Anyone who might think they've heard the last of Promise Keepers is mistaken.
The conservative Christian men's movement is far smaller today than in the mid-1990s, when it could draw hundreds of thousands of people to a single event. But though money problems and reduced novelty have shrunk its numbers drastically, Promise Keepers has not gone away--and neither have its critics.
On Friday, organizers are bringing the group's message of male-directed family leadership and responsibility back to Chicago with a two-day event at the United Center. The conference, which is expected to draw 12,000 participants, each paying $69 to get in, is aimed at helping men become "better husbands, fathers, friends and co-workers," the group says.
Promise Keepers' visit to Chicago--part of an 18-city cross-country tour--is its first since 1997, the same year the movement reached its zenith with a much-publicized prayer meeting on the Washington Mall attended by hundreds of thousands of men.
Despite the group's diminished presence, its goal remains the same.
"Our mission is to have men transformed worldwide to know and understand the purpose God has given their lives," said Ron Williams, director of the group's Chicago-area ministry. "We've become a really highly technical society and we have sort of forgotten what the source of all this is. We have turned our focus to other things than pursuing God."
The big crowds and intense media coverage peeled away from Promise Keepers in 1998, when financial troubles forced a restructuring, decimating the organization's staff and operating budget.
About 100 paid staffers now run Promise Keepers of America, compared with 300 in its heyday, the group's head office said. Its $34 million budget for this year, while not insignificant, is dwarfed by the $117 million organizers had to spend in 1997.
Perhaps most visibly, attendance at Promise Keeper events is much reduced, totaling an estimated 300,000 last year. While organizers boast that they have reached 4.6 million men since the group was founded in 1990, most of that number was amassed several years ago. In 1996, the group says, 1 million men participated.
Maintaining that kind of turnout over time was impossible to sustain, said Bill McCartney, who enjoyed great success as football coach at the University of Colorado before founding Promise Keepers.
"No one could have predicted the way we grew," he said. "We grew exponentially. We grew without any idea that we would have that kind of response."
Despite the group's ups and downs, the reason it appeals to at least a core group of adherents has not changed, observers said. Those people stay with Promise Keepers because it publicly echoes and reinforces their opinions about the traditional roles of men and women in families and society, said Paul Griffiths, chair of Catholic studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
That message also continues to rile the group's critics. As it has from the start, Promise Keepers makes some groups wary about its anti-gay stance and its strong emphasis on men being the spiritual leaders of their homes.
"For all the good intentions they claim to have, what they are really about is the subordination of women," said Michelle Dewlen, director of the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women. "They talk about reasserting control over the household and taking what's yours. I'd like to hear them promise to respect women."
McCartney acknowledges his group is not open to gay men, maintaining the Bible commands him to reject them.
"We believe that God's word defines those things for us," he said. "It's real clear."
But he downplayed the idea that men are encouraged to run their families unilaterally, describing marriage as more of a joint venture, inspired by God's word. Still, Griffiths said, some of the group's positions on male roles have played out in culturally unacceptable ways. Some members of Promise Keepers would bar women from having careers outside the home, for example, a stance Griffiths termed "a lost cause."
At the same time, he said, the group's call to men to treat wives kindly and support their children is a valuable message, especially for women threatened by poverty, abuse and unstable homes.
"There are huge systemic problems with the ways in which men and women relate to each other," Griffiths said. "Anything that can bring a certain degree of stability to that is good. It's hard to argue with that."
Beyond the shift to mostly smaller venues--which McCartney said actually helps the group create a more spiritually intimate setting--other changes have been made to accommodate the group's shrinking fiscal base. For example, Promise Keepers has eliminated most of its own publishing ventures.
The group also has made overtures to younger men, planning a conference exclusively for them in Columbus, Ohio, on Dec. 15. That event is likely to be faster paced, said Promise Keepers staffer Roger Chapman, with an emphasis on "extreme faith," a catch phrase based on the increasing popularity of extreme sports.
In another nod to changing times, Promise Keepers is launching an Internet-filtering device, called pkFamily.com, that is designed to protect men and their families from pornography and other "unsavory parts" of the World Wide Web.
The rally at the United Center is open to the public and runs from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.