Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash: Promise Keepers: Old Wine, New Bottles

August 25, 2020

Promise Keepers THE MAKING OF A GODLY MAN Rally at RFK Stadium in SE Washington DC on Saturday, 14 June 1997 (Elvert Barnes)

By Bill Berkowitz 

In the 1990s, spectacle, entertainment, community, and evangelical Christianity were the glue that attracted hundreds of thousands of men to the men’s movement known as Promise Keepers. As sociologists Michael Emerson and Christian Smith pointed out twenty years ago in their study called, “Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America,” white evangelicals had a limited “toolkit” for dealing with racial issues. When Promise Keepers, which sought out black pastors and black men -- particularly sports stars -- talked about race, it did so only in terms of “racial reconciliation,” not racial justice. Racism was viewed as a personal issue between black and white men that could be overcome by group hugfests. The organization never recognized that racism is systemic and structural. 

During its heyday, Promise Keepers brought hundreds of thousands of men to Washington, D.C. to a rally called "Stand in the Gap." As Americans United for Separation of Church & State’s Rob Boston recently pointed out, “Back in the 1990s, some observers speculated that the Promise Keepers … would spearhead a new wave of Religious Right activism.” The group, founded by former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney  -- now diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease -- “was known for holding mass rallies in sports stadiums that attracted hundreds of thousands of men.” Like many of the celebrated boy bands of the 1990s, as Promise Keepers aged, it lost hits luster.  Internal squabbles didn’t help its longtime survival. 

While in 1996, more than 1.1 million men participated in events at stadiums across the country, by 2006, only 132,000 attended 18 conferences. As AU’s Boston reported, “at its peak,” the Colorado Springs, Colorado-based organization “had 345 people on its staff [now reduced to] 28. Its budget, which reached $30 million 20 years ago, now stands at $2 million. Promise Keepers’ current CEO, Ken Harrison, is an unpaid volunteer.” Harrison is the Chief Executive Officer of WaterStone, an organization that manages a fund of $400+ million. 

A  number of issues, including too rapid and unplanned growth, troubling leadership, and uncertain objectives, led to PK fatigue; the organization imploded. Despite a few re-imaginings over the past few years, it remained a shell of itself. 

In his 2003 book, The Promise Keepers: Servants, Soldiers, and Godly Men, John P. Bartkowski, theorized about the group’s fall: “By diving headlong into the turbulent waters of American culture, the Promise Keepers invariably lent themselves to comparisons with the world of entertainment. And the consumers that rule the entertainment world are notorious for their fickle tastes and their insatiable appetites for increasingly more spectacular forms of excitement. The problem here is one of continually having to ‘up the ante.’”

Bartkowski went on: “[A]s the movement’s signature event, Promise Keeper conferences were designed to be spectacles. They were intended to entertain as well edify. And the problem with a spectacle is it needs to be outdone by something more spectacular and more stimulating the next time around. Thus, the fate of the Promise Keepers sheds important light on both the Christian men’s movement that it represented, and the society in which we all live. The bell has tolled for the Promise Keepers. But, living in such a time of rapid change, it also tolls for us all.” 

Promise Keepers paraphernalia – mugs, key chains, and hats  – lay buried in trunks in garages. Perhaps one might be able to search out a dog-eared copy of New Man, the group's flagship publication. 

Now, a little over thirty years since its’ founding, Promise Keepers is trying to bring the band back together; albeit virtually. Can the organization launch a successful comeback? 

‘A Movement Reignited’: PK goes virtual 

According to Religion News Service’s Adelle M. Banks, for the first time in a decade “Promise Keepers is attempting to make a comeback, but not in the way it had planned. The organization recently held a free two-day virtual event, bringing together men from more than 65 countries to hear from former sports figures, Christian musicians and famous pastors and authors.” 

“We’re showing this to a huge conglomeration of churches in India — it’s going to be translated into Hindi — and all over South America, translated into Spanish, and it’s also being translated into Polish,” said Ken Harrison, the organization’s unpaid CEO for the last two and a half years. 

Harrison has been making the rounds of Christian media, appearing on James Dobson’s Family Talk program, RealLife on Cornerstone TV, the Pure/Flix podcast, David and Jason Benham’s Expert Ownership podcast, and a number of other television and radio programs and podcasts. 

The Same Old Song? 

PK CEO Ken Harrison maintains that one of the organization’s “seven promises,” is what he calls “racial unity.” Harrison hypothesized that perhaps one of the reasons Promise Keepers fell out of favor was that “we were too much about racial reconciliation.” However, racial reconciliation had little to do with racial justice. 

“In years past, Promise Keepers has taken a stand for racial reconciliation and called men to unite as brothers,” read an early June post titled “Promise Keepers and Racial Reconciliation.”  “As our country now quakes under the pain of racism—unity, brotherhood, and commitment to changemaking are needed more than over.” 

Harrison muddied the waters of this “changemaking” moment by stating: “Promise #6 of a Promise Keeper is a solemn commitment to reach beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity. We need to demonstrate that power more than ever. Racism is a festering wound that has scarred the otherwise proud history of America. Christians must continue to lead the way in racial reconciliation and healing as we live out God’s call to treat all people as more important than ourselves (Phil 2:3). I call on Promise Keepers everywhere to demand respect, justice, equal protection and equal opportunity under the law for everyone—and that includes police officers as well.” 

While being about racial reconciliation, Promise Keepers was never about racial justice.  As James K.A. Smith, who teaches philosophy at Calvin University, recently wrote, the racial reconciliation trope “has been the White evangelical approach at least since the interracial hugfests at Promise Keepers conventions in the 1990s, and continues today in the ‘multicultural’ ideal for nondenominational megachurches.”  

And, as of this writing, despite his race-baiting and anti-Black Lives Matter rhetoric, there are no indications that white Christian evangelical support for Donald Trump is eroding. As The Washington Post’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey wrote recently, “Some White evangelicals decry terms like ‘social justice’ and ‘critical race theory’ as incompatible with orthodox Christianity because they think those concepts could encourage believers to see the world outside biblical parameters. Many White evangelicals want their pastors to focus sermons on the gospel and believe preaching on racism is a distraction.” 

Tony Evans, the African American founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and also the founder and president of The Urban Alternative, one of the featured speakers at many a PK event, spoke at the virtual conference.   

HIs message titled “Created to be Crowned as a Kingdom Husband and Father” seemed directly out of PK’s 1990s playbook, as Evans urged Christian men to take ownership of their God-given roles in a culture rapidly descending into “chaos.”  

“We have far too many men who have been domesticated or neutered,” Evans said. “What God is calling you for is to stand up and take ownership. We have a generation of children who do not have leadership ... [we have a] generation of young people whose consciences haven't been fed ... and so their conscience doesn't go off. As a result, they come up with their own conclusion of life and meaning and dignity and sexuality.” 

And while the organization claims not to take a political stand, “The schedule for the event includes a moment from My Faith Votes, a group whose honorary co-chairmen include U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee,” Religion News Service reported. 

Sarah Pulliam Bailey reported that John Perkins, a longtime civil rights activist, and “one of the most beloved black leaders in the broader evangelical community,” said that he had stopped using terms like “racial reconciliation.” According to Pulliam, “the phrase implies White and Black people can become equals without addressing historical inequities. “ Perkins “is mystified by White evangelicals support of Trump, which many say is because the president has appointed conservative judges and sided with conservative religious groups in legal and political disputes.”