11,000 'take charge of family' Christian men plan rally at Coliseum

By Douglas Todd, Sun Religion Reporter

November 15, 1996
Vancouver Sun, Page B1

Advertising executive Peter Fassbender is one of the more than 11,000 Christian men registered to sing
hymns, pray, hold hands, hug and, if necessary, cry together at Saturday's Promise Keepers' gathering in
Vancouver.

The Pacific Coliseum mega-event is seen as just a beginning for the big-thinking Canadian arm of the
fastest-growing men's movement in North America. For their next move, Promise Keepers' organizers
want to fill the 60,000-seat B.C. Place Stadium.

Fassbender, a 49-year-old director of Palmer Jarvis Advertising of Vancouver who volunteers to do public
relations for the group, has heard and rejected all the criticisms of Promise Keepers: that it's patriarchal,
homophobic, Biblically literalistic and a front for the religious right.

Men who join Promise Keepers must make seven commitments, including to honor Jesus Christ, practise
sexual purity, make male friends, support their church, reach beyond racial and denominational barriers
and build strong marriages through Biblical values.

One of the biggest points of contention about Promise Keepers is its call for men to seize what they're
told is their God-given place in the family.

The movement recommends adherents tell their wives: "Honey, I'm going to take the leadership of the
family back now. I'm not asking you about this, I'm telling you."

Fassbender, a married father of two grown boys, believes that Promise Keepers is about men keeping
promises to their wife and kids. Ultimately, he said, Promise Keepers "is a rallying call to become a
significant influence in the home and the community by setting a Christ-like example."

The 1990 brainchild of Colorado University football coach Bill McCartney, Promise Keepers has grown
into a $120-million-a-year operation that filled more than a dozen U.S. football stadiums with a total of
about a million Christian men in both 1995 and 1996. Next year, Promise Keepers is planning a one-day
"million-man march" to Washington, D.C.

Promise Keepers' growth is slightly less dramatic in Canada. Still, Promise Keepers drew about 13,000
men to Hamilton's17,000-seat Copps Coliseum onOct. 19, marking the organization's first major foray into
Canada.

"In Canada, we wanted to walk before we could run," said Fassbender, explaining the decision to choose
medium-sized venues.

A member of Christian Life Assembly evangelical church, Fassbender recognizes polls show about one
in10 Canadian men are evangelical Protestants (the movement's biggest source of recruits) compared to
about one in three in the U.S.

He also acknowledges all four main speakers for Saturday's $25 Vancouver rally are American, while
Vancouver's Christian TV host Terry Winter will be emcee. Canadian speakers, he says, will come forth in
time.

Promise Keepers is much more organized than the highly eclectic secular men's movement, which has
more than 500 unrelated support groups in Canada. Fassbender calls secular men's work "more
superficial; it doesn't get down to what it's all about."

Canadian Promise Keepers president Bill Rutherford, a 43-year-old former oil industry executive who
works out of Langley, says a man's proper place in the family is outlined by the apostle Paul in Ephesians
5:21-23, which says: "Wives, be subject to your husbands as though to the Lord; for the man is the head
of the woman, just as Christ is the head of the church."

Paul's command for men to head their households should not be misunderstood, insist Fassbender and
Rutherford. Promise Keepers, they say, respect women, seeing them as equal, albeit meant for different
roles.

Despite Promise Keepers' claims to respect others, founder McCartney drew the first complaints that the
movement was homophobic when he said in 1992 that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of
God.

The criticism that Promise Keepers is a political front came after the movement drew public support from
the biggest names in the U.S. religious right: Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, Moral Majority
founder Jerry Falwell, Focus on the Family head James Dobson and former Watergate conspirator-
turned-evangelist, Chuck Colson.

A B.C. Promise Keepers leader, Rick White, recently attracted his own brand of bad press. This year
White, a Terrace real-estate agent and member of the Evangelical Free Church, was sentenced to two
years in prison for a vicious sexual assault on his former girlfriend.

But Fassbender says White's crime should not reflect on everyone in the movement.

While Rutherford agrees that Promise Keepers follows Biblical teachings that condemn homosexual
activity, he says the group welcomes celibate homosexuals. "We also welcome rapists and murderers
and any other broken man."

And Fassbender maintains Promise Keepers is not a front for any political lobby group -- although it
encourages men to work for Christian family values through their churches and society.

Most of Promise Keepers' critics acknowledge it is not all bad.

An article in the feminist Ms. Magazine disagreed with those who say Promise Keepers is nothing more
than a stealthy effort to recruit for the religious right and maintain male domination of society.

Ms. Magazine called Promise Keepers a diverse, contradictory movement where it's just as likely to hear
a male say "Jesus did not say, 'Blessed are the macho!' " as it is to hear another say, "The primary cause
of our national crisis is the feminization of the male."


Gathering of Promise Keepers attracts 6,000 men to GM Place: The evangelical Christian
group denies it is trying to create a patriarchal society.
By Doug Todd, Sun Religion Reporter
September 15, 1997
Vancouver Sun, Page B3

The 6,000 evangelical Christian men sang tenderly that they would dedicate themselves to becoming
"Ambassadors of Grace."

