By James Uhrig
Arizona Daily Wildcat
October 13, 1997

Promise Keepers 'seeming innocence' a mask

Editor:

In his column on Oct. 6, "Who's afraid of the Promise Keepers?" Chris Badeaux reveals his ignorance on a topic he should, as a Christian male and a journalist, know a lot more about.

Badeaux's column is full of what I might politely call "fuel for thought" (as in a product folks use for burning when there's nothing but cattle and dry grass around), but I will only focus on his ignorance and/or naivete about this group which has only recently stepped into the mass media limelight.

First, I would invite him and your readers to take a look at an article recently published by Frederick Clarkson in which he warns of the underlying goal of the Promise Keepers. Chapter 9 of Clarkson's well researched book, Eternal Hostility, goes into further detail.

Some information about the Promise Keepers: The book that lays out the mission and vision of the group, Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, is published by Focus on the Family, which Clarkson describes as "the largest and most influential organization on the Christian Right."

The connections between the PK leadership and the prominent personalities and organizations of the Christian Right are many and compelling. Outspoken individuals, such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, have helped promote Promise Keepers; many of them are members in the secretive but powerful and very political conservative leadership group, the Council for National Policy.

PK founder and former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney, according to Clarkson, "has addressed gatherings of Operation Rescue, and campaigned for Colorado's Amendment 2, which would have barred local civil rights ordinances protecting gays and lesbians."

Of the seven promises members are asked to commit to, #6 is "reach beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity." This idea of "biblical unity," interestingly equating racial with denominational barriers, carries the seed of the great mission of the Christian Reconstructionist movement: to create a global theocracy, in which all people will live according to the Bible, as interpreted by evangelical doctrine, or be destroyed.

There is much more, but I hope this gives your readers a little bit better idea of what's going on with seemingly innocent, "feel happy" groups like the Promise Keepers.

James Uhrig
Library Assistant senior