Saturday April 5, 2008, 4:14 pm
The Atlantic's Josh Green has a useful primer on "The Fellowship," the shadowy Christian-political organization Hillary's been affiliated with over the years. Josh explains:

The group was formed in the 1930s to minister to political and business leaders throughout the world, modeling itself as a kind of Christian Trilateral Commission. Several members of Congress are affiliated with the group, mostly Republicans, but some Democrats, too. To the extent The Fellowship is known beyond its members it is probably for founding the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

Like Jeremiah Wright's Trinity Baptist Church, The Fellowship is run by its own mysterious and controversial figure, Douglas Coe, although temperamentally Coe is Wright's opposite. He eschews the spotlight and has never made a controversial public utterance that I'm aware of -- mainly because he rarely speaks publicly at all. (You won't find him on YouTube.) But like Wright, Coe has ministered to a Democratic frontrunner. He personally leads a private Senate prayer group that Clinton has been a part of.

In my piece, I chose to focus on the Senate prayer group, but others have written extensively about the strangeness and secrecy of The Fellowship. As this Los Angeles Times story and this exquisitely reported Harper's piece make clear, there is something deeply strange about the group. They certainly do not like press coverage, so in that regard Clinton's attraction might make sense. Reporters hoping to look into the group might want to think again. A few years ago, The Fellowship’s archives, which are held at Wheaton College, the evangelical school in Illinos, were reclassified as “restricted” and placed under lock and key.

The author of that Harper's piece is the fearless and fantastically talented Jeff Sharlet, who just came out with a book about The Fellowship (aka "The Family," which also happens to be his title). I can't recommend the piece or the book strongly enough.

Update: For what it's worth, I see that Jeff has actually weighed in on this topic with The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum. Here's how Kevin summarized Jeff's thoughts:

Although [Jeff] says that Hillary Clinton's connection with the Fellowship (aka the "Family") is fairly shallow, he also thinks it's quite wrong to characterize it as merely "a collection of Bible study groups." Hillary's association with the Fellowship is no scandal, he says, but it is fair to question her about whether she accepts Doug Coe's particular brand of elite-centered, post-millennial theology.

--Noam Scheiber

Saturday April 5, 2008, 4:17 pm
Hillary Clinton and The Fellowship: A Look Inside Washington's 'Christian Mafia' NBC: Hillary CLinton's Secretive DC prayer group has worldwide reach. The Fellowship appears to be as much of a networking opportunity as it is a religious group

Saturday April 5, 2008, 4:22 pm
Rev. Wright or Douglas Coe, who would you choose as your pastor or religious mentor. Wright's controversial remarks, taken out of context, are no different than the words Dr. King spoke (I know it's a shock to all those people who think Dr. King was just an "I have a dream" pussycat). Dr. King challenged people with strong language and was just as hated and castigated by much of white America in the 60's.
Doug Coe, on the other hand, is a man who has spoken admiringly of Hitler and the Mafia (no, I am not making this up) and yet Hillary has the nerve to attack Barack for his previous pastor, whose worse remarks he has criticized.
I have yet to hear Hillary criticize Coe's remarks. I'm waiting Hillary, the silence is deafening.

Saturday April 5, 2008, 4:38 pm
Seems to me that this country was founded on freedom of religion.

Saturday April 5, 2008, 6:02 pm
The issue of the Fellowship is not freedom of religion, it's the separation of church and state. The Fellowship is not a religion, it is an organization which is made up of elite political and corporate individuals who are able to operate without accountability to the democratic process. For example, it has provided access to murderous regimes like Suharto and the Contras to the President without going through official channels. This is not conspiracy theory stuff, it is really happening as the links Blue has provided demonstrates.
Obama was forced to address Rev. Wright's comments because they were politically, not religiously based and therefore fair game. The question is why Clinton is not being pressed to address the political, not religious, aspect of the Fellowship.

Saturday April 5, 2008, 6:23 pm
Melanie, I might agree with you if THE FELLOWSHIP welcomed all religions and all the representatives of those religions but it does not, it only allows ONE SPEAKER, and one FAITH to be projected as the best ... and that is not acceptable.

Saturday April 5, 2008, 6:32 pm
Mark, it seems to me that religion has no place at all in govenrment ... separation of church and state.

I want to hear Hillary Clinton's statement on that!

Saturday April 5, 2008, 6:33 pm
Charlie, Dr. King was going to lead and organize a POOR PEOPLE'S MARCH ON WADHINGTON, D.C> .... and that's why they killed him, among other reasons ...

