This post was sparked by descriptions of Doug Coe (caretaker of Fellowship Foundation's C Street Center  and its creepy inhabitants, organizer of the National Prayer Breakfast, smarmy host at Cedars) that vary from "stealth Billy Graham," to Hillary's prayer buddy, to spiritual mentor of Mark Sanford's and other flawed politicians, and now "pastor."  Audio files from Coe's "sermons" have gone viral.

I doubted that Coe was an ordained anything, and decided to sleuth. I pieced together the following from snippets of various books, journal articles, news stories, and interviews.

Douglas E. Coe was born in Oregon in 1929 and was graduated from Williamette College.  As an earnest college student, Coe impressed former Governor and former Senator Mark Hatfield (1922- ). This close relationship between Coe and Hatfield resulted in Coe meeting Norwegian emigrant Abraham "Abram" Vereide (1886-1969), who had organized a network of prayer breakfasts in Seattle that culminated in the founding of The Family in 1935. 

By 1959, Coe worked for The Family, and in 1969 was named its leader.  Coe makes it known that he is an admirer of dictators, great and small, living and dead.  Hillary Clinton says in her autobiography that she met Coe in 1993 but Hillary and Bill were active in circles as early as 1984 with activities (Renaissance Weekend) that are intertwined with The Family. In 2008, Andrea Mitchell reported  that Coe is not an ordained minister. Given the ease with which one can be ordained  in today's world, why wouldn't Coe choose to be ordained?

These details raise more questions than provide answers:

• What is the role of prayer in 21st century government? 

• Are Fellowship Foundation Followers (prayer breakfast attendees, Renaissance Weekend  regalers, C Street hangers-on, Cedars guests, DLC members) our modern day equivalent of freemasons, simply dangerous theocrats, or pawns in a pyramidal coercive group of the magnitude of Scientology?

In case you are interested in sleuthing further, Coe's empire has functioned under various names:

• National Committee for Christian Leadership
• International Christian Leadership
• National Leadership Council
• Fellowship House
• National Fellowship Council
• International Foundation
• The Family (not to be confused with David Berg's The Children of God)

Financial backers of Coe's empire have included Wilberforce Foundation, Tom Phillips (Raytheon CEO), Ken Olsen (founder, DEC), Michael Timmis, Paul Temple, Jerome A. Lewis (former CEO, Petro-Lewis Corp.), Lilly Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts.

Future posts will explore the association of foundation assets with guns and oil, and nefarious activities of Values Action Team in foreign affairs.

Sources Consulted

• Sharlet, Jeffrey. "Jesus Plus Nothing: Undercover Among America's Secret Theocrats."  Harper's Magazine (March 2003): 53-64.
• SourceWatch. Values Action Team.
• Lindsay, D. Michael. "Is the National Prayer Breakfast Surrounded by a 'Christian Mafia'? Religious Publicity and secrecy Within the Corridors of Power." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 2006; 74(2): 390-419.

Other Sources

• Gilgoff, Dan. The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning the Culture War.  St. Martin's Griffin, 2008.
• Sharlet, Jeff. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.  Harper Perennial, 2009.
• Hedges, Chris. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.  Free Press, 2006.

• Goldberg, Michelle. Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism.  W.W. Norton & Co., 2007.