Politics and Religion

Here's the campanion piece to the one about Huckabee

HILLARY CLINTON HEAVY INTO RIGHTWING RELIGIOUS POWER CULTMOTHER JONES - Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has beenan active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circlesthat are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship.Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback(R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from thatconnection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynicalexploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of themilitant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers todecision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that isinfected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, andprayer.". . .When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first stepswas to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularlymet with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan Baker, wife ofBush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative iconJack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in theanti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife ofSenator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), anetwork of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and militaryleaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of themrecruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual NationalPrayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made afetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstronghas said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the willof God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help thepowerful understand their role in God's plan.Clinton declined our requests for an interview about her faith, but inLiving History, she describes her first encounter with Fellowship leaderDoug Coe at a 1993 lunch with her prayer cell at the Cedars, theFellowship's majestic estate on the Potomac. Coe, she writes, "is aunique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor andguide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen hisor her relationship with God."The Fellowship's ideas are essentially a blend of Calvinism and NormanVincent Peale, the 1960s preacher of positive thinking. It's a cheeryfaith in the "elect" chosen by a single voter-God-and a devotion toRomans 13:1: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers....Thepowers that be are ordained of God." Or, as Coe has put it, "we workwith power where we can, build new power where we can't.". . .Coe's friends include former Attorney General John Ashcroft, ReaganiteEdwin Meese III, and ultraconservative Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.). UnderCoe's guidance, Meese has hosted weekly prayer breakfasts forpoliticians, businesspeople, and diplomats, and Pitts rose fromobscurity to head the House Values Action Team, an off-the-recordnetwork of religious right groups and members of Congress created by TomDeLay. The corresponding Senate Values Action Team is guided by anotherCoe protégé, Brownback, who also claims to have recruited King Abdullahof Jordan into a regular study of Jesus' teachings.The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God-leaders ofall levels of society who direct projects as they are led by thespirit." According to the Fellowship's archives, the spirit has in thepast led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for theDuvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. TheFellowship's God-led men have also included General Suharto ofIndonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo AlvarezMartinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties toHitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of othergenerals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regularvisitor to Coe's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former conventwhere Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing andspiritual guidance.http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.pl?url=http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html