Promise Keepers: who, what, and why?

• Author: Doerr, Edd

ON SATURDAY. OCT. 4, 1997, an estimated 500,000 men gathered on the Mall in Washington, D.C., for the Stand in the Gap Sacred Assembly of Men. The event climaxed a series of revival-like rallies held in sports stadiums around the country since 1991. Sponsored by the Promise Keepers, founded in 1990 by former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney, the six-hour Washington event was broadcast live on C-SPAN and received substantial media coverage, most of it positive, uncritical, and superficial. Although the organization insists that it has no political agenda, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and other prominent Congressional Republicans were present at the Mall rally.

Since 1991, Promise Keeper events have attracted about 3,000,000 men, though an undetermined number are repeaters: 4,200 in 1991; 22,000 in 1992; 50,000 in 1993; 279,000 in 1994; 727,000 in 1995; and 1,100,000 in 1996. Attendance in 1997, except for the Washington rally, reportedly was down about 30% from the previous year.

The noon-to-six affair featured singing. praying, and numerous addresses by generally white evangelists, though the organizers conspicuously included among them African-American, Native American, Hispanic, and "Messianic Jewish" (Jews for Jesus) representatives. The flavor of the gathering was distinctly fundamentalist and evangelical. A poll by The Washington Post found that 90% of the men at the Mall were fundamentalist, evangelical, or charismatic Christians. Most Catholics, mainstream Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, and other non-Christians would have found the revival rather alien to their backgrounds, traditions, and experience.

According to the Post poll, 32% of the participants said the main reason they came was "to confess and repent [our] sins before God," while 25% came "to show unity with other Christian men." Politically, 46% of the participants identified themselves as Republicans, 28% as Independents, and 15% as Democrats. Eight percent said they were liberal or very liberal and 22% stated they were moderate, while 61% indicated they were conservative or very conservative, compared to about one-third of the general population. The Post survey suggested that, while participants thought the organization should stay out of partisan politics, a great many would approve of the Promise Keepers "taking a lead role" on such hot controversial issues as vouchers for tax aid to parochial and private schools, making divorce harder to obtain, and prohibiting gay marriages.

Rally speakers, dressed informally and wearing identical T-shirts, kept their message simple: Adhere to a fundamentalist version of Christianity; repent for sin, especially of the sexual variety; seek racial reconciliation in your personal life; be morally, spiritually, and sexually pure and be faithful to your spouse; "reach beyond denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity"; and "pursue relationships with a few other men." The media reporting of the event, however, paid little attention to what may have been the most significant part of McCartney's speech toward the end of the rally: "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority." He identified the leaders as the clergy, and by that he meant exclusively male clergy. (The Promise Keepers' 1996 conference in Atlanta was attended by 39,000 conservative ministers, and female clergy were turned away.)

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