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The Fellowship, also known as The Family,〔〔 and the International Foundation〔(【引用サイトリンク】website=The Fellowship Foundation )〕 is a U.S.-based religious and political organization founded in 1935 by Abraham Vereide. The stated purpose of the Fellowship is to provide a fellowship forum for decision makers to share in Bible studies, prayer meetings, worship experiences, and to experience spiritual affirmation and support.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Republican Senate Sex Scandals Point Back to Secretive Conservative Christian "Family" ).〕〔 The Fellowship has been described as one of the most politically well-connected ministries in the United States. The Fellowship shuns publicity and its members share a vow of secrecy.〔; free copy available at 〕 The Fellowship's leader Doug Coe and others have 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 Fellowship holds one regular public event each year, the National Prayer Breakfast held in Washington, D.C. Every sitting United States president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has participated in at least one National Prayer Breakfast during his term.〔 The Fellowship'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.〔〔 in .〕〔Charles Colson, ''Born Again'', Spire, 1977.〕〔Jeff Sharlet, The Family (Harper, 2008), p. 25.〕〔Jeff Sharlet, The Family (Harper, 2008), p. 259.〕 Many United States Senators and Congressmen who have publicly acknowledged working with the Fellowship or are documented as having worked together to pass or influence legislation.〔 In ''Newsweek'' magazine, Lisa Miller wrote that rather than calling themselves "Christians," as they describe themselves, they are brought together by common love for the teachings of Jesus and that all approaches to "loving Jesus" are acceptable.〔 Jewish writer Jeff Sharlet wrote a book, ''The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power'', as well as an article in ''Harper's''〔 magazine, describing his experience while serving as an intern in the Fellowship. 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".〔〔 ==History== The Fellowship Foundation traces its roots to its founder, Abraham Vereide, a Methodist clergyman and social innovator, who organized a month of prayer meetings in 1934 in San Francisco.〔 Vereide was a Norwegian immigrant who founded Goodwill Industries in Seattle in 1916 to assist the city's unemployed Scandinavian immigrant population. Goodwill Industries soon occupied a city block, where they repaired and processed discarded clothing and furniture and converted "waste to wages". The Fellowship was founded in 1935 in opposition to FDR's New Deal.〔 His work spread down the West coast and eventually to Boston. In April 1935, Vereide and Major J.F. Douglas invited 19 business and civic leaders for a breakfast prayer meeting.〔 By 1937, 209 prayer breakfast groups had been organized throughout Seattle. In 1940, 300 men from all over the state of Washington attended a prayer breakfast for the new governor, Arthur Langlie.〔 Vereide traveled throughout the Pacific Northwest, and later around the country, to develop similar groups.〔 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.〔 The Fellowship Foundation was incorporated by Abraham Vereide in Chicago in 1942 as Fellowship Foundation, Inc. It also acquired the names International Christian Leadership (ICL), Fellowship House, and International Foundation as venues of its global outreach ministry expanded.〔 The Fellowship Foundation, Inc. does most of its business as the International Foundation,〔 which is its DBA name.〔 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. That same year, Vereide began to hold small prayer breakfasts for members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He also began publishing a monthly newsletter called ''The Breakfast Luncheon Fireside and Campus Groups'' that contained a Bible study that could be used by all the groups, as well as information about activities of different chapters. He also published a newsletter through the years under various names, including ''The Breakfast Groups Informer'' (ca. 1945–46), ''The Breakfast Groups'' (ca. 1944–53), ''International Christian Leadership Bulletin'' (ca. 1953–54), ''Bulletin of International Christian Leadership'' (ca. 1954–56), ''Christian Leadership'' (ca. 1957–61), ''ICLeadership Letter'' (1961–66), ''International Leadership Letter'' (ca. 1967), and ''Leadership Letter'' (ca. 1963–70). In 1942, the Fellowship was incorporated in Chicago, Illinois forming Vereide's center of national outreach to businessmen and civic and clergy leadership. Vereide had moved the group's offices from Seattle to the more centralized location of Chicago, headquarters of the businessmen's luncheon outreach "Christian Businessmen's Committee", which Vereide led with industrialist C.B. Hedstrom. That same year the Fellowship Foundation established a delegation ministry in Washington DC on Massachusetts Avenue at Sheridan Circle named "Fellowship House". Vereide later described it as the nerve center of the breakfast groups. In 1944, Vereide held his first joint Senate-House prayer breakfast meeting. He held another breakfast on June 16, 1946, attended by Senators H. Alexander Smith and Lister Hill, and ''US News and World Report'' publisher David Lawrence. In 1946, Vereide wrote and released a book with Reverend John G. Magee, chaplain to President Harry Truman entitled ''Together''(Abingdon Cokesbury). In the book, Vereide explained his philosophy of visionary discipleship and gathering together in what he termed spiritual cells: Man craves fellowship. 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. Such groups as we are thinking of have characterized every spiritual awakening. Jesus began with Peter and James and John. He had the twelve and the Seventy. At Bethany he established a cell... there you have the formula... faith embodied the same close informal fellowship... one common practice—gathering together in the name of Jesus. In January 1947, a conference in Zurich led to the formation of the International Council for Christian Leadership (ICCL), an umbrella group for the national fellowship groups in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Norway, Hungary, Egypt and China. ICCL was incorporated as a separate organization in 1953. ICL and ICCL were governed by different boards of directors, joined by a coordinating committee: four members of ICCL's board and four from the ICL's executive committee. In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower attended the Senate Prayer Breakfast Group. He was invited by fellow Kansan Frank Carlson. By that time, Vereide's congressional members also included Senators Frank Carlson, Karl Mundt, Everett Dirksen and Strom Thurmond. By 1957, ICL had established 125 groups in 100 cities, with 16 groups in Washington, D.C. alone. It had set up another 125 groups in other countries. During 1958, a mentor from The Navigators, Douglas Coe,〔Modern Viking, page 128〕〔Window On Washington, page 28〕 joined Vereide as assistant executive director of ICL in Washington, D.C. After over 35 years of leading the Fellowship Foundation, Vereide died in 1969 and was succeeded by Richard C. Halverson as executive director. Halverson and Coe worked side by side until Halverson's death in 1995. In 1972, according to the Fellowship archives, after consultations among leaders in the prayer breakfast movement (including Douglas Coe, Richard Halverson, Dr. Wallace Haines and Senator Mark Hatfield and others) the organization was reprofiled to be "even more low key". The Fellowship archives reveal that, "in effect, the group adopted an even lower profile, serving as a channel of communication and a catalyst" of global outreach in the spirit of Jesus. The goal was to be less institutional in bearing and more relational and relevant to the global cultures, so that each geographic area had its own identity of personal ministry, not strictly metropolitan, but relevant to ranchers, miners, people in jungles, deserts, villages and on remote islands. That they might experience fellowship in Christ in their own sphere of human identification.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Fellowship (Christian organization)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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