Freedom Writer - September 1995

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Profile:Promise Keepers

The Promise Keepers is the fastest-growing men's movement in America,
and also the fastest-growing Religious Right group. This year, 600,000 
men are expected to attend stadium-packed rallies in 13 cities coast-to-coast. 
Next year, Promise Keepers plans to hold as many as 26 mega-rallies, 
with more than 1 million men in attendance. Cities slated for the 
1996 rallies will be announced in November, 1995.

Countless articles about Promise Keepers have recently appeared in 
newspapers and magazines around the country. Virtually each one of 
them has related how the movement has grown since 1990, when former 
University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney gathered 72 Christian 
men together. Now, as many as 72,000 men at a time attend the conferences.

Today, the Rev. Randy Phillips heads Promise Keepers and founder Bill 
McCartney serves as its public figurehead.
 
The growth of the Promise Keepers has indeed been phenomenal. The 
group's staff and budget has grown in proportion to the increased 
attendance at the rallies. Last year Promise Keepers had 175 full-time 
employees and a $22 million budget. This year they boast 310 full-time 
employees and a $65 million budget.

Promise Keeper rallies offer a mixture of Christian rock bands, tens-of-thousands 
of men doing "the wave" while shouting "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," and 
the introduction of born-again football players. After everyone is 
sufficiently worked up, a series of preachers exhort each man to avoid 
sexual temptation, take his proper place at the head of his household, 
and find an older Christian man to act as his mentor — someone to 
whom he will be accountable. 

Promise Keeper rally tickets range from $18 to $50, depending upon 
the size of the stadium. A selection of memorabilia is available at 
the rallies, and by phone order.

The group also has an official magazine, _New_Man:_For_Men_of_Integrity_, 
with a circulation of about 500,000. New Man is published in cooperation 
with Strang Communications, publisher of the Pentecostal magazine 
_Charisma_.

The slick, bi-monthly magazine's editorial advisory board includes 
the Rev. Jack Hayford, senior pastor of the Church on the Way in Van 
Nuys, California, and the Rev. Wellington Boone of the Manna Christian 
Fellowship Churches in Richmond, Virginia. Both men are politically 
active. Hayford's church is heavily involved with the Christian Coalition 
of California. And Sara Hardman, head of the Californian Christian 
Coalition, considers Hayford her pastor. Boone is an editor and columnist 
for _Crosswinds_ magazine, the publication of the Christian Reconstructionist-oriented 
Coalition On Revival.

It is not surprising that men run _New_Man_ magazine and control its 
editorial content. Women, however, make up the entire production staff 
and sell all the advertising. Sexism, and sex, are big issues with 
the Promise Keepers. Sexism is in, while sex is out, except between 
a legally married man and woman.

_Seven_Promises_of_a_Promise_Keeper_ is the group's manifesto. Published 
by Focus on the Family, the book is marketed to help eager men reassert 
their manhood over women. Co-editor, evangelist Tony Evans, explains, 
"Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not suggesting that 
you ask for your role back. I'm urging you to take it back. Unfortunately, 
there can be no compromise...Treat the lady gently and lovingly. But 
lead...[And] to you ladies who may be reading this: Give it back! 
For the sake of your family and the survival of our culture, let your 
man be a man — if he's willing."

While officially apolitical, no one believes that, except, perhaps, 
those attending the rallies. The group's leaders and speakers exert 
political influence by the strong and vocal positions they take on 
political issues.

Promise Keepers co-founder Dave Wardell told _The_Denver_Post_, "We're 
drawing a line in the sand here.... There has already been controversy 
about abortion and homosexuality. I hope there won't be physical confrontation, 
but look at Amendment 2 and the Act Up people and the foreign religions 
coming in here."

_The_Los_Angeles_Times_ reported: "Randy Phillips, Promise Keepers' 
president, acknowledges that political involvement is possible. But 
so is serving the poor or working for racial reconciliation." Phillips 
told _The_Times_, "Our focus is changing men's hearts. When they're 
changed, they change a family, and a family can change a community, 
and a community can change a nation."

McCartney told _The_Rocky_Mountain_News_ that political activism may 
very well be one result of Promise Keepers' motivation. "If a guy 
is inspired to run for the local school board," he said, "it'll be 
between him and the Lord."

At a 1993 Boulder rally, McCartney called on his all-male audience 
of 50,000 to join him in a spiritual war, saying, "We are going to 
war — as of tonight. We will not retreat anymore. We have divine power. 
That is our weapon."

According to researcher Russ Bellant, "McCartney's pastor is the Rev. 
James Ryle, of the Boulder Valley Vineyard, who McCartney says is 
a major influence in his life. Ryle conducts a 'prophetic' ministry 
and participates in conferences with men who claim to be prophets 
in the 1st-century sense of the term. Ryle believes Promise Keepers, 
of which he is a board member, is the fulfillment of the Biblically 
prophesied end-time army described in the Book of Joel — a terrifying 
army from which there is no escape."

At a recent Promise Keepers rally in Dallas, evangelist Tony Evans 
called homosexuality "immorality in the name of hell." And founder 
McCartney is on the advisory board of the virulently anti-gay Colorado 
For Family Values, the group that sponsored Amendment 2, a measure 
 to overturn civil rights laws that protect gays and lesbians from 
discrimination.

According to published reports, McCartney said that "homosexuality 
is an abomination against Almighty God," and gay people are "a group 
of people who don't reproduce, yet want to be compared to people who 
do reproduce." McCartney has called gay people "stark raving mad."

Various speakers at Promise Keepers rallies have railed against abortion. 
McCartney equates a woman's right to choose an abortion with "taking 
a life."

Last April, _Christian_American_, the newspaper of the Christian Coalition, 
featured the Promise Keepers in a full-page article. Religious Right 
leaders such as the Reverends Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy also 
back the Promise Keepers.

By next year, well over a million men will have been swayed by the 
Promise Keepers. The temptation to exploit a million highly charged 
men to further the political agenda of the Radical Religious Right 
is great. In fact, plans are shaping up to bring one million men to 
a 1997 Promise Keepers rally at the Washington Mall in the nation's 
capitol.



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