Promise Keepers Apologetics

by Artemis

Who Are the Promise Keepers? Understanding the Christian Men’s Movement by Ken Abrams (Doubleday, 1997), is presented by the author as being an objective view of the group by an outside observer. However, it soon becomes obvious that the book is propaganda for the Promise Keepers written by a sympathetic member of the theocratic right. Abrams uses expressions such as "giving equal time to reactionism," and" giving gays special treatment under the law."

Testimonials are used to show how Promise Keepers suddenly and drastically changed the lives of men. The danger of the book is that it could serve its purpose in swaying the opinions of those who are not familiar with the goals of the theocratic right or who haven’t thought in depth about sexism, racism, and heterosexism.

The fact that the group is all male is portrayed as being the main reason that feminists are against Promise Keepers. Abrams trivializes women’s concerns by referring to the "protests of a few malcontents" who are referred to as "radical feminists." Also, for public relations purposes, Promise Keepers redefines "domi-nance" as meaning strictly dominance through violence. In this way its propaganda portrays feminists as having the misperception that Promise Keepers directly teach-es men to beat their wives.

In fact, people who have worked in the movement against violence against women have proven that the belief that the man should be the "head of the house-hold" is a factor in causing both domestic violence and public tolerance of it. We should question why Promise Keepers expects one adult to submit to another in a marriage. Equality and negotiation do work, and democ-racy in the family is related to democracy in society.

The idea of listening to what the oppressed have to say is lost on Promise Keepers. This is how Abrams can say that Promise Keepers is "one of the most vocal groups addressing racial issues in our day." The token Black speakers at Promise Keepers’ rallies address the issue of Black ‘racism’ towards whites. They tell audiences of mostly white men that Blacks "need to break out of this ethnic mindset" and that problems in the Black community are strictly caused by moral failure within the Black community itself.

Promise Keepers are strongly urged to join "account-ability groups" in order to submit their lives to close examination as cult members are expected to do. The idea that people should be accountable to their own con-science, let alone determine their own values, is not even raised. In fact, Abrams states that men should not look within themselves for their identity, but should understand "masculinity" by looking "to God," that is, to Promise Keepers.

This article was originally printed in News & Letters. For subscription information, contact News and Letters Committees, 59 E. Van Buren St. - Room 707, Chicago, IL 60605, USA, TEL 312 663 0839, FAX 312 663 9069, email: nandl@igc.apc.org , Website: http://www.newsandletters.org

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