Sunday April 6, 2008, 1:49 am
I agree with you about Dr. King's reasons for being killed. He became especially dangerous to the powers that be when he challenged the war and sought to unite the races about class issues. My point was that Rev. Wright's controversial comments were very similar to many uttered by Dr. King. They have both spoke out against injustice and challenged their government and are attacked for the same reasons. Coe and the Fellowship represent the same group of people that both Wright and King have opposed.

Sunday April 6, 2008, 9:17 am
Hmmm, closed, secretive, millenial elitists practising political Christianity (contradiction in terms or didn't anyone tell them that?!) Sounds like most of Congress to me. Both Clinton have a history of the most incredible dishonesty papered over by a charming smile, a hurt look even tears rather than any kind of accountability. The woman scares the hell out of me. Trouble is, Obamam's financial portfolio as well as his backers tell a story we Should troubled by almost as much as Billary's. And no candidate who cannot distinguish between legitimate reproductive choice and the absolute horror of what is euphemistically called 'partial birth abortion' has any kind of firm grip on the normal boundaries of what we call humanity. Clinton sounds like a crazy woman on the subject but Obama's almost as far out there as she is. All I can say is that I would take him before her but that's not saying a lot and it wouldn't be by a very big margin.

Sunday April 6, 2008, 4:13 pm
Sara, have you research Senator Obama's position on abortion? It's on his website.

Hillary Clinton's "misinformation" campaign must not be allowed to work as did the Bu$h/Rove camaign.


Do you want specifics?

- Hillary Clinton graduated from law school and went straight to work for a corporate law firm, for many years. Barack Obama graduated number one in his class at Harvard Law School and turned down big bucks to do community organizing and teach Constitutional Law.

- Hillary Clinton voted for the invasion of Iraq and the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, Obama was opposed.

- Hillary Clinton takes the majority of her campaign money from special interest groups - Obama refuses all donations from lobbyists.

- The Clinton campaign sent out a dishonest mailer to NH women shortly before the primary vote that claimed Obama opposes abortion rights. For the truth, and additional details, search YouTube.com for "Lorna Brett Howard" (former head of Chicago N.O.W.).

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Lorna+Brett+Howard%22&search_type=


- The Clinton campaign waged a blatantly racist campaign to try to "ghetto-ize" Sen. Obama - see: Mark "Cocaine" Penn; Bob "Madrassa" Kerrey; Bob "drug dealing" Johnson; and Bill "Jesse Jackson" Clinton.

- All of Clinton's foreign policy advisors supported the Iraq war - all of Obama's advisors opposed it.

These are some (but not all) of the specifics.

Sunday April 6, 2008, 9:20 pm
You won't get any argument from me about the absolutely vicious and dishonest campaign or the total and complete lack of principal of either of the Clintons. They are in a class of their own but it took HC's desperate clawing for power and the depths she was willing to plumb to get it before the real sleaze emerged. Now her hubby's 'great guy' persona has been finally blown as publicly as his male member

But Obama does have a lot of special interest funding and portfolios that make conscience voting very difficult if not impossible. He voted to keep partial birth abortion which is exactly the same as infanticide and which makes his humanity as suspect, in its own way, as voting for the war. Obama is by far the better of the two candidates but when you have been dazzled by a Dennis Kucinich (who is only out of the running because of dirty tricks, bought and paid for media and stunts by Billary et al.) all the others are a very poor second indeed.

Little or nothing will change under Billary, Obama or McCain. Not one, for instance, is willing to end the war now. Billary did vote to classify Iran's standing army as 'terrorists' in what she and everyone else knew was the Bush admin's first move towards war with Iran. Obama did not. He has a real edge on her there too. I'll even go so far as to say he's the best candidate we've got. But Patt, we need so much more of a sharp sword than a nice guy who will try to keep everybody happy and end up pleasing no one. I have heard truth to power and he is not it.

Monday April 7, 2008, 3:44 pm
Sara, I know that you wanted Dennis Kucinich; I would've loved to see him participating until the end, too ... but it was not to be.

You must move on, darlin' ....

Wednesday May 14, 2008, 9:07 am
"Jesus Made Me Puke" - Matt Taibbi Undercover with the Christian Right.

Wednesday May 14, 2008, 9:08 am
Hillary Clinton's Evangelical Cabal

Wednesday May 14, 2008, 9:10 am
OK, Hillary, I'Ll Bite: Are You Ready to Renounce Douglas Coe and The Fellowship? Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public