Promise Keepers Returning

RACIAL, FAMILY AND RELIGIOUS HARMONY - and ways to become better husbands, fathers and citizens - will be themes as 60,000 men attend a Promise Keepers conference this weekend in Seattle.

The huge Promise Keepers men's conference in Seattle was drawing to a close last summer when a commanding African-American pastor took to the speaker's podium and asked who among the thousands in the Kingdome had ill-judged another person solely on skin color.

The men, after a day and two nights of emotion-wringing confession, repentance and forgiveness, began to rise, one after another.

The Rev. E.V. Hill, pastor of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, instructed those in the crowd to seek out someone of a different ethnicity and declare never again would they make a negative decision based on race.

With chants of "No more!" ringing through the stadium, a white minister from Wapato, Yakima County, turned and grabbed a man from Seattle's First African Methodist Episcopal Church, hugged him, began to shake, began to weep.

"It really moved me to see him hug one of our guys," recalled Dr. Robert Flennaugh, a Seattle dentist who was part of the First AME contingent sitting in the 100-level section of the Dome. The African-American men began to cry, too.

On a wave that has yet to crest, Promise Keepers is returning to the Kingdome on Friday night and all day Saturday.

The Christ-centered men's ministry is picking up where it left off last year. About 60,000 men are expected to jam the Dome to hear speakers talk about helping men become better husbands, fathers and citizens, and about breaking down walls - among racial groups, between church denominations, within the family, and between the individual and God, according to regional organizers.

But controversy still swirls around the Promise Keepers movement, co-founded in 1990 by former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney. Suspicion continues that Promise Keepers' vision of the world is one in which males dominate.

After the largest gathering of clergy ever - 39,000 male pastors at a Promise Keepers' ministers conference in Atlanta's Georgia Dome in February - Susie Stanley, a theology professor at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, summed up the event as "kind of a denial that there are women clergy."

Supporters of Promise Keepers say nothing could be further from the truth. Men and women are equal before God, they say, but men, like women, sometimes need each other to confide in and hold one another accountable for their promises of family and community responsibility.

The Rev. Ellis Casson, senior pastor of First AME Church in Seattle's Central Area, was aware of the controversy before he attended the Atlanta conference with 600 other minority pastors from the Pacific Northwest. A social activist and longtime civil-rights leader, Casson said the reconciliation that took place in the Georgia Dome between white and minority pastors was a singular and "wonderful" experience, no matter what one felt about Promise Keepers in general.

Casson was so inspired by the energy and unity he found that he returned to Seattle and began a men's prayer group at First AME every Monday at 6 a.m. It has grown from 19 participants to as many as 35 each week, including men from the church as well as the broader community. A number of them will attend the Promise Keepers conference this weekend.

"What got me interested was that it seemed to make a difference in the individuals who attended Promise Keepers," said Grover McCoy, a longtime First AME member who will go to the Promise Keepers conference for the first time. The men he met seemed more down-to-earth, helpful, cooperative, spirit-filled, said McCoy, retired chief of facilities painting for Metro.

"If we can do this among ourselves, we can pass it on to our children, grandchildren and our neighbors - how to get along and embrace each other," said McCoy, who rolls out of bed at 4:30 a.m. on Mondays to get to First AME on time.

Flennaugh, the dentist, said he arises at 4 a.m. each Monday, picks up an 86-year-old friend, and then they head for the church. At 6, the group assembles. Someone might start singing his favorite hymn. Another might talk about good or bad things that have happened in his life. They might pray for their neighbors.

Flennaugh said last year's Promise Keepers conference forced him to confront his racial attitudes. When Hill asked people to acknowledge they had made decisions based on race, Flennaugh stood, knowing he had supported political figures because they were African American, rather than looking at the whole person.

But the conference also affirmed the way he and his wife, Bernice, raised their family. He heard the message that men should be more loving to their wives and more involved with their children and families. "There was a real sense of being true and truthful in all your relationships," Flennaugh said.

Some, however, were troubled by what they heard, or didn't hear.

Kenneth Clatterbaugh, a University of Washington philosophy professor who attended last year's Kingdome event, contended Promise Keepers embraces a conservative political agenda that would erode the very resources men need to be better supporters of the family, such as adequate wages and a reasonable work week.

The Rev. Marie Fortune, executive director of the Seattle-based Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence, said that while Promise Keepers, to its credit, has homed in on family pressures, the need for strong adult leadership and racial reconciliation, it makes no mention of men's responsibility to end male violence against women and children.

Aaron Haskins, Promise Keepers' Northwest reconciliation manager, said that with Christ as the model, nonviolence is implicit in all the promises of a Promise Keeper: Men must not commit violence, and they must love, cherish and serve their wives and families, he said.

Cheryl Haskins, a corporate manager on Mercer Island, buttressed her husband's remarks. Their marriage is an equal partnership, she said. But just as she is held accountable for what goes on in her office, someone has to be ultimately accountable in the family. She and Aaron have agreed he will be that person.

"It is a real necessity for the family to work the way it was designed to work, not with anyone being more important than the other, but both being necessary. I say that, recognizing there are single-parent families, headed by women or men, and that is a tough situation. That is why having friends in church and everyone else to help you out is important," Cheryl Haskins said.

Her observation resonated with the Rev. Tony Morris, pastor of New Covenant Christian Center in the Rainier Valley.

Morris, an African American like the Haskinses, was raised by his mother. But he said he understands the need for the father to take responsibility in the home.

Morris, father of two young daughters, pointed to Ephesians 6:4: "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."

While not diminishing the role of mothers, the passage says "there is a definite responsibility on fathers to be at the forefront of raising their children, giving them the value system that they need to have," Morris said. It is a vital message for the African-American community as well as all people, he said.

Morris acknowledged he initially hesitated about becoming involved in the predominantly white Promise Keepers movement. But after he talked with Aaron Haskins, and with Promise Keepers' state manager Doug Engberg and co-founder McCartney, both white, Morris said, he became convinced Promise Keepers was sincere in trying to include all ethnic groups.

"I think some of my counterparts in our community still have some very definite and probably valid reservations. I think the long-term commitment is going to speak louder than anything else," Morris said.

Haskins agreed. Reconciliation, he said, is not merely tolerating one another. It is being genuinely interested in the other person and getting to know and appreciate him.

"There will never be peace in this world until there is peace in men's hearts," Haskins said.

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When and where

-- The 1996 Promise Keepers men's conference in Seattle runs from 6:30 to 10 p.m. Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday. Walk-up registration at the Kingdome is from 1 to 6 p.m. Friday.

-- Some 60,000 men have registered, at $60 each.

-- The Seattle conference is one of 22 scheduled this year nationwide, up from 13 last year. They are expected to draw a total of more than 1 million men, according to Promise Keepers spokesmen.

-- Speakers at the Seattle event include Ken Canfield, president and founder of the National Center for Fathering in Kansas City; Dr. Bruce Fong of the Multnomah Bible Seminary in Portland; the Rev. Jack Hayford of Church on the Way in Van Nuys, Calif.; the Rev. Jeffrey Johnson of Eastern Star Baptist Church in Indianapolis; the Rev. Greg Laurie of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, Calif.; and Bishop Phillip H. Porter, senior pastor of All Nations Church of God in Christ in Denver and board chairman of Promise Keepers.