Promise Keepers Movement Posts Explosive Growth

Since its founding in 1990, Promise Keepers has grown explosively.

When former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney kicked of the group’s first meeting, it drew 4,200 men at a Colorado basketball arena.

This year, Promise Keepers expects to attract more than 800,000 men to a series of 13 conventions, packing stadiums across the country.

The convention at Seattle’s Kingdome was sold out, with 65,000 men paying $55 per ticket. More than 1,000 men were on the waiting list before organizers closed it.

“If there were 20,000 more seats we could have filled them,” said Doug Engberg, state director for Washington Promise Keepers.

And that’s without serving beer, and asking the guys to pick up their own trash.

The Colorado-based group has grown from 22 full-time staff and $4 million budget in 1993 to more than 150 staff and a budget of $22 million in 1994.

After expenses, money from the Seattle event - roughly $3.4 million - will go into the Promise Keepers budget.

Promise Keepers isn’t a membership organization, and doesn’t collect dues.

The movement calls men to follow God, and commit to seven promises, including serving their local church; developing vital relationships with small groups of other men to help them keep their promises, and to remain morally and sexually pure.

Its followers believe the Bible is the only true, inspired, inerrant word of God, and that homosexuality is a sin.

Promise Keepers are also committed to “building strong marriages and families through love, protection, and biblical values.”

Some observers said they aren’t quite sure what to make of Promise Keepers. “You can look at it positively or negatively,” said Ron Large, a professor of religious studies at Gonzaga University.

“Negatively, it’s spurred by men’s fear of a loss of control and loss of power that’s been going on for more than 20 years, and many men don’t know what to do about it.”

But Promise Keepers also gives some men a new sense of self, and helps them take their commitments to their family and to God seriously. “That’s all to the good,” Large said.

Gay activists said the movement marginalizes gay people.

“It’s the same old right-wing rhetoric of hate the sin and love the sinner,” said Julie Enszer of Affirmations, a gay and lesbian support group in Detroit that tracks Promise Keepers.

“It says we only accept you when you fit in with our narrowly prescribed rules.”

Pepper Schwartz, professor of sociology at the University of Washington, said Promise Keepers promotes authoritarian family relationships. “They really believe a man’s place is at the head of the family, instead of at the side of an equal partner.

“It’s like going backward. They go to these big pep rallies where they say, ‘Hey, not only is it OK, but it’s God-given to claim the family as your turf.”’

Engberg said the goal of Promise Keepers is the exact opposite: to teach men to be Christians who honor and serve their wives.

“There are these misconceptions that we are anti-women. It is just the opposite. We find in Jesus Christ we can change and be more sensitive to our wives and children.”

Men flock to Promise Keepers because the movement offers hope, Engberg said. “Men are looking for answers. For significance and meaning, for their purpose. The Bible makes it all very clear.”

Leaders of the secular men’s movement said it’s no secret men are looking for meaning.

Decades of social change and increasing economic insecurity have left many men struggling to find their balance.

“Every man I meet is looking for who he is and how he fits,” said Michael Gurian of Spokane, a leader of the secular men’s movement.

“Promise Keepers gives them principles to know how they fit in. Promise Keepers does it not by asking questions, but by answering them, saying here is your role, take it back, and you will belong.”

Gurian said the movement gets a bad rap for being anti-woman. “I think if anything some of these guys are finally figuring out respectful relationships with women.”

One thing’s for sure, Gurian said: “Promise Keepers is here to stay, and it’s going to get more and more popular.

“There are so few truly emotionally safe places for men to deal with the life of the heart and the soul, and there are so many men who need other men.”

Engberg had a simpler explanation for the movement’s magic: it is the work of God.

“This is a definite, sovereign move of God in the hearts of men across the nation.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo