[6][7] 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.

[10][clarification needed] The Fellowship Foundation traces its roots to Abraham Vereide, a Methodist clergyman and social innovator, who organized a month of prayer meetings in 1934 in San Francisco.

The non-denominational groups were meant to informally bring together civic and business leaders to share vision, study the Bible and develop relationships of trust and support.

[5] By 1942 there were 60 breakfast groups in major cities around the US and Canada, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington and Vancouver.

Most of us want an opportunity to make our feelings known, to relate our personal experiences, to compare notes with others, and, in unity of spirit to receive renewal, inspiration, guidance, and strength from God.

[18] D. 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.

"[3] In 1977, four years after he became an evangelical Christian and later Fellowship member, Watergate conspirator Charles Colson described the group as a "veritable underground of Christ's men all through the U.S.

"[5] "The Fellowship's reach into governments around the world is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp," said David Kuo, a former special assistant in George W. Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

[10]Current Fellowship prayer group member and former U.S. Representative Tony P. Hall (D-OH) said, "If people in this country knew how many Democrats and Republicans pray together and actually like each other behind closed doors, they would be amazed."

"[10] Hillary Clinton described meeting the leader of the Fellowship in 1993: "Doug Coe, the longtime National Prayer Breakfast organizer, is a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship to God.

"[25][page needed] Investigative reporter Jeff Sharlet wrote a book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,[4] as well as an article in Harper's[26] magazine, describing his experience while serving as an intern in the Fellowship.

[26] According to his 2008 book,[4] their theology is an "elite fundamentalism" that fetishizes political power and wealth, consistently opposes labor movements in the US and abroad, and teaches that laissez-faire economic policy is "God's will."

He opines that their theological teaching of instant forgiveness has been useful to powerful men, providing them a convenient excuse for misdeeds or crimes and allowing them to avoid accepting responsibility or accountability for their actions.

"[28] He opined that the Fellowship fetishizes power by comparing Jesus to "Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden" as examples of leaders who change the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their 'brothers'".

"[5] "It [the NPB] totally circumvents the State Department and the usual vetting within the administration that such a meeting would require," an anonymous government informant told sociologist D. Michael Lindsay.

Attendees of this new event still watched President Joe Biden's remarks from the National Prayer Breakfast through a livestream according to A. Larry Ross who is a media representative for The International Foundation.

[43] A primary activity of the Fellowship is to develop small support groups for politicians, including senators and members of Congress, Executive Branch officials, military officers, foreign leaders and dignitaries, businesspersons, and other influential individuals.

[51] In 2002, Frank Wolf, Tony P. Hall and Joe Pitts traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan on a fact-finding congressional trip, meeting with the leaders of both Muslim countries.

He was invited to the 1984 prayer breakfast, along with Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, then head of the Honduran armed forces who was linked to a death squad and the Central Intelligence Agency.

[5] In 1994 at the National Prayer Breakfast, the Fellowship helped to persuade South African Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi not to engage in a civil war with Nelson Mandela.

[5] In a November 2009 NPR interview, Sharlet alleged that Ugandan Fellowship associates David Bahati and Nsaba Buturo were behind the recent proposed bill in Uganda that called for the death penalty for gays.

[57] Fellowship member Bob Hunter gave an interview to NPR in December 2009 in which he acknowledged Bahati's connection but argued that no American associates support the bill.

[58] President Barack Obama, in his address to the Fellowship at their National Prayer Breakfast in early 2010, directly criticized the Uganda legislation targeting gay people for execution.

[65] The Washington Post reported that the C Street House "pulsed with backstage intrigue, in the days and months before the Sanford and Ensign scandals" and that residents tried to talk each politician into ending his philandering.

[66] South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who served as a congressman from 1995 to 2001, admitted in June 2009 to having an extramarital affair and said he had sought counseling at the C Street Center during the months before the news broke.

Mrs. Pickering alleged that her husband restarted his relationship with Byrd while he was "a United States congressman prior to and while living in the well-known C Street Complex in Washington, D.C."[70]

[72] The house is also the locale for: C Street has been the subject of controversy over its claimed tax status as a church, the ownership of the property and its connection to the Fellowship, and the reportedly subsidized benefits the facility provides to members of Congress.

[citation needed] Fellowship Foundation purchased a large old house in 1978 in the Woodmont neighborhood of Arlington Virginia called The Doubleday Mansion (located at 2145 24th St N).

[3] Now called The Cedars, the 70-acre property, located less than 3 miles from the White House and which also has quarters for volunteers, a detached two-story garage and a gardener's cottage, is zoned as a worship and teaching center.

Private documents indicate that Cedars was purchased so that "people throughout the world who carry heavy responsibilities could meet in Washington to think together, plan together and pray together about personal and public problems and opportunities.