The Denver Post (16/Dec/97) reports that among the recipients in Colorado of Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievement Awards (Bill Husted's column on page 2A) was the well-deserved recognition of the Promise Keepers as 'Cult of the Year.'
Confronting the agenda of ''Godly Men" -- Questions and answers
about the Promise Keepers Movement
This weekend, hundreds of thousands of members of the Promise Keepers
movement will descend on Washington, D.C. for a "Solemn Assembly."
The group's founder, former University of Colorado football coach Bill
McCartney says that, "Almighty God has called us here to repent,"
adding that the organization is "not coming with any other agenda.
We are coming to ask God to forgive us."
But is that really the whole story?
Many people, while they have heard of the Promise Keepers, are unfamiliar
with the organization's origins, leadership, and links to hard-line
religious rights groups. Some wonder why American Atheists, National
Organization for Women and other movements have called for protests this
weekend against the Promise Keepers. And critics say that beneath the
veneer of calling upon men to "repent" and reform their lives,
there is a dangerous social and political agenda.
Some of the following information comes from the list of "Talking
Points" being used this weekend by American Atheists at its
"DEFENDING THE WALL... NO SUBMISSION" Conference on state-church
separation, also taking place in Washington, D.C. Another source is a
series of articles which appeared in the Spring, 1997 issue of AMERICAN
ATHEIST MAGAZINE. The latter is available for browsing at the magazine
web site, http://www.AmericanAtheist.org.
Founded in 1990 by popular football coach Bill McCartney, the Promise
Keepers is a Christian mens' group with the explicit goal of
reconstructing nuclear, heterosexual families under the leadership of
"godly men," and fostering an evangelical religious movement
throughout society. The group has become noted for holding mass prayer
rallies in stadiums, arenas and other athletic venues; indeed, much of
the group's rhetoric employs sports-oriented metaphors and slogans.
Along with telling men to "honor Jesus Christ and learn more about
becoming men of integrity," Promise Keepers are exhorted to
"reach the goal line" and "carry the ball for Jesus."
PK rallies usually last several hours, and involve spirited singing,
hugging, outbursts of public emotion, evangelical revival-style preaching,
and "altar calls" where men are urged to "turn your life
over" to god.
The Promise Keepers is possibly the nation's fastest growing religious
movement. It's rallies have attracted over one million men in the last
year; and this weekend's "Solemn Assembly" is being compared
to Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March.
Indeed they, and every other group, should have full freedom of
expression. A number of groups will be protesting the Promise Keepers
event; and American Atheists does not question or oppose the right of
the PK to assemble and express their views. We would hope that these
"godly men" would take a similar stance in defense of OUR right
to peaceable gather.
We are demonstrating in order to prompt a critical and reasoned discussion
on just what exactly this movement wants. Promise Keepers have made a
number of brash and dogmatic claims, and they offer society a
"solution" to personal and cultural problems. Is this really
true? We're asking -- whether you agree with American Atheists or not
on other points -- for people, including rank-and-file Promise Keepers
members, to step back and examine this movement.
For starters, we think the public -- and the members of PK as well
-- need to check out information about the origins and leadership of
this movement. Promise Keepers grew out of the "Latter Rain"
evangelical movement which embraces extreme and even bizarre and cult-
like religious practices -- speaking in tongues (glossolalia), direct
revelation, and even components of the authoritarian "Shepherding-
Discipleship" tradition which teaches a dangerous, manipulative
follower-leader relationship.
Promise Keepers "huddles" or chapters are often invasive.
Journalist Russ Bellant, for instance, notes that members are probed by
other participants and compelled to "confess" and reveal highly
personal and intimate facts about their life. We suspect that many PK
men would be surprised to learn about these more bizarre and strange
origins of their movement.
After seeing the destructive influence of cults like Jim Jones and the
Peoples Temple, or the Koresh sect and other groups which preach
unquestioning obedience and submission to dogmatic leaders, shouldn't
everyone be caution in endorsing a group like the Promise Keepers?
There are other disturbing aspects of the movement as well. Despite lip
service about "being worthy of women," Promise Keepers are
urged to "take back" governance of the family. Biblical
passages ("Women, remain silent in the churches. Men are the head
of the household as Christ is the head of the church...") are often
used as doctrinal points. "Coach" McCartney and other PK
leaders define a "godly man" as one who obeys the church and
is involved in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship within the confines
of sanctioned marriage. These sorts of teachings -- and McCartney's own
endorsement of anti-gay initiatives in Colorado -- have disturbed
civil libertarians, womens' groups and gay-lesbian organizations.
