Now to Turn the Prayers Into Action

Some of my best friends are Christians. My mother-in-law, for example. And my next door neighbor, Ken, who has been telling me for years that the Promise Keepers are a good thing. His father and brother attended one of the earlier revivals, and his brother thought enough of it to make last week’s trek to Washington.

These are good men struggling with the complexities of life; why should it trouble others that men like them go to prayer meetings? Jimmy Carter did, and he didn’t end up posing a threat to our religious liberties, his wife’s independence or the Democratic Party. Nor is male bonding a bad thing, as long as it doesn’t lead to the subjugation of women.

Still, it is unnerving when you lecture an increasingly diverse nation that your movement intends to “take back our country for Christ.” Where does that leave the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, deists, free thinkers and atheists who did so much to make this country great?

What about all of those Christians who view frenetic fundamentalist preachers with suspicion, recalling the Elmer Gantry-type hustlers and demagogues of the past? Or the Mormons, Quakers, Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses who have been persecuted at times for following their own path to divine truth?

Will the Promise Keepers move off their past indulgence of the religious right’s homophobia and exhibit the openness to gays increasingly emanating from mainline Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic Church?

But as I watched the Promise Keepers on television, I found it hard to get alarmed. I know that Pat Robertson’s money helped start the movement and that reactionary politicians were working the crowd like touts at a racetrack, but people are not that easily corrupted. Being “pro-life,” as some speakers were, certainly leaves room on other progressive issues, as the Catholic bishops have shown. If the leaders of the Promise Keepers start playing footsie with right-wing politicians, they’ll soon go the way of the Moral Majority.

Most important, the Promise Keepers made a serious vow to bring us together across racial lines, putting them directly at odds with the divide-and-conquer tactics of those Republicans who have shamelessly scapegoated racial minorities.

Mass movements are always startling at first, until they become safely established or disintegrate into warring factions. Watching the Promise Keepers rally, I was impressed with how countercultural they seemed, hugging, crying, some even tattooed; it reminded me of the love-ins of the 1960s. The proceedings were a bit repetitious and drawn out, but nothing like early Grateful Dead concerts.

Also, it was reassuring to discover how politically correct they are, with gavel-to-gavel sign language and representatives from many minority groups, including a Native American in full headdress and a Jew for Jesus in full yarmulke, although his blowing of the shofar was offensively sacrilegious. But give the organizers some credit for holding to a generally non-threatening tone. Indeed, the most strident language was used by evangelist Billy Graham, who said in a videotaped message, “God is not calling us to a playground. He is calling us to a battleground. This is warfare, and we are in the center of battle.”

That combat metaphor brought back troubling memories. When I was a kid in the Bronx, it was not uncommon to be punched by some Irish kid proclaiming, “You killed our Lord!” In my case, this was confusing because although my mother was Jewish, my father had been born Lutheran in Germany. His countrymen proved second to none in justifying terror with the claim that God was on their side.

Sadly, there are still daily reminders that religious intensity may not be a healing or otherwise constructive force. Quite often, religious fervor leads to killing in the name of faith, as most recently evidenced in Northern Ireland, Algeria and Israel.

Far better to shun the battleground for the playground, which is where the Promise Keepers are needed anyway, to keep their promise of sharing responsibility with their wives in the raising of their kids.

The tough questions remain for the Promise Keepers: Are they really listening when their kids or wives tell them something they don’t want to hear? Is it enough to pray occasionally alongside a black person in order to conquer the racism that has been our nation’s constant companion since its birth? Do they truly love the woman down the street who chose to have an abortion or a baby out of wedlock as children of the Lord? After all, Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney has two grandchildren born out of wedlock, fathered by members of the football team he coached and led in prayer. As a minister friend once told me, prayer is the easy part.