The young and old followers of Promise Keepers, a giant Christian men's movement, sang out gentle
pop-gospel hymns at GM Place this weekend, passionately chanting, "Jesus, you are my life / My love for
you will never die."

After singing, about 1,000 of the men heeded the call of evangelist Luis Palau and shuffled forward to
recommit themselves to Christ, confess their sins and become "Godly men." Palau assured the men:
"There are brothers up front who will put their arms around you and pray with you." They hugged and
embraced in twos or in huddles of a dozen. Some wept.

For a movement that critics charge is returning North American men to old-fashioned patriarchal and
domineering ways, the males at Saturday's large gathering showed unmistakable elements of what some
would call a rediscovered feminine sensitivity.

"I find physical touching can be uncomfortable. But at the same time I get from it a real healing response.
It breaks down barriers," said James Wong, 42, as he sat among a group of friends attending from
Calvary Christian Church in Surrey.

Promise Keepers, as Palau said during his 40-minute sermon, teaches that men should have a "literal"
and "obedient" belief that the Bible is without error. But the men (and female volunteers) at the Vancouver
event offered different interpretations of Ephesians 5:21-23 of the New Testament, which says: "Wives,
be subject to your husbands as though to the Lord; for the man is the head of the woman, just as Christ is
the head of the church."

Some participants said men, like Jesus Christ, should head their families, but only by serving their wives
and children. Others said men should be equal, sharing partners with their wives. All said Promise
Keepers commits men to being more responsible to their families by shunning extra-marital sexual affairs,
alcohol, lying and workaholism.

This weekend's Vancouver assembly, called The Making of a Godly Man, was one of dozens of similar
conferences recently held across the continent as a buildup to a mass Promise Keepers march on
Washington, D.C., on Oct. 4. Organizers hope to draw one million evangelical Christian men to the
march. They say more than 500,000 men have already signed up.

Since it began in 1991, Promise Keepers has grown at a phenomenal rate, with organizers boasting
about how it has eclipsed the secular men's movement led by people such as Robert Bly and Michael
Meade, whose books often become best-sellers, but who rarely draw more than 1,000 people to an
event.

Promise Keepers has turned into a $97-million-a-year operation, with a permanent staff of 450 operating
out of Denver. At the Vancouver meeting, which cost $30 to attend, T-shirts sold for $19, baseball caps
for $14 and sweatshirts for $48.

Stacks of books, CDs and tapes were also on sale, including Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, in
which Palau, as co-author, capitalizes on the missionary potential of the movement, declaring: "Now is
the time to re-evangelize America! And we, as men, should lead the way -- in our families, in our
churches, in our communities."

The crowd in Vancouver was made up largely of middle-aged white men in casual clothes, but there were
also many long-haired teenagers, young adults in sport T-shirts and elderly men, as well as Asians and
blacks. While Promise Keepers drew a total of 1.1 million men to 22 stadium events around North
America last year, Vancouver's crowd of 6,000 was down from 11,500 in 1996.

Promise Keepers official Peter Fassbender, a Vancouver advertising executive, said he thought this
year's numbers were lower because family men are busy in early September and because they may be
planning to go to other Promise Keepers events, including the one in Washington, D.C. "Even if we have
only one man attend this," he said, "it would be worth it."

Typifying the kind of criticism Promise Keepers has faced since its inception, Patricia Ireland, president of
the National Organization of Women in the U.S., has recently launched a campaign against Promise
Keepers, calling its organizers a front for the religious right who demand that women be submissive to
men, denounce homosexuality and support the militant anti-abortion movement.

Many arch-conservative Christian leaders, such as the Christian Coalition's Pat Robertson and Focus on
the Family's James Dobson, wholeheartedly support Promise Keepers. And Palau was vigorously
applauded when he described whipping a "liberal" Christian in a recent televised debate.

But both male participants and female volunteers at the Vancouver gathering said they resented being
branded as conservative extremists by critics and some media outlets.

"God determines the husband should be head of the family. We don't make the rules," said Ken Chen, a
41-year-old lawyer. "But that doesn't mean you hold it over the woman. Being head of the family comes
with a lot of duties -- to support and spend time emotionally and physically with your wife and children."

Matt Davis, a 22-year-old Baptist from Sechelt who was attending with his father, said he was learning
from this Promise Keepers assembly that he wanted to be a "godly man" for his fiance; living out Christian
values such as honesty, integrity and accountability.

"I don't want to say anything politically incorrect that people will jump on. When you ask if a man is
supposed to be head of the family, it's hard to explain what it means. But I believe a marriage is a 50-50
partnership in which nobody's better than the other."

Volunteer Amira Daoud, a 42-year-old single mother who attends Langley Vineyard Church, said one of
the best things about the movement is it helps men overcome the urge to run out on their families.

"I think our generation is a fatherless generation because there's a lack of commitment. Promise Keepers
teaches men to stick with their families and communities. It might ask wives to be submissive, but not in a
downtrodden way. Being a man in a family should not be about being in power and control. It means
husband and wife should work together in unity. I think Promise Keepers is teaching men how to support
each other to be more responsible men."