Washington -- Beyond the throngs of tourists circling the Capitol, the Rev. W. Douglas Tanner Jr. bears witness to a dime-store version of his crusade.
On the marble steps of this august building, a demonstrator has placed an adult-sized statue of Jesus with a lamb and menorah -- like some Nativity scene gone awry. Although he had nothing to do with it, Mr. Tanner understands the intent of its creator, a demure woman listening to hymns on a tape recorder.
"I guess she has her way of expressing her faith," he says in a North Carolina drawl as inviting as this late summer day. "And I have mine."
His way happens to be the Faith & Politics Institute, a fledgling nonprofit in the heart of Capitol Hill that strives to help legislators, aides and lobbyists join two seemingly strange bedfellows: spirituality and political life.
Part old-fashioned Bible study and New Age support group, the institute defies easy labels. For some 40 participants -- Catholics and Protestants, Democrats and Republicans, low-level assistants and high-ranking congressmen -- faith takes many forms: reading scripture and breathing deeply, maintaining silence and making up prayers, telling stories and keeping journals. Faith in Washington now even comes accompanied by George Winston music.
The nerve center of the institute is nothing more than a converted efficiency in a brownstone that once housed the Methodist Episcopal Church's Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals. Mr. Tanner's office doubles as the staff kitchen.
But earthly walls matter little to him. Instead, the space he hopes to inhabit is the minds and souls of Washington's powerful and political.
"I think of this as a campus ministry on Capitol Hill," says Mr. Tanner, 47, a United Methodist minister and executive director of the group. "It is a challenge to hold in one hand your capacity to pull the strings and in the other to be in touch with who you " authentically are."
While it's hardly the only attempt to blend the two worlds (by one congressman's account, there are 60 informal religious groups on Capitol Hill), the institute is one of the least conventional.
Although it's kept a low profile since beginning three years ago, the institute has been miscast at times as a '90s-style feel-good group or mouthpiece for the religious right. It's also raised the eyebrows of some traditional politicians, who prefer that when it comes to their souls and matters of state the twain never meet.
Religious value
But in an administration where President Bill Clinton peppers his speech with Bible passages, Hillary Rodham Clinton preaches the politics of meaning, and controversies like Whitewater leave the public debating the role of character in politics, religious values have perhaps more than ever found their way into this buttoned-down, power-brokered town.
So, in the early hours before the workday officially begins, participants meet once a week in small groups to wrestle with the ethics of special-interest money, flag burning and the death penalty. They cope with dying parents, child-rearing and troubled marriages. After breathing exercises and acoustic music, they listen to and discuss spiritual readings.
Along the way, there have been glitches. Mr. Tanner considers it a success if participants make two out of every three meetings. Beepers are sometimes heard as often as "Amen." And meetings have occurred when only one person turned up.
In a city where information equals power and money, one rule is steadfast: Nothing leaves the room. It's a fact that some participants reiterate when revealing news that could damage careers.
The group is so protective of its privacy that it declined to have a reporter sit in on a meeting. One member, Rep. Martin Lancaster, a Democrat from North Carolina, declined to even mention topics discussed in meetings and expressed disappointment that others had.
"This is a personal and private time," he says. "I do not think we should be discussing outside of the group what we discuss inside."
Others, however, are more forthcoming about how the institute has affected them.
"I don't attend church regularly," says Judie Stone, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a lobbying group in Washington. "I don't want to overplay this, but in a sense, this is my church. It's a touchstone, a place I can go and be with people who want to relate at a spiritual level."
Doug Koopman, a senior economist with the Joint Economic Committee, shares her sentiments.
"It's nice to know there are other people dealing with: How do you integrate spiritual life with the pragmatic and sometimes mean political game?" he says.
If they believe, it's in part because of the charismatic leadership of Doug Tanner. Blond and tan, he blends the earnestness of a preacher with the savvy of a politician.
As a youngster, though, Mr. Tanner never imagined he would straddle these worlds.
"I came of age in the early '60s and grew up as an all-too-typical Piedmont, North Carolina, white boy with a pretty good streak of bigotry," he says.
At 16, after attending a Methodist youth workshop with African-Americans, he came away educated about his prejudice and interested in the ministry.
