Bondevik's contact with the Fellowship Foundation, also known as the International Fellowship, started 20 years ago, according to newspaper Dagbladet.. Bondevik told Dagbladet, which ran a lengthy article over the weekend about Norwegian Christian Democrats' involvement in the group, that there's "nothing mystical" about his ties to the group.
He also said the group isn't dangerous, and claimed it has no political power. Its goal, Bondevik said, is to "bring together people who have a religious dimension in their lives, not just Christian. I have never experienced a preoccupation with exercising political power."
Others disagree. The Fellowship's track record shows that it "quietly effects political change," according to an article in the Los Angeles Times, and acts with the blessing of many in power.
In 2002, when the Times story ran, its board of directors included the wife of a US senator, a former US Air Force assistant secretary, an Education Department official and the former director of Asian affairs for the National Security Council.
The Fellowship Foundation is known to actively recruit political leaders worldwide to, "through Christ," find a better day in regards to their work for a leadership guided by God at home, in the local community, the nation, the world and at all levels of the community.
Its headquarters mansion in Virgina, called "Cedars," has served as a private hideaway of sorts, perched atop the highest point along the Potomac River with reportedly spectacular views of Washington beyond its pool and tennis courts.
Low-profile
The group is low-profile to the point of being secretive. Its leader, Douglas Coe, once said in a rare interview that "Jesus said you don't do your alms in public." He has said that the group's mission is to create a "family of friends" by spreading the words of Jesus to those in power, according to the Times.
Coe reportedly believes that people of every religion, including Muslims, Jews and Hindus, are swayed by Jesus. If he can change leaders' hearts, he said, then the benefits will flow naturally to the oppressed and the underprivileged.
Its archives reveal an organization that has enjoyed extraordinary access and significant influence on US foreign affairs for the last 50 years. The Times reported that it has been a behind-the-scenes player in the Middle East peace talks, for example, and helped finance an anti-communism film endorsed by the US Central Intelligence Agency.
Attorney generals and an ambassador
Morning prayer meetings, according to Dagbladet, are often led by Ed Meese, the 73-year-old arch-conservative Republican who resigned in disgrace as Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, after a report questioned his moral integrity. He was directly involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, one of the biggest since Watergate.
Knut Vollebæk often attends. In December 2001, Bondevik ate dinner at Cedars with another of the group's key figures, the conservative John Ashcroft, who just resigned as US Attorney General.
Bondevik and Vollebæk are just the latest in a long list of Norway's Christian Democrats who have nurtured ties to the Fellowship in the last several decades, according to Dagbladet. Contact was reportedly first made in 1946, when a Fellowship leader visited Norway to recruit supporters.
A former top official in KrF, Kåre Kristiansen, turned up in Fellowship archives as a "key contact" from 1969. Current party leader Dagfinn Høybråten also has had contact with the group.
Norwegian immigrant roots
The Fellowship was actually begun, according to Dagbladet, by a Norwegian immigrant to the USA, Abraham Vereide from Gloppen in Sogn og Fjordane, who eventually became a Methodist minister. His fear of communism and "moral corruption" led him to start prayer meetings that grew popular, eventually evolving into a powerful network of conservative Americans. He even tried to influence the creation of the United Nations at its first meetings in San Francisco in 1945.
It was Vereide who travelled back to Norway in 1946, met the late King Haakon and started recruiting. He ultimately encouraged President Dwight Eisenhower to host the first Presidential Prayer Breakfast in 1953.
Vollebæk, also a member of Norway's Christian Democrats party, says he visits the Fellowship because he's an ambassador. He says there are "interesting people there," including members of the US Congress, the administration and other diplomats. Earlier Norwegian ambassadors to the US, including Tom Vraalsen, haven't felt a similar need.
Bondevik says he visits as a private person, because he has "a need for human and spiritual development, that I can get stimulation for there, together with other leaders, both international and American."
