"I don't like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong," Trump added. "Nor do I like people who say, 'I pray for you' when they know that that's not so. So many people have been hurt, and we can't let that go on. And I'll be discussing that a little bit later at the White House."
-- Donald Trump, National Prayer Breakfast, February 6. 2020
With these words, Trump used a bipartisan religious event to judge the beliefs of others, to encourage hatred, and to vow revenge – all under the watchful approval of the Fellowship Foundation, a religious and political organization whose mission statement that reads, in part, …
“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.”
Why would I say “under their approval”? No leader of the fellowship at the National Prayer Breakfast dared to speak out against Trump's vindictive words or to even question the way he used the event for personal vindication. None dared to call his hand on using religion to divide the country and to endanger the lives of others as he rallied resistance with the words “WE can't let that go on.”
At the breakfast, Trump brazenly shattered any professed Christian tenets of the Fellowship Foundation, and in doing so, he also made a mockery of his so-called commitment to religious beliefs. All of this occurred under the auspices of the Fellowship and beneath the “flag” of an impeached president as he waved the USA Today headlines of “Acquitted” to this largely adoring crowd.
Kevin Kruse, a Princeton University historian, has been quoted stating:
“This event has usually been to bring Washington together … And that instead he (Trump) used it to further denigrate others’ faith and cast doubt on their public expressions of faith is stunning.”
(Michelle Boorstein and Sarah Pulliam Bailey. “At National Prayer Breakfast about unity, Trump swipes at Romney, Pelosi.”
The Washington Post. February 6, 2020.)
What a show in the name of Jesus. Please allow me to share some information about the Fellowship Foundation and the National Prayer Breakfast.
The Fellowship (known as “The Family”) has been described as one of the most politically well-connected and most secretly-funded ministries in the United States. They shun publicity and its members share a vow of secrecy. Abraham Vereide started the first version of the Fellowship in Seattle in 1935 when he hosted 19 business leaders with the aim of crushing organized labor.
Another former leader of the Fellowship, the late Douglas Coe, 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.
The truth of their confidentiality is much more revealing. Jeff Sharlet, whose books, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power and C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy, says …
"The Fellowship isn't about faith and it spreads very little. It's about power.
Internally, it is spoken of primarily as a 'recruiting device' with which to draw 'key men' into smaller prayer cells to 'meet Jesus man to man.' Practically, the Prayer Breakfast has functioned from the very beginning as an unregistered lobbying festival."
(Ethan Sacks. “Secretive Christian group at heart of D.C. politics ready for its close-up in Netflix docuseries.” NBC News. August 9, 2019.)
In a report on the Fellowship, the Los Angeles Times found:
“(Fellowship members) share a vow of silence about Fellowship activities. Oddly, it is categorized under US law as a church rather than a political lobbying organization, so financial sources and budget expenditures remain unknown ... Members, including congressmen, invoke this secrecy rule when refusing to discuss just about every aspect of the Fellowship and their involvement in it.”
(Lisa Getter. "Showing Faith in Discretion.”
Los Angeles Times. September 27, 2002.)
The group'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 have publicly acknowledged working with the Fellowship or are documented as having worked together to pass or influence legislation.
Michael Lindsay, a former 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 … 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."
(Jeff Sharlet. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the
Heart of American Power. 2008.)
The National Prayer Breakfast is hosted by members of the United States Congress and is organized on their behalf by The Fellowship Foundation. It is designed to be a forum for the political, social, and business elite to assemble and pray together. Since the inception of the National Prayer Breakfast in 1953, several U.S. states and cities and other countries have established their own annual prayer breakfast events.
The breakfast brings people of various faiths, but mostly Christians, from around the world to Washington for a couple of days of networking, prayer and meetings – including the central event, the breakfast, at which the U.S. president speaks.
The event attracts many white evangelicals from around the country. The 2020 edition featured keynote speaker Arthur Brooks, author of the book Love Your Enemies. Brooks, former head of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, implored attendees to find a way to bridge gaps that can seem unbridgeable in today’s polarized world. He said to the crowd …
“The problem is: The devil is in the details. How do you do (love your enemies) in a country and world roiled by hatreds we can’t seem to bridge? Contempt kills. Ask God to give you the strength to do this hard thing. To go against your human nature. To follow Jesus’ teaching. You believe in Jesus! Follow his teachings.”
Then came Trump (who had kept his hand down when Brooks asked the crowd to raise their hand if they love anyone who disagrees with them politically). Trump told the crowd he wasn’t sure if he agreed with Brooks’s address – but didn’t say what specifically he disagreed with. Trump said …
“When they impeach you for nothing, then it’s not easy to like them. It’s not easy, folks.”
(Michelle Boorstein and Sarah Pulliam Bailey. “At National Prayer Breakfast
about unity, Trump swipes at Romney, Pelosi.”
The Washington Post. February 6, 2020.)
Then, Trump told the good Christians in attendance about those of faith he didn't like. And, he made threats … and he did so without protest … and he did so moreover with quite a bit of adoring approval and spirited applause from this “love your enemies” crowd at this so-called bipartisan event.
This is the latest report of a president and, I fear, a religion, off the rails. No matter your political preference, I question how your religion can stand idly by and allow an autocrat to become your “chosen one,” nothing more than a man who dictates the boundaries of your faith. The unholy alliance threatens the soul of a nation.
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