The Fellowship, Governor Mark Sanford's Secretive Christian Landlords On C Street

Yesterday during South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's bizarre press conference, he said that a group called, "C Street" has been counseling him and his wife on their marital problems. I.e. the fact that he's having an affair with one Maria Belen Chapur (or Shapur depending on who you read) of Buenos Aires, Argentina. That name "C Street" also came up last week when Nevada Senator John Ensign confessed he was having an extra-marital affair. So, who is this group? Turns out C Street refers to a four-story townhouse located on C Street in Washington, D.C. two blocks from the capital. It's owned by C Street Center, a sister organization of The Fellowship, a non-partisan Christian group that sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast--anonymously. Indeed, despite having spent almost 1 million dollars on last year's breakfast, The Fellowship was not listed on the invitation and most attendees continue to think the breakfast is sponsored by the President or Congress. Furthermore, The Fellowship very quietly rents $600 apartments--a steal in Washington, D.C.-- to eight members of congress on C Street. "We sort of don't talk to the press about the house," Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), told the Los Angeles Times in 2002.

"The C Street property is a church," said Chip Grange, an attorney for the Fellowship. "It is zoned as a church. There are prayer meetings, fellowship meetings, evangelical meetings," he said. "Our mission field is Capitol Hill."

Everyone involved says there is no conflict of interest, but a further look into The Fellowship reveals a fascinating history of secret Christian policy making dating back to the 1940's when Methodist evangelist Abraham Vereide brought the prayer group idea to Washington, D.C. from Seattle for fear that Socialists were ruining America. What follows is but a sliver of their amazing record of influence over former Presidents and dictators from across the globe and even pop musician Michael Jackson:

• 1942. A small group of House members began praying together under Vereide's advisement. A Senate group followed.
• 1955 Pentagon officials secretly met at the group's Washington Fellowship House to plan a worldwide anti-communism propaganda campaign endorsed by the CIA.
• 1978 The Fellowship was at the Camp David Middle East accords, working with President Jimmy Carter to issue a worldwide call to prayer with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
• During the Cold War, The Fellowship helped finance an anti-communism propaganda film endorsed by the CIA and used by the Pentagon overseas.
• 1984 The Fellowship brought former Salvadoran Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova to the prayer breakfast. In 2002, Casanova was found liable for the torture of thousands of civilians in the 1980s. Casanova attended the breakfast along with Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, then the head of the Honduran armed forces. Alvarez, later linked to the CIA and a secret death squad, became an evangelical missionary before he was assassinated in 1989.
• 1986 Senator David Durenberger hid out at the mansion owned by The Fellowship when he began having marital problems.
• 1990 Republican strategist Lee Atwater sought spiritual guidance there when he learned he was dying.
• Pop singer Michael Jackson and his children stayed in the mansion in October 2001 while in town for a benefit concert for victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

According to IRS records from 2002, The Fellowship had given C Street Center $450,000 in grants and loans since 1994. And The Fellowship also pays for everything from a housemother to clean their politician tenants' sheets to their diplomatic travel abroad and things of an even more highly personal nature:

When the late Sen. Harold Hughes' daughter died in 1976, the Fellowship paid funeral expenses. Hughes left the Senate to become a full-time member of the Fellowship. When former Sen. Mark Hatfield needed money in the 1970s, the Fellowship loaned him thousands, gave him $10,000 as an honorarium, and arranged for a lucrative deal to rent property he owned in Oregon--arrangements later criticized by the board. "We would never do it today," said board President Richard Carver, assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.

The amount of financial pull The Fellowship holds over our nation's policy makers raises serious concerns about their ability to do their jobs without letting their religious affiliations get in the way. When you compound that with the fact that many of these guys, (Samford, Ensign, Durenberger to name a few), are not even living up to the morals they are secretly imposing on their ignorant constituency, we are left with a lot more questions than answers. Like, should the separation of church and state, a principle derived from the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, deny politicians the right to accept housing from a religious group? We think so. And is the desire to not "do your alms in public," an The Fellowship leader Douglas Coe quotes from Jesus, any kind of excuse for a major lobbyist group to keep from revealing their deep involvement in government policy making? We hardly think so.

Showing Faith in Discretion [LA Times]