The Promise Keepers record concerning blacks is highly problematic. PK
seems to distinguish between what they term "reconciliation" and
a more pronounced call for true equality. Black men (and others) are
"godly" only if they fit into the PK lifestyle template. In
addition, it should be noted that a number of the black evangelists show
cased by the Promise Keepers are Christian Reconstructionists. This
extreme movement teaches that society should be "reconstructed"
along Biblical, Old Testament lines; it proscribes the death penalty for
a number of transgressions, including blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery,
"witchcraft" and even disrespect to parents.
These sorts of extreme associations are not known to most of the rank-
and-file men caught up in the enthusiasm of the Promise Keepers prayer
rallies.
It may be. Promise Keepers grew out of an extreme charismatic religious
tendency, and "Coach" McCartney -- while undergoing traumatic
personal upheaval in his own life, later documented in his autobiography --
fell under the extreme influences of men like Rev. James Ryle, and
"power evangelist" James Wimber of the cult-like Vineyard
movement.
Theologically, the group's roots are apocalyptic -- an integral component
of the "Latter Rain" tendency which talked about impending
Armageddon, and gathering groups of men into what they call "Joel's
Army" to combat transgressors and sinners, and prepare the way for
"Kingdom" at the end of the world.
Many mainstream religions shun this sort of rhetoric, and see these
Biblical references in historical or symbolic terms.
Ironically, many churches are guarded about endorsing the Promise
Keepers movement. PK sees itself as a "para-church," or
"movement within the church."
Men in the Promise Keepers movement are provided with a steady stream
of literature and teachings, most of it based on emotionally evocative
but vague slogans. The constant use of sports metaphors -- "going
the extra mile for Jesus" or "carrying the ball" --
appears to be employed in an effort to "hook" or appeal to
contemporary males; this discourse, however, is the religious equivalent
of advertising cliches or contemporary psycho-babble.
Phrases like "godly men" and "submitting your life to
Jesus" assume an almost hypnotic quality where rational analysis
and questioning is not encouraged.
The PK "huddles" serve to reinforce this process through peer
pressure -- not rational persuasion and discourse. The world is portrayed
in Manichean terms. In "Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper,"
for instance, McCartney declares, "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."
We suggest that any dispassionate examination of twentieth century
political and social movements would suggest a red flag about any
organization which bases so much on emotional outburst, demonstrations
of frenzied angst and sloganeering. Promise Keepers literature (including
the publication "New Man" which until recently was their
official journal) is remarkably devoid of substantive material. The
stories are often folksy, anecdotal and make widespread generalizations
about how miserable men are prior to "turning their lives over to
the Lord." Shouldn't we be skeptical of any group, cause or ideology
which makes such a request of its members?
Finally, Promise Keepers should also be scrutinized for another reason;
it offers simplistic solutions to complex personal and social problems.
The world simply isn't like that.
Promise Keepers representatives increasingly face that question;
"Coach" McCartney insists that the aims of the group are
spiritual, not political, and that the movement is designed to change
hearts, not voting patterns.
But there are concerns. Many Promise Keepers statements, especially
those regarding women and gays, have serious political implications. In
addition, the leadership and key figures behind the Promise Keepers
movement reads like a who's-who of the religious right. We identify a
number of them in the Spring issue of AMERICAN ATHEIST MAGAZINE,
including James Dobson (Focus on the Family), E. Peb Jackson, Bill
Bright, Ronald Blue and Billy Kim.
Several are linked to the Christian Reconstructionist group known as
Coalition on Revival; they include "Bishop" Wellington Boone,
John Perkins, E.V. Hill and Joseph Garlington. In addition, Promise
Keepers has received boosting from savvy religious right politicos such
as Pat Robertson of Christian Broadcasting Network, and former Christian
Coalition head Ralph Reed. We consider the Promise Keepers movement to
be a fertile recruiting ground for more overt religious right political
groups, and a "spiritual boot camp" for those same interests.
Ignored in most of the general media commentary about this movement is
the fact that Promise Keepers is a component in a larger cultural-
religious revolt against modernity, especially with its emphasis on
asserting patriarchal authority based on Old Testament models. The
group's lexicon suggests an agenda of self-abnegation and debasement
before Jesus, god, the "huddle" and other men, and admission
to self and others that one is "unworthy."
