MEN'S GROUP FOCUSES ON SPIRIT OVER POLITICS : FEMALE ENCLAVES.

Byline: Laurie Goodstein The New York Times

By choosing to convene a religious revival meeting of Christian men Saturday in the nation's political capital, the leaders of the evangelical men's movement called Promise Keepers were forced to spend much of the day forswearing any political motivation.

The men who attended Saturday's event say they committed their lives to Jesus, not to the Republican Party, and they say they should be taken at their word.

However, this massive mobilization could have political and social repercussions in an era in which conservative evangelical Christians are feeling increasingly vulnerable as the nation becomes more and more religiously and culturally diverse. What will it mean when hundreds of thousands of men go back to their homes, energized by speakers who pumped them up on Saturday to ``take back our country for Christ''?

Skeptics immediately envision a Christian army marching in lock step. But more likely the impact will be so local as to be felt household-to-household or man-to-man.

These men tend to steer away from talk of political issues; instead, they talk about ``relationships,'' and that is where the Promise Keepers will try to make their mark.

Most of the attention to Promise Keepers focused on what the group has to say about relationships between the sexes, but at Saturday's event the leadership clearly signaled that what now tops their agenda is relations between the races.

At Saturday's rally, Bill McCartney, the former University of Colorado football coach who founded Promise Keepers seven years ago, announced what amounted to a deadline for Christian churches to end their own racism. McCartney, who still goes by the nickname ``Coach,'' told the crowd that his goal was to gather a multiracial rally of Christian men on the steps of every state capitol at noon on Jan. 1, 2000, to pronounce that the Christian church has eradicated racism within its own ranks.

``That's brave rhetoric,'' said the Rev. Robert M. Franklin, president of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, the largest predominantly African-American seminary in the country. Franklin traveled to Washington on Saturday to observe the Promise Keepers rally, and said he was impressed at the way African-American and white men intermingled there.

In a survey of rally participants, The Washington Post found that one out of seven of the men who attended was African-American.

``But there's so many problems facing the black church,'' Franklin said, ``particularly problems related to poverty alleviation and crime that I think the effort at racial reconciliation will only garner support from the black church if it is linked to problem solving in urban, poor, black communities. If they get that, I think this could be quite a hopeful development.''

But, he added, ``I haven't seen evidence of it yet.''

McCartney also directed the men to form closer relationships with their local churches and their ministers.

``Pastors,'' McCartney said Saturday, ``you have been working with half a squad. You have been working with mostly women. But that's going to change. These guys are coming back.''

Churches do tend to be ``predominantly female enclaves,'' said William Dinges, associate professor of religion at the Catholic University of America in Washington, who also attended the rally as an observer. Whereas Promise Keepers' goal of ending racism in the church is ``political naivete, which is probably their Achilles heel,'' Dinges said, the goal of infusing male energy in the church is realistic.

``They are preaching to the converted,'' Dinges said. Polls show that a majority of the Promise Keepers are already active members of churches. Indeed, many who traveled to the rally did so on chartered buses, planes or trains with other members of their church groups.

Promise Keepers drew on this church infrastructure to mobilize the numbers it summoned to Washington. Neither Promise Keepers nor government agencies are making any official crowd estimates, but it is safe to say the gathering numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

Six years ago, Promise Keepers drew 4,200 men for its first event in a basketball arena in Boulder, Colo. Since then, the group has drawn, by its estimate, about 2.6 million men to 61 stadiums in cities around the country. Historians call it one of the fastest-growing religious revivals in American history.

More conservatives

The Washington Post poll found that 46 percent of Saturday's participants considered themselves Republican, (28 percent said they were independent, and 15 percent Democrat) and 61 percent considered themselves either conservative or very conservative. Eight percent said they were liberal.

Some conservative groups and members of Congress took advantage of the event to try to marshal support.

The Family Research Council, a conservative lobby headed by Gary Bauer, distributed a pamphlet and built its mailing list by fielding workers offering free aerial photographs of the event to those who signed up for it.

Critics on the political left and in feminist groups warn that Promise Keepers is a ``Trojan Horse'' for the religious right.

And certainly many in Promise Keepers oppose abortion and homosexuality.

But in interviews, Promise Keepers participants characterized themselves as largely apolitical because, they said, they do not believe in political solutions to what they see as spiritual and moral problems.

The Washington Post poll found that while 6 in 10 men said they had a favorable impression of the religious right, only 26 percent said they considered themselves members.

Over coffee Saturday night, four friends from the Detroit area who drove to the rally together said that for them the Promise Keepers event amounted to a spiritual ``pep talk'' for leading righteous Christian lives.

``We can't change people through politics,'' said Vito Mazzara, 36, a United Parcel Service driver from North Branch, Mich., who brought his 11-year-old son to the rally. ``Our job is to have a lifestyle of integrity. I do it with my customers on my route, with my bosses. I don't call in sick if I'm not sick. My bosses know that.''

It is not possible for people or political systems to change things like economic inequality, injustice and prejudice, the four men agreed. ``It's never going to be fair,'' said Tim Laden, 49, a real estate appraiser from Redford, Mich.