Among the Promise Keepers

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Still, whenever a Promise Keeper drew me into a discussion -- on anything from culture to theology -- I would get the feeling I was talking to a brick wall. A friendly and talkative brick wall, but an unmovable object nonetheless. It was either his Scripture-based worldview -- homosexuality as an abomination, the husband as 'leader' in the home -- or... splat.

Promise Keepers president Randy Phillips maintains that that 'leadership' role is deeper and better than male chauvinism. 'It comes down to whether you understand what it is to be a spiritual leader, which we define in the person of Jesus Christ,' he says. 'What did Jesus do to respond to the needs of others? He gave his life for others. So, from a biblical perspective, a spiritual leader is not one who lords authority over others; spiritual leadership is the absolute commitment to serve and to honor. It means involving yourself in the life of your wife, hearing her needs and responding to those needs, just like Jesus responded to our needs... There is responsibility in providing spiritual initiative and there is authority in carrying out those responsibilities, but it is expressed through a servant's heart.'

With rhetoric like that, notes the Reverend Priscilla Inkpen, a United Church of Christ minister from Boulder who has been one of the group's more prominent opponents, 'It's difficult to be 100 percent critical of the Promise Keepers. I think they are speaking to an important need: for men to take responsibility. A lot of men need to learn that, and Promise Keepers seems to be touching a nerve with many. But... you have to ask: What nerve are they touching? Is it men's hunger to be present in their relationships with their wives and children? Or is it the hunger to be on top?'

Jeff Wagenheim is a contributing editor of New Age Journal.

Excerpted with permission from New Age Journal, (March/April 1995).

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