The group is also remarkable for its irrationalism. All religious groups,
in that they accept faith and some form of revelational knowledge, are to
varying degrees irrationalist or non-rationalist.
Promise Keepers, with its roots in extreme charismatic, evangelical
ideology, however, could even be described as an anti-rationalist
movement. PK events are held in sports venues -- no accident here, since
spectator sports play a multifaceted role in modern culture. They are
orchestrated to be highly evocative, not on the basis of calm, reasoned
arguments, but through the use of literally hours of verbal pounding,
repetitive use of content-void slogans (often employing a sports
vocabulary), group reinforcement and heightened states of emotional
excitement even bordering on the hysterical .
The latter may account for the "Jesus waves" of joyous weeping,
crying, public praying and other emotional displays. It exploits doubts
in men about being "worthy" -- sort of the religious equivalent
of asking, "Is your penis of sufficient size?" -- and then
caters to fantasies of "taking charge" and "being heads
of the household."
We should certainly oppose the agenda of the group, but still have a
degree of sympathy and understanding for at least some of the men who
are drawn into the Promise Keepers movement. Many men are legitimately
confused and upset with the convulsive changes taking place in the world
today.
As secularists, we need to emphasize the positive aspects of many of
these changes, though; equality, diversity, rights for women and others.
We should also note that many women are under stress as well. The
average American worker is expected to have seven careers in a lifetime.
Earning power for many is stagnant. Vacations are shorter, and there are
new stresses and dislocations in the work place. There are, indeed,
legitimate sociological problems facing everyone, and legitimate questions
to raise.
But is Promise Keepers, or any other religious right movement, an answer?
Too often, we look for scapegoats to explain a sense of personal
powerlessness; unfortunately, some men perceive women as competition in
the marketplace or elsewhere. They get "mixed signals" pitting
old stereotypes against a new reality; they feel alienated, stressed out
-- and sometimes can become "easy picking" for religious
hucksters who offer a well packaged program which requires little
thinking or scrutiny. Promise Keepers pays, and it PREYS on the
discontents of modern society, specifically, the way those discontents
often manifest themselves in men.
PK members of often mostly unaware of the backgrounds and agendas
of the leadership of this group.
Finally, we all need to ask -- at a time in our history when men and
women, straight and gay, Anglos and others -- are scrambling to cope with
unprecedented economic and social upheaval, is constant rhetoric about
being "unworthy," or confession, or submission really
appropriate? Is it genuinely self-empowering? The Promise Keepers
lexicon is both inherently authoritarian and self-debasing. It is not
the language of reason and personal empowerment. Its textual character
betrays an inherently irrationalist, authoritarian component where one
is "moved by the spirit" to "submit" to Jesus -- or his
self-announced representatives. Again, there are plenty of legitimate
problems in society; but as secularists, we need to point out that Jesus,
religion, churches and the Promise Keepers are not the solution. We
should also beware of any group which insists that it has all of the
answers -- and the only answers!
That's true, and the claim concerning arrogance is often linked to the
group's stance on the social and theological role to be assigned to women.
It's certainly true that some women do want men to become more involved
in domestic relationships. But not all women opt for that; presuming that
all or even most women want the sort of monogamous, marital situation
within the nuclear family which PK leaders say they should, is both
arrogant and presumptive.
Even within the context of a heterosexual marriage, women should
rightfully be leery if their male partner suddenly "finds
Jesus" and a new way of life. Isn't that the possible triumph of
external form over substance?
And is there any evidence, other than the anecdotal accounts which
populate PK literature, to suggest that followers of this movement really
do become "better fathers and husbands"? How long do these
changes last? It should also be noted that there are other alternatives
to religious conversion which can help families cope, even in today's
stressed-out environment.
Just as Promise Keepers literature, with its abundance of sports metaphors
and catchy, yet amorphous slogans renders it difficult for participants to
"get a handle" on, is manipulative, so is the role being played
by the PK movement. As noted, many denominations are suspicious of the
Promise Keepers anointed role as a "movement within the church,"
and the group is suspect for its trans-denominational character. What
exactly is it they want? What exactly are they saying? Even certain
religious groups are confused and wary. Worse yet, the PK leadership
rarely announces its own extreme, bizarre theological and political
agenda, relying instead on a flashy veneer of endless sloganeering.
Answering that question requires a cogent analysis of the objective social
and cultural role played by the Promise Keepers and other religious right
groups. PK is not overtly partisan and political in the same way which
the Christian Coalition is. It is closer to the type of "renewal
politics" one finds in kindred groups like Focus on the Family.
