National Prayer Breakfast breaks from 'The Family' with new organization

[barbaraann]

Last edited Mon Jan 30, 2023, 09:04 AM - Edit history (1)

Critics are questioning whether the change is a full departure from the past or merely cosmetic.
January 25, 2023
By Jack Jenkins, Adelle M. Banks

WASHINGTON (RNS) — The National Prayer Breakfast is under new management, distancing the decades-old event from the secretive organization that founded it after years of controversy and a scandal that showed the yearly gathering in the nation’s capital is vulnerable to espionage.
According to a statement sent to reporters by former Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, the prayer breakfast, whose highlight is typically a speech from the sitting U.S. president, is no longer run by The International Foundation, a Christian group more familiarly referred to as “The Family.” Instead, the 2023 breakfast, to be held this year on Feb. 2, has been coordinated by the newly created National Prayer Breakfast Foundation, which emerged “following numerous meetings in 2022,” according to Pryor’s statement.
...
Unlike past versions of the breakfast, which were hosted in a sprawling hotel ballroom with hundreds of attendees from all over the world, the new version of the gathering will only include members of Congress “plus one’s spouse, family member, or constituent guest,” wrote Pryor.
...
The breakfast first came under widespread scrutiny in 2009 after journalist Jeff Sharlet published the book “The Family,” detailing his experience with the organization that runs the event. The event was hit with scandal in 2018, when the Department of Justice charged Russian national Maria Butina with attempting to exploit the National Prayer Breakfast as part of a larger “conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation.”
...
https://religionnews.com/2023/01/25/national-prayer-breakfast-distances-itself-from-the-family-puts-event-under-new-management/

Well, this seems like a good thing. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article about the Family:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_(Christian_organization)

EDIT:
Here's a link to a pretty scathing article about this change from the Freedom from Religion Foundation (One of the critics referenced above):
https://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/41872-ffrf-calls-national-prayer-breakfast-changes-subterfuge

[Duppers]

1. The whole idea makes me want to...

[barbaraann]

2. I'm not religious but I like the part about cutting out the Family. n/t

[Duppers]

3. Yes! Yes, indeed.

"The Family" is made up of some nefarious people.

[riversedge]

4. yes.

[LittleGirl]

5. Here's the new boss

Same as the old boss…

[rpannier]

6. The Inquisition has announced they'll no longer be inviting the Jesuits

The National Prayer Breakfast began as a horrid thing, and it still will be
That Pryor and Coons think it's such a good thing speaks volumes about them

[Takket]

7. I need to see a lot more than an "under new management" sign

Before I eat at the roach infested restaurant.

[Scrivener7]

9. Well said!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Is the National Prayer Breakfast non-denominational or is Ilhan Omar uninvited?

Is it one of the numerous christo-dominionist events that lock out non-christians and are of no interest to atheists other than watching and noting as mechanisms for advancing (christo)church-state dominance?

[barbaraann]

10. I just added a link in the OP that addresses this issue.

Looks like the new entity tries to sound welcoming but at the same time is Jesus-based.

The "breakfast" organizers must not be familiar with this passage about ostentatious prayer from Matthew 6:5:
"When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men."

[Javaman]

11. is this good or just the concentration of more evil? nt

[mopinko]

12. sure would be nice if joe told them to pound sand.

it’s rly about time for the country to stand up to these assholes.

[hatrack]

13. Blackwater - Xe - Academi . . . . .

Same shit, different day.

[progressoid]

14. The whole thing stinks.

The Fellowship, the Family, the National Prayer Breakfast, the Wednesday prayer breakfasts for US senators...

[ratchiweenie]

15. The article from the Freedom From Relgion Foundation makes it clear that very

little has changed. It's still the same people running the show. Disgusting.

[gratuitous]

16. A prayer meeting vulnerable to espionage?

Like does this representative or that senator say "trespasses" or "debts" for the Paternoster? If there's something during the meeting for a spy to ferret out, maybe it's purpose isn't really prayer, you know?

[themaguffin]

17. The "family?" That's not creepy at all.