, he frequently preaches the gospel of Jesus to followers and supporters. Inone videotaped sermon from 1989, Coe provides this account of the atrocitiescommitted under Chairman Mao in Communist China: "I've seen pictures of theyoung men in the Red Guard…they would bring in this young man’s mother…hewould take an axe and cut her head off. They have to put the purposes of theRed Guard ahead of father, mother, brother sister and their own life. That was acovenant, a pledge. That's what Jesus said."In his preaching, Coe repeatedly urges a personal commitment to Jesus Christ.It’s a commitment Coe compares to the blind devotion that Adolph Hitlerdemanded from his followers -- a rhetorical technique that now is drawing sharpcriticism."Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler were three men. Think of the immense powerthese three men had, these nobodies from nowhere,” Coe said.Later in the sermon, Coe said: "Jesus said, ‘You have to put me before otherpeople. And you have to put me before yourself.' Hitler, that was the demand tobe in the Nazi party. You have to put the Nazi party and its objectives ahead ofyour own life and ahead of other people."Coe also quoted Jesus and said: “One of the things [Jesus] said is 'If any mancomes to me and does not hate his father, mother, brother, sister, his own life, hecan't be a disciple.’ So I don't care what other qualifications you have, if you don'tdo that you can't be a disciple of Christ."The sermons are little surprise to writer Jeff Sharlet. He lived among Coe'sfollowers six years ago, and came out troubled by their secrecy and rhetoric.“
We were being taught the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin and Mao
. AndI would say, ‘Isn’t there a problem with that?’ And they seemed perplexed by thequestion. Hitler’s genocide wasn’t really an issue for them. It was the strengththat he emulated,” said Sharlet, who is a Contributing Editor at Rolling Stone andis an Associate Research Scholar at the NYU Center for Religion and Media inNew York.Sharlet has now written about The Fellowship, also known to insiders as TheFamily, in a soon-to-be published book called “The Family: The SecretFundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.”“They’re notoriously secretive,” Sharlet said. “
In fact, they jokingly callthemselves the Christian Mafia
. Which becomes less of a joke when yourealize that they really are dedicated to being what they call an invisibleorganization.”Federal tax records for Coe's non-profit group shows it funds charitable programsaround the world -- but that it is also a family business.
 
The 990 tax forms for 2005, the last tax year available, show that both of Coe’ssons were on the payroll, at $110,000 a year each. The organization also paidhis wife, his daughter and his daughters-in-law.So how do Coe's admirers explain his unusual sermons? David Kuo, a formerBush Administration aide and religious-outreach official at the White House, saysThe Fellowship is a peaceful, faith-based group that does good worksinternationally. 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. Jesusused that,” Kuo said. A metaphor for what? “Commitment,” Kuo answered.Asked about Coe’s influence on Hillary Clinton, people close to her told NBCNews that she does not consider him one of her leading spiritual advisors. Theyadded that Senator Clinton has never contributed to Coe’s group, is not amember of The Fellowship and has never heard the sermons obtained by NBCNews. And, they said, Doug Coe is not Hillary Clinton’s minister.Coe declined repeated requests for an interview. But a close friend told NBCNews that
Doug Coe invokes Hitler only to show the power of small groups
 -- for good and bad. And, the friend said, Coe spends “99 percent” of his timeduring the sermons talking about the leadership model set by Jesus Christ.Supporters also point to Coe’s charitable works around the world. Still, criticsquestion his influence -- and secrecy -- in a year when the candidates' religiousbeliefs are part of the political debate.
--With editorial help from EJ Johnson, John Holland, Michelle Perry, LukeMayo and Linda Fecteau
 
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