NASHVILLE - Former U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp plays a key role in a five-part Netflix docudrama, "The Family," which takes a hard look at the secretive Fellowship Foundation and portrays the faith-based group in often-shadowy and conspiratorial tones.
A Chattanoogan who served in Congress from 1995-2011, Wamp throughout the series defends the 84-year-old organization, which sponsors the annual National Prayer Breakfast and is also known as The International Foundation, The Fellowship, The Family and C Street.
"Inspired" by author Jeff Sharlet's book "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" and Sharlet's other reporting, it features actors in some scenes portraying the organization as an "enigmatic" group with unconventional religious views and a thirst for influencing political leaders in both in the U.S. and abroad.
Wamp has long been associated with the National Prayer Breakfast, which for 67 years has had presidential participation from Dwight Eisenhower to Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Wamp now serves as the breakfast's chairman.
In the series, Wamp often becomes a counterpoint to questions raised.
"I have no regrets about going on camera," the former congressman told the Times Free Press this week. "I did this because I've been involved in this movement for over 25 years, and I continue to be in the National Prayer Breakfast movement."
Wamp said he agreed to participate after being asked to do so by Tim and David Coe, sons of the group's longtime head, Doug Coe, who died in 2017.
In archival footage, Doug Coe says, "The more you can make your organization invisible, the more influence it will have."
"I have never seen any conspiratorial motives or actions like we're trying to use this organization for power," Wamp said. "The irony of their allegations is that it's just the opposite."
Group members say the mission isn't spreading Christianity as much as attempting to get leaders to focus on the actual words of Jesus. That's done by forming relationships with political leaders, holding small, bipartisan prayer sessions in the Capitol and the National Prayer Breakfast.
For years, the organization had a Capitol Hill residence dubbed "C Street," where senators and congressmen, including Wamp, lived in a dorm-style atmosphere paying below-market rents. That led to a watchdog group filing complaints with U.S. House and Senate ethics committees against Wamp and seven other lawmakers in 2010. He says it was later dismissed. The watchdog group did not respond to a Times Free Press inquiry, and a U.S. House Ethics Committee official could not be reached.
In the series, Wamp contends that in no way is there "some kind of agenda or some kind of conspiracy move."
"It's more like how can we walk through this difficult job doing the Lord's work in the devil's playground?" he says.
Relying heavily on actors in the first episode, the series begins by portraying Sharlet's experiences living in the Arlington, Virginia, headquarters of The Family.
Sharlet says in the series that the group is "very unapologetically targeting the rich and powerful. I found that to be disturbing."
Leaders are considered chosen, Sharlet says, and "it doesn't matter what you do." He calls it the "darkest expression of religious life that I've found in 20 years."
The series looks at extramarital affair scandals involving two of the group's members - then-U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and then-U.S. representative, later South Carolina governor and potential 2020 presidential hopeful Mark Sanford.
In the case of Ensign, who lived at the C Street residence, he was having an affair with the wife of a top aide. After learning of the matter, Wamp and colleagues intervened.
"While it was ugly and it was painful and it caused a lot of scrutiny and a lot of people's claims of hypocrisy and everything else, John Ensign, our friend, handled that. He and Darlene are together today," Wamp says in one episode.
Ensign, who resigned from the Senate in 2011, filed for divorce last month.
Noting he hasn't spoken with Ensign in about five years, Wamp told the Times Free Press that at the time the couple appeared to be "doing great." He said he doesn't know what resulted in the divorce action, but he added that the relationship had held for 10 years after outside interventions.
Wamp said both his marital relationship and that of other former colleagues who lived at C Street and were involved in the Ensign intervention - former Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and former Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. - are "all intact and doing well."
The series also raises questions about the group's outreach to Russia and dictators, with some members traveling overseas at the foundation's expense.
Wamp said he has not participated in such travel.
During the series, Wamp is asked about President Donald Trump.
"Just remember that God always uses imperfect vessels to do his perfect work, because I am an imperfect vessel," Wamp says. "President Trump's an imperfect vessel. We all are, really."
As for conspiracy theories surrounding the group, Wamp says, "Let's just address the 600-pound gorilla right on the front end. I've never seen any conspiratorial motives. I've never seen any bad actors inside that weren't - if they showed up, they were pushed out. So you can shoot at it - or develop conspiracy theories, but they're not justified, honestly."
Still, Wamp says in the episode, "in a sense, the 21st century has caused a new era of openness. We're trying to be more transparent to people. Obviously, we may have made some mistakes in the past, part of which may have been just not talking."
In his Times Free Press interview, Wamp said the docudrama's producers interviewed him for three hours, using portions of his remarks about 15 times in the series.
"Some of it's not based on fact, and it even says it's 'inspired' by [Sharlet's] book," Wamp said. "It doesn't have to be, according to their new rules, based on fact. And so we think some of it's mischaracterized. But we also see that God works through all kind of things. God can reach people every time.
"Here's the irony," Wamp said. "We're not an evangelical organization, we're not a Christian organization. Our organization lifts the name of Jesus up to Muslims, to Buddhists, to Christians, to Jews, to people of all faiths. We are the most welcoming faith organization in the entire world."
People of all faiths are invited to come based "on the teachings of Jesus, because we've found them to be transcendent," Wamp said. "We have found that when you follow the teachings of Jesus, no matter what your religious perspective is, that good things happen."
But Wamp, who wants the group to be more open, said there's been a positive development from the Netflix series.
The Fellowship Foundation now has a website devoted to outlining its views. It's had some 200,000 hits already in the days following the series start on on Aug. 9, Wamp said.
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550. Follow on Twitter @AndySher1.