Promise Keepers ideology overlaps with that of other religious groups;
again, the analogy to the PK being a sort of ideological boot camp for
future religious social activists may be useful.
Atheists and other secularists should know that Promise Keepers is a
Dominionist movement. Dominion theology attempts to integrate religious
doctrines into a form of political conservatism. It should be noted,
though, that Dominionists -- often found in groups like the Christian
Coalition or the Coalition on Revival -- quickly part company with the
more secular, laissez-faire teachings of secular conservatives and even
libertarians found in groups like Cato Institute.
Simply put, Dominionist Theology teaches that Christians are commanded
by god to occupy and govern all institutions in anticipation of the
"final days" and the Second Coming. It holds that Biblical
principles must be applied to every aspect of individual, social and
political life. "Bible Law" must govern the person, families,
neighborhoods, communities and governmental institutions. In a pure
Dominionist culture, there is no separating of state and church; the
police powers of the government are harnessed to ensure that Bible law
is enforced.
You won't find the more hard line excrescences of Dominionist teaching
in most of the Promise Keepers literature. That discourse is reserved
for other doctrinal publications like the Reconstructionist journal
Chalcedon. But Promise Keepers materials have referred to and promoted
standard religious right works such as books by David Barton, author of
the controversial and misleading 1989 book "The Myth of Separation."
Many Promise Keepers leaders have expressed agreement with Barton's claim
that the "wall of separation" between church and state is myth,
or "one-directional" and prevents only interference by
government into the affairs of religious groups. This same refrain
echoes from other religious activists like Ralph Reed, James Dobson
and even Pat Buchanan.
Promise Keepers teachings often serve to reinforce the religious political
agenda on a number of fronts, including laws against abortion rights,
equal rights for gays, calls for censorship, and the demand for
"special rights" for religious groups and believers.
American Atheists will be gathering on Constitution and Louisiana
Avenues, north of the Capitol, for a peaceful demonstration on behalf
of First Amendment rights, state-church separation, and opposition to
the Promise Keepers agenda. For information, check out our web site
at:
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/index.html
and click on the appropriate icons. There, you will find more background,
"rules of the road" for the demonstration, directions and talking
points. We hope that you can join us!
FROM AMERICAN ATHEISTS, AANEWS #334,
cg@atheists.org
Fresno mayor should repay taxpayers for Primise Keepers donation,
national watchdog group says
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A national church-state watchdog group has urged Fresno Mayor James
Patterson to reimburse the city's taxpayers, charging the mayor
inappropriately arranged for the payment of $75,000 for a Promise
Keepers rally.
Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of
Church and State, said that Patterson's use of public funds to pay for
the stadium rental for a Promise Keepers rally last June raises serious
legal concerns. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the
California State Constitution forbid the use of tax money to subsidize
religion, he said.
Lynn noted Article XVI, Sec. 5 of the state constitution that states,
"Neither the Legislature, nor any county, (nor) city 'shall ever
make an appropriation of, or pay from any public fund whatever, or grant
anything to or in aid of any religious sect, church, creed or sectarian
purpose.'"
"One can interpret the efforts of the Promise Keepers in many ways,
but their rallies are surely of a sectarian purpose,'" said Lynn.
"As such, it would appear that by intentionally and publicly
subsidizing an event where one religious faith is featured and celebrated,
Mayor Patterson's office chose to make an appropriation to a religious
group for a religious purpose, ignoring the constitutional law
prohibiting him from doing so."
Lynn insisted that this irresponsible misuse of public funds embarrasses
the city and threatens the public trust of those Patterson represents.
He concluded that there is a single recourse for Patterson regarding this
embarrassing ordeal.
"In light of this error, it appears the only responsible course
of action is for you to reimburse the taxpayers of Fresno for their money
that you inappropriately spent," Lynn said. "I urge you to begin
to make amends for this breach of the public trust by paying back the
taxpayers for the misuse of their money."
Americans United is a 50,000-member public policy organization based in
Washington, D.C., that works to defend religious liberty by supporting
the separation of church and state. Founded in 1947, the group
this year celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Distributed by
charles.sumner@juno.com
October 15, 1997
Contact: Joseph Conn, Rob Boston
1816 Jefferson Place, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036
202.466.3234
202.466.2587 fax
E-mail: americansunited@au.org
WWW site: http://www.au.org/
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Promise Keeper Cult: Defending the cult - Part 3