‘Promise Keepers,’ a Message to L.A. Men : Conference: Gathering at the Coliseum includes 15 hours of events designed to spread the group’s belief in traditional father-husband duties. About 70,000 are expected to attend.

The men-only spiritual movement called Promise Keepers took over the Los Angeles Coliseum on Friday night, preaching father-husband duties not only to legions of “born-again” Christians but also to about 150 men from Skid Row and a smattering of Catholic and Mormon leaders.

Before the 15 hours of singing, praying and instruction end tonight, officials of the fast-spreading, Colorado-based movement expect more than 70,000 to have attended. Conceived by ex-University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney in 1990, Promise Keepers is in its second full season of rallies across the country. Last year, 278,600 men--including 52,800 at Anaheim Stadium--attended rallies in seven cities.

The 13-city schedule for 1995 began last weekend with 72,280 at the Silverdome outside Detroit. Promise Keepers leaders expect to draw more than half a million men during this year’s nationwide tour.

Although rapped by critics for telling men to assume leadership in marriage, rather than behave as equal partners with their wives, the movement is praised by conservative Christians for promoting the virtues of sexual integrity, parental responsibility and church devotion.

Those points have attracted interest from Catholics and Mormons as well, at least in the Los Angeles area.

“Promise Keepers places a vary strong emphasis on returning to your own church congregation or parish and becoming an active layman,” said Father Christian Van Liefde, pastor of St. Hilary Catholic Church in Pico Rivera.

Liefde told the Los Angeles archdiocese’s weekly newspaper, the Tidings, that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony urged him to determine whether Promise Keepers programs would be appropriate for Catholic parishes. A parish in Chatsworth, St. John Eudes, has already held a Promise Keepers seminar for 100 men with talks by local priests.

Although identified as a Catholic by the Tidings, McCartney left that church to join a Vineyard congregation in Boulder, Colo. The coach’s pastor, the Rev. James Ryle, and the president of Promise Keepers, former pastor Randy Phillips, are both associated with Vineyard churches, a charismatic denomination started in Anaheim.

Yet, because of Promise Keepers’ interdenominational approach, attorney Chip Rawlings and fellow Mormon leaders of the Palos Verdes Stake, or group of congregations, are urging members of the Latter-day Saints to participate in the movement.

“The movement’s ‘Seven Promises’ are like something straight out of the men’s priesthood manual for the church,” Rawlings said. Because of other commitments, Rawlings said he would not be at the Coliseum this weekend but added, “I know of five or six leaders who will be.”

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The rallies may sound to some like white church elites spewing dull piety, but not to such people as Navajo Indian Michael Morin, a former homeless man who was in the Los Angeles Mission’s rehabilitation program when he was invited to the Anaheim rally last year.

“I thought it would be quite boring,” recalled Morin. “But I was overwhelmed by the variety of men, and none of them drinking, smoking, being rough or bad-mouthing people. . . . Latins, African-Americans, Asians, and I saw some Indians there too.”

Morin, now an employee of the mission, helped spread the word at the shelter about this weekend’s rally.

As a result, 94 out of 167 men in the yearlong rehabilitation program at the Los Angeles Mission--a 300-bed facility on Downtown’s Skid Row--pre-registered for the event. An additional 26 alumni of the Mission program and 22 men from the Mission’s Long Beach branch will join them.

The Rev. Mike Edwards, executive director of the nondenominational mission, said Promise Keepers goals resemble the efforts made in rehabilitation. “A lot of these men never had good male role models in their lives before,” Edwards said.

Clinton Hogan, a 36-year-old African-American from Texas, said his family was Baptist and he was baptized at age 10. “But I got into a drug problem and burned all my bridges, and wound up at the front door of this mission,” Hogan said.

Now involved in the mission’s Bible study classes, Hogan said he doesn’t worry about discussing his background with others at his first Promise Keepers rally.

“Everything is out in the open, the way God wants it,” Hogan said. “I want to see how it feels to worship God with thousands of other men.”

The ballooning mass movement (Promise Keepers rallies in coming weeks at Washington’s RFK Stadium, Indianapolis’ Hoosier Dome and Atlanta’s Georgia Dome are already sold out) grew out of a 1980s secular men’s movement trying to find a meaningful place between macho masculinity and feminist critiques.

Then came “Healing the Masculine Soul,” a 1988 book by Gordon Dalbey, a former United Church of Christ pastor in the Los Angeles area. “It was the first book to address spiritual and emotional healing in men from a Christian standpoint,” said Dalbey, who now lives in Santa Barbara.

In an interview, Dalbey lauded Promise Keepers as an excellent, first-level opportunity for men to confront the truth about themselves. But he feels the movement must go further.

“Promise Keepers is raising the behavior standards, which is marvelous to see,” he said. “The next move has to be a deeper healing, a reliance on the grace of God in the face of inadequacy. I’d like to see less exhortation.”

Speakers at this weekend’s rally include Ed Cole of Dallas, president of the Christian Men’s Network, the Rev. E. V. Hill of Los Angeles and author Chuck Swindoll, ex-pastor of the Free Evangelical Church of Fullerton.

The burgeoning movement has placed heavy demands on Promise Keepers founder McCartney, who resigned his coaching position after Colorado’s football team won the Fiesta Bowl this year to spend more time with his family and on spiritual matters.

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Now the organization is farming out auxiliary ventures. A Promise Keepers magazine, New Man, was launched last year by the publisher of Charisma magazine. A CD and cassette for Promise Keepers was released recently by Maranatha Music in Laguna Hills.

“This movement is much larger than Promise Keepers--guys are looking for these resources,” said Promise Keepers spokesman Steve Chavis.

And all men who make a commitment to Christ at the rallies this year will receive a free copy of the Promise Keepers New Testament. About 7,500 Bibles--which list the organization’s goals and the seven promises its members make--were given away last weekend at the Silverdome by the International Bible Society.

Interspersed between the Gospels and Paul’s epistles are testimonies of faith by such ex-athletes as Mike Singletary, Reggie White and Kyle Rote Jr. with their photographs in full color, said Bible society spokeswoman Judy Billings.