The first seed for Faith & Politics was planted many years later when, during a break from divinity school at Duke University, Mr. Tanner worked with the Democratic Study Group -- a loose coalition of liberal politicians.
Over the years, he flirted with politics himself -- working as campaign manager to former North Carolina congressman Robin Britt and as a consultant to Democrat Harvey Gantt's unsuccessful campaign in North Carolina to unseat Republican Jesse Helms in the U.S. Senate. Since 1986, he's been married to Kathy Gille, executive floor assistant to Rep. David Bonior, the Democratic majority whip from Michigan.
Forming a fellowship
In 1988, he met Democratic Rep. Glenn Poshard from Illinois, who was looking for spiritual companionship during his lonely first term in Washington. Along with several others, they formed a makeshift group that three years later became the foundation of the institute.
The Rev. Gail Magruder was one of the early disciples. The ex-wife of Jeb Stuart Magruder, who was convicted in the Watergate scandal, she has witnessed how politics can derail lives.
"Our experience was pretty ghastly," says Ms. Magruder, 56, a Presbyterian minister and a marriage and family therapist in Bethesda. "I felt more of a calling to help people take charge of their political lives, to avoid the disaster we had in Watergate. If the pace had just slowed down and there had been more thinking rather than living rat-a-tat-tat, my former husband might have had the courage to remove himself. That's really the key to what Doug is offering: time to stop and think and have colleagues talk with you confidentially."
Today the institute has a staff of four, an annual budget of $100,000 and weekend retreats where participants and their spouses practice storytelling, study journal writing, and analyze Steven Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People."
'Common Ground'
Last year, the institute introduced its first project, "Common Ground," which offers direction to leaders and citizens about improving race relations. It's currently in the pilot stage in three counties in North Carolina.
If there's been an epiphany for Mr. Tanner along the way, it occurred several years ago during a discussion of Mr. Poshard's re-election campaign. During one meeting, he told members he couldn't face raising money in his recession-plagued district.
"He said, 'I would like to debate my opponent in all 22 counties, rely on local weekly newspapers to cover it and not take any more than $50 from anybody,' " recalls Mr. Tanner. "We all looked at each other and thought: 'Who is this guy?'
"But there was this incredible charisma when he talked about running his campaign this way and this wet dishrag look when he talked about going out and raising money. We said: 'Glenn, this is politically off the wall, but if we have any capacity to discern where the spirit is leading you, it's telling you to do this and we're with you.' "
Mr. Poshard won, and the story has taken on fabled proportions, with members often reciting it as evidence that the group works.
Yet you won't find anything about his spiritual fortitude in his campaign literature.
"I never really say anything about the institute back home in my district," says Mr. Poshard. "There's a general criticism that goes around any time public officials try to share their faith with people. There's a natural suspicion on the part of the public: This is for votes."
It's not votes, though, as much as a politician's conscience that concerns Mr. Tanner.
"We're not there to assure somebody's political success," he says. "We're there to try to help people be true to who they are in their deepest beings."
But talk of "deepest beings" hasn't always played well in a town well-versed in scandal.
The New York Times Magazine wrote of the group's influence: "Of course, there's always the danger that a politician will get in touch with his or her deeper self and find that it is not electable. Then, presumably, it's back to being shallow and opportunistic -- and some real storytelling."
Clearly the group isn't for everyone. Although Rep. Andrew Jacobs Jr., a Democrat from Indiana, attended several times, he stopped when the meeting time shifted from the end to the beginning of the day. He now spends the time answering his mail.
Not a moral obligation
"I considered it useful and pleasant," says Mr. Jacobs, a Roman Catholic. "But I don't regard it as not eating meat on Friday. It's not a moral obligation."
While the institute strives to be egalitarian, some differences are still observed. Aides, for instance, meet during the early part of the week, while members of Congress meet exclusively on Thursdays and Fridays.
"You'd like to think that ideally you didn't have to put that barrier in, but the reality is that it would take a long time before you could build the same trust level," says Mr. Tanner.
He realizes his group is not a panacea. With something as unquantifiable as the spirit, how does he know whether the Faith & Politics Institute is making a difference?
"It's a very subjective thing," he says. "When I see people who are living more freely, who are openly struggling with issues and sharing that, who are figuring out where their conscience is leading them, then I know it's working."