Though United by Faith, Personal Quests Drew Many

For most men, the warm weather and cloudless autumn sky might have seemed ideal for a Saturday afternoon tailgate party and homecoming football game, but the hundreds of thousands of men attending the huge Promise Keepers rally had set aside the weekend for something they considered infinitely more important.

As they did so, scenes occurred they might never have experienced in any other circumstances. And while they were united by a common faith in evangelical Christianity, their reasons for journeying here were often personal as well.

For Dave Jacobs, it was a matter of dealing with the fact that for most of his life he had been a closeted Christian. “I’m a private person,” said Jacobs, a high school chemistry teacher from suburban Washington. “Public displays of my faith don’t come easily to me.”

Surrounded by other men who came here from across America, however, Jacobs found an opportunity to change--and in the process set right a painful memory.

He said he was reminded of a religious incident in his childhood, when he was attending a high school wrestling camp. One of the instructors, a world champion wrestler, asked the boys if they were “saved Christians.” Jacobs said he felt too embarrassed to admit his faith in front of all the other wrestlers.

“I was worried about what people, my friends, would say and think,” he said. “So I didn’t say anything. I know that was denying the Lord, and I know that’s a sin. I’ve always felt bad about that.

“I’ve never gotten down on my knees in public before,” he said, speaking softly as though to avoid disturbing a booming prayer reverberating through the public-address system. “There’s a genuineness here in being able to express my feelings. This is unlike anything I’ve ever felt and it feels so right to me.”

For Dan Dewitt, 42, of Grand Rapids, Mich., the journey to Washington had an element of civic duty. “I must confess a bit of a selfish reason for being here,” DeWitt said. “I wanted to pray with other men of faith so near our federal government. You know, of course, the Capitol represents so much of the country and needs our special prayers.”

Henry Ritsema, his 69-year-old traveling buddy, nodded agreement. “I came here because we wanted to see and say prayers over our nation’s Capitol,” he said. “I’ve been to other Promise Keepers [rallies]. But after my first in Indianapolis, I said I really want to go to Washington, D.C., and be a part of the prayers for our country.”

Others sought racial healing.

Kent McBride, a stocky 37-year-old white man, pointed to Charles Shorter, a 53-year-old black man walking alongside him. “He is my brother,” McBride said. “If you base your beliefs on the teachings of Jesus Christ, the color of that body isn’t really relevant. What’s relevant is the spirit inside.”

Shorter, a data processor from Washington, D.C., complained that black men should have come out for the Promise Keepers, especially the black Christian men who flooded the same area two years ago for the “Million-Man March.”

“Many of the same [black] men who came to that wanted the same things the white men here want,” he said. “They came when [Nation of Islam leader Louis] Farrakhan’s name was mentioned. But if the name of Jesus Christ is mentioned, they don’t come. I don’t understand that.”

Though diversity wasn’t on the minds of the cluster of eight men and two boys standing in a small circle outside the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, it was very much in evidence. The group included black men in khakis and golf shirts, white men in biker colors, teenage boys in T-shirts and a couple of guys in jogging gear. All had their heads bowed and hands woven together while they prayed hard and loud for several minutes.

“We were just sitting here when one individual stood up and asked all of us to pray together,” said Scott Ingersoll, 43, who was among the group with his son, Jason, 14. “We didn’t all know each other. But that didn’t matter when it came time to pray; we all stood and prayed for unity in our families, for putting God in our lives and for a safe trip back home after this rally.”