The annual National Prayer Breakfast convened in Washington, DC, Thursday morning. This year, however, a group calling into question the annual event's agenda will host a rival prayer gathering.
Dignitaries, political officials, and business leaders gathered today for the 59th National Payer Breakfast. Started in 1953, the event typically attracts over 3,000 guests.Liberal religious leaders aligned with "Occupy DC" who oppose the National Prayer Breakfast had their own alternative event -- the "People's Prayer Breakfast." Mark Tooley, president of the Institute of Religion & Democracy, says that group's leaders believe the National Prayer Breakfast caters to the top one-percent wage earners, of which the occupy movement opposes."No doubt there are a lot of powerful people there, and I'm sure there are a number of wealthy people there," Tooley says of the National Prayer Breakfast, "but there also will be ... people who are not wealthy, people who are involved primarily in ministry and church work and very much come from middle America. So if anything, it's a rare opportunity for middle America to circulate and mix with a lot of 'cultural elites' here in Washington."The pro-occupy organization's primary issue is with the leaders of the National Prayer Breakfast, The Fellowship Foundation -- a conservative Christian organization more widely known as "The Family." Tooley describes the leadership group as "actually pretty diverse -- probably more diverse than are the organizations of the primary critics."Since the inception of the National Prayer Breakfast, several U.S. states and cities and other countries have established their own annual prayer breakfast events. Every U.S. president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has participated in the annual event. This was President Obama's third appearance.
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