Breaking down the wall?

An Inside Observer Says The 'Godly Men' Of Promise Keepers May Be Ready To Remove The Barrier Between Religion And Government

In many ways, Promise Keepers has arrived. Attendance at stadium conferences swelled to over one million last year in 22 cities. The organization has been featured in an op-ed piece in The New York Times, and Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney has been named a "Person of the Week" by ABC News.

According to The Washington Post, the Boulder, Colorado-based group boasts an annual budget of $97 million and a staff of 430, with 38 state affiliates and a handful of international offices.

Randy Phillips, Promise Keepers president, proclaimed at one stadium rally last summer that God is using the organization to bring revival to America. "What God is doing in this nation is a miracle....We are at a crossroads period in our nation," he said. "God has heard the prayers of His daughters crying out for better husbands and fathers."

Phillips likened Promise Keepers to the first-century Christians. Referring to events from the New Testament's Book of Acts, he said, "Peter spoke with boldness, and their enemies noticed. May our enemies notice that these men have been with Jesus."

To be sure, people around the country are noticing Promise Keepers. And as they notice, people are beginning to ask questions about the political ramifications of the organization and its growing army of "godly men." In the May 1995 issue of Church & State, writer Hans Johnson asked poignantly whether Promise Keepers' statewide wake-up call at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in March 1995 broke the group's promise to remain nonpolitical.

During the summer of 1996, I conducted participant-observation research among men in Promise Keepers. I grew up in conservative, evangelical churches in the South, and participation in Promise Keepers is spreading rapidly in those churches now. Since I have moved away from my hometown and the denomination of my childhood, I have observed Promise Keepers with a critical eye.

But because I have maintained relationships with men in my former churches--men now involved in Promise Keepers--I have had access to their small-group meetings. I also joined them on trips to stadium conferences in Charlotte, N.C., and New Orleans, La., where I heard preachers exhort men to "Break Down the Walls," the theme of Promise Keepers' 1996 rallies.

Before joining the groups of Promise Keepers, I had learned that the organization is non-political. To prepare for my meetings, I read Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, and I found many references that discounted political efforts to cure social problems. For example, evangelist Luis Palau says in the book, "What else does society hold? Some 1.6 million elective abortions last year. More than a million out-of-wedlock births. Broken families. Brutal violence on the streets and in the media. Drug addiction." Focusing on moral rather than political solutions, he argues, "The problem is in the heart, not just the outward behavior....Political campaigns...do nothing about the inner condition of human depravity."

During my research, I talked with friends who have participated in Promise Keepers for over a year. One man specifically told me that Promise Keepers is not a political group. To support his claim, he said that Promise Keepers has moved its planned million-man march on Washington, D.C., from 1996 to 1997 to avoid election-year politics. This man, like the others I joined in small-group meetings, stadium rallies, and personal conversations, described his motivation for participating in purely individual terms.

Because of my personal religious background, I am aware first-hand of the individualistic piety on which Promise Keepers thrives. As a child, I heard more sermons than I can count decrying the evils of alcohol and gossip, lying and stealing. The cause of such moral failures was always personal sin with no mention of social structures of evil or corporate sinfulness. The remedy for the sins about which I heard so much was individual conversion--each person "gettin' right with God" through confession and repentance.

I have found men in Promise Keepers to exhibit commitment to a similar style of personalized religion. The group's primary focus remains the individual. The key event is for each man to experience God in a personal way.

In New Orleans, for example, Randy Phillips said, "Think about this: What would you ask the Lord to do for you? Not, what the Lord would do for the stadium, but for you."

Phillips added, "l will show you God's heart for revival for this nation. Stand up if you came to Christ through an evangelist." A few men stood. Then he said, "Stand up if you came to Christ through one person--a friend, father, or co-worker." Many men stood. Phillips concluded, "This shows how Jesus works--through one person at a time. This is how God will begin a revival in this nation."

At first glance, Promise Keepers appears to be true to its non-political pledge. Like many pietistic, revivalist movements, Promise Keepers seek to cure social ills by encouraging followers to deepen their spiritual commitment to individual piety. A closer examination, however, reveals both implicit and explicit calls to action, calls that likely lead to political engagement if followed.

PK's Implicit Call To Action

A key element in conservative and fundamentalist ideology is the notion of a golden past that is now tarnished and lost. When I read Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, I was not surprised to see passages decrying the moral decay of the United States because, according to the authors, people have turned away from God.

