Thousands Converge for Promise Keepers’ Rally

Thousands of men car-pooled, bused and biked into the capital Friday as organizers of a huge religious rally finished transforming the National Mall into a giant outdoor church. One group arrived on foot, wheeling a 12-foot wooden cross from California.

Although the Stand in the Gap service of prayer and atonement was not starting until noon today, impromptu prayer sessions were held throughout the day Friday.

Leaders of the Promise Keepers, sponsor of the six-hour event, said they expect hundreds of thousands of men to participate. One million Bibles and 250,000 boxed lunches were ready to be distributed.

As workers tested the sound system and made other last-minute preparations, one group of men pushed a 12-foot wooden cross on a wheel around the Mall.

“We carry it as the light of the world,” said Randy Messer of Oak Grove, Mo., who helped push the cross from Santa Monica, Calif. Their trip started on Aug. 2, Promise Keepers said.

Hundreds of early arrivals started their day making repairs and doing chores at Taft Junior High School in northeast Washington. Their jobs, assigned by District of Columbia school officials, included repairing electrical outlets, replacing toilet seats and raking the grounds.

The Promise Keepers are reaching for the national spotlight after years of building their ranks, drawing a total of more than 2 million men to local sports stadiums around the country.

On the Mall, Bob Schwab, from the San Francisco area, said the assembly will “send a message to the men of America that it’s OK to be godly.”

But some critics questioned the Promise Keepers’ alleged links to right-wing politics and its attitudes toward women.

On the east lawn of the Capitol, 50 people from all faiths and races held hands and recited prayers celebrating diversity and equality, qualities they believe the Promise Keepers reject.

“Although the Promise Keepers are appealing to legitimate needs the men and women have for intimacy, spirituality and accountability, we feel the leaders of Promise Keepers are manipulating these needs to promote their own cultural and political agenda,” said Ken Brooker Langston of the National City Christian Church in Washington.

“When these men go home, they’re being encouraged to be dominant over their wives,” he said.

Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, expressed a similar view in a written press statement: “Promise Keepers leaders say they are encouraging men to take responsibility, but they’re really exhorting men to take control.”

But the Promise Keepers’ defenders, including women allied to its revivalist cause, said men return from its rallies determined to build stronger marriages, be better fathers and turn away from sexual sin.

“No woman in the world has a right to judge my husband,” said Nina May, chairwoman of the Renaissance Foundation and a Promise Keepers supporter.

She said the work of Promise Keepers helps repel a tide of child abuse, divorce, out-of-wedlock births and violent crime.

Promise Keepers leaders say the movement is purely spiritual and has no open or hidden political agenda.