For example, Tony Evans, a popular Promise Keepers preacher and senior pastor of Oak Cliffs Bible Fellowship in Dallas, writes that America is losing its families because of feminized American males who have abdicated their roles as spiritually pure leaders, "thus forcing women to fill the vacuum."

Evans refers to the Old Testament character Job as a person who could see divine action in his midst. With an eye to a golden past, Evans regretfully says, "Somewhere along the line we lost touch with that....[Job] understood that a father is to be the priest of his home and maintain that continuity of commitment between generations by setting a godly example."

Another contributor to the book claims that the publication of Situation Ethics has led to the current moral failures in American society. "Thirty-five years ago," writes Gary Oliver, "our country followed the Judeo-Christian ethic....But today, our ethics and morals are no longer based on Jerusalem; they're based on Sodom and Gomorrah."

While I was not surprised to read about moral decay in this country, I was surprised to find such heated rhetoric. Promise Keepers literature is sprinkled throughout with references to a war between the forces of good and evil.

In the concluding chapter of Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, PK founder McCartney say s, "We're in a war, men, whether we acknowledge it or not. The enemy is real, and he doesn't like to see men of God take a stand for Jesus Christ and contest his lies....But Almighty God is for us, and we know that if we walk the narrow road that leads to life, we have an extremely capable leader in Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. And he is faithful to provide the grace and strength we need along the way."

The implication of such rhetoric is that God's army is to suit up and engage the enemy in battle. The political arena certainly cannot be far from the minds of men in Promise Keepers.

At the stadium conference I attended h1 Charlotte, Steve Farrar, president of the Dallas-based Men's Leadership Ministries, preached about one of PK's seven promises. While admonishing men to honor their wives and children, Farrar referred to Ephesians 6 and said, "We are at war. The enemy is engaged in a full-fledged assault on Christian families."

To illustrate his point, Farrar alluded to the Vietnam War. He said that soldiers were chosen to lead small groups into the jungles of Vietnam. Today, he continued, God is similarly calling men to lead their families. At that point, Farrar stopped and asked all Vietnam veterans to stand up. The crowd, at the speaker's encouragement, gave them a standing ovation.

At the New Orleans rally, war veterans also were given a standing ovation. Danny Byram, the featured musical guest, described his career of singing to American troops. Then, he asked veterans to stand while the crowd gave them an ovation. While there was no explicit reference to the deeply divisive politics surrounding the Vietnam War, just the mention of it and the action of the crowd to applaud for those who fought in Vietnam is, at least, an implicit political act.

Explicit PK Calls To Action

While I was walking from Poydras Street to the Louisiana Superdome for the beginning of the New Orleans rally, I was handed a flyer by two young men just outside the entrance. I was surprised when I saw on it a picture of state Rep. Woody Jenkins, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Louisiana. The flyer invited all men at the Promise Keepers conference to meet with the ultra-conservative candidate after the Friday night session over beignets and cafe au fait.

About 10:30 p.m. I went to the coffee-house, and I saw Jenkins making his way from table to table crowded with Promise Keepers men. In addition, two young assistants were walking around the room engaging anyone who would respond in conversation about their candidate. The next day, I spotted Jenkins walking around the floor of the arena with a large Bible under his arm and a big smile on his face.

To be sure, Promise Keepers cannot control the actions of every person at a stadium conference, but savvy political candidates certainly can avail themselves of the conservative constituency in the bleachers.

If the Louisiana politician walked carefully on Promise Keepers' non-political tightrope, Charles Colson jumped up and down and did political cartwheels on it at the conference in Charlotte. It could be argued that Colson's role in the Nixon administration (and the ensuing Watergate scandal) disqualifies him from a nonpolitical rally, but his work as founder and chair of Prison Fellowship Ministries is religious in nature. Besides gathering a following among the incarcerated people to whom he ministers, Colson's conservative theology and concomitant social stances have won the admiration of many people in the Christian Right.

But when Colson took to the platform along pit road at Charlotte Motor Speedway on a sun-drenched day last June, prison ministry was not the topic of his scorching address. Stepping up to the plexiglass pulpit, the evangelical leader said, "I want to talk about the culture in which we live." He proceeded to deliver a sermon filled with as many political allusions as the speeches given later at the political party conventions in San Diego and Chicago.

Colson began by discussing Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's April 9, 1996, speech at a prayer breakfast sponsored by the Christian Legal Society affiliate at Mississippi College. During the speech, Scalia, quoting the Apostle Paul, said that Christians are "fools for Christ's sake." The high court justice lamented the fact that Christians face scorn because of their belief in miracles such as the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus. Reflecting on the response to Scalia's speech, Colson told the PK men, "Justice Scalia said he believed in the resurrection, and he was ridiculed in the press and media."

Next, Colson discussed the Supreme Court's decision in Romer v. Evans, striking down Colorado's Amendment Two. In its decision, the court found unconstitutional a Colorado provision banning civil rights protections for homosexuals. Colson said the Colorado initiative denied special privileges to people on the basis of their sexual partners. The Supreme Court, he argued, had overruled the majority of the state's citizens who had legally enacted the measure.

Colson then turned his attention to Florida Governor Lawton Chiles who had vetoed a bill allowing student-led, nonsectarian prayer at graduations, football games, and other voluntary school assemblies. Chiles incorrectly vetoed the measure, the speaker complained, because he felt the Constitution provides freedom from religion. Colson did not tell his audience about Chiles' concerns about the rights of minority religious groups and non-believers.

Colson next described the country's rise in crime as a "direct result of moral breakdown." Referring to the secular people of the world, he said, "They just don't get it. All of this is the direct result of moral decline." Colson predicted that if the moral decay continues, people will surrender their rights and liberties in exchange for order. Tyranny, he insisted, will result from such a decision. As an example, he said 90 percent of Americans approve of curfews, even though curfews are a form of"martial law."

Finally, Colson rhetorically asked the crowd "How do we fight?" I could hardly believe the words that came from his mouth. "Politics," he said, and he praised Robin Hayes, then the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina. "Thank God," Colson said, "Christian men like this are in politics." The men assembled in the bleachers of the speedway gave candidate Hayes a rousing ovation.

Colson went on to say that the decayed moral condition of the country goes deeper than politics. Christians, he argued, must overcome evil with good. He challenged the church to be a living witness, a community of redeemed people who live differently.

Colson concluded his sermon with a call for Christians to join forces with one another. He said, "We're in a culture war, and we can't afford to be divided. If we march together at abortion clinics, we do so as brother and sisters."

Breaking Down Walls

Based on my experience at two Promise Keepers rallies during the summer of 1996, what can be said about Promise Keepers' non-political pledge? Officially, the fast-growing group continues to maintain that its aims are loftier than politics. In the syllabus distributed at stadium conferences this summer, its mission is "to unite Christian men who are currently separated by race, sectarianism, age, culture and economics. We refer to something much greater than any humanistic unification and more powerful than any form of political equality."

At the organizational level, Promise Keepers appears true to its non-political pledge. I have not seen a political endorsement in any official publication even though Promise Keepers deals with issues with political ramifications. An article in the June issue of its magazine, New Man, discussed illegal immigrants in this country. But the author concluded there is no clear-cut response for Christians. Christians, he said, should open their doors to the stranger and the needy even as they consider the political complexities of the issue.

At stadium conferences this summer, men were encouraged to contribute to offerings to pay for Promise Keepers' million-man march in October 1997, but the event was not promoted as a political rally. Instead, speakers said that men from Promise Keepers will bow together before God on their knees when they gather in Washington.

Despite its claims to the contrary, the two conferences I attended demonstrate that Promise Keepers is perilously close to stepping over the non-political line. When over a million religiously and socially conservative men are gathered together in arenas across the country, they are ripe picking for the political activists of the Religious Right.

Promise Keepers is also attracting thousands of men to small-group meetings through its growing network of "Key Man" and "Ambassador" volunteers in towns and churches across the country; the seeds of a grass-roots movement are clearly being sown.

Promise Keepers' 1996 conference theme, "Break Down the Walls," was intended to refer to removing the racial, denominational and other barriers between Christian men. The actions of a political candidate in Louisiana and an officially sanctioned speaker in North Carolina demonstrate, however, that the slogan easily could have referred to the wall separating church and state.

People committed to the separation of church and state would do well to keep an eye on Promise Keepers, especially as the group implements plans to set up a stage on the mall in Washington for a million men next fall.

L. Dean Allen II is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Ethics and Sociology of Religion at Boston University Graduate School, Division of Religious and Theological Studies.