From 72 men in 1990 to over half a million this year, Promise Keepers has become the latest, great­est thing in contemporary Christian events.

I have to admit that at first my superficial attitude was, "Aw, how harmful can it be?" After all, Promise Keepers encourages racial harmony; it encourages men to take the lead again in the home and in the church, and calls on Christian men to be true to their word, to develop character and backbone. Of course, it's a pep rally, I thought, and probably just one more round of cheer leading in the history of evangelical movement-making, but it simply wasn't something that concerned many of us. That changed very recently, when I actually began to read the literature, study guides, and have conversations with people involved.

Let me begin by pointing to some positive things for which Promise Keepers ought rightly to be commend­ed. First, Coach Bill McCartney and Randy Phillips ought to be com­mended for their dream to see Christian men across the country recovering their spiritual initiative and calling in the church and the home. Their desire to promote racial reconciliation is one of the most encouraging signs of genuine brotherhood within the evangelical community. CURE has been eager to help break down these walls as well, but obviously with nothing like the scale of this massive movement.

Having said all of that, there are a number of questions about Promise Keepers that must be addressed. We are, after all, commanded by Scripture to test things, to analyze, to hold everything up to the light of Scripture. Anybody can be wrong. We may be wrong in our criticisms, but the dumbest thing that anybody can do is to shut off the mind in the sup­posed interest of not getting in the way of a move of God's Spirit.

ISSUE ONE: The Movement Mentality. Ernst Troelsch distinguished between two basic types of religious approaches: the "sect-mentality" and the "church-mentality." The whole history of revivalism is the history of one sweeping emotional movement after another. After the hype wears off, people go back to doing what they were doing before, while others are actually cynical about their experience. D. L. Moody's program of "mascu­line Christianity" and Billy Sunday's "gospel of manhood" were precursors to Promise Keepers. The revivals may have moved from tents to football stadiums, but the idea is the same. While Promise Keepers encourages the support of pastors, it actually bears the marks of the "sect-mentality" in that the movement rather than the church is seen as the focal point of the Spirit's activity. Historic Christianity teaches that the Spirit works through Word and sacrament, and these are offered by the church. But revivalism tends to suggest that the Spirit works directly with the individual heart and doesn't need these so-called "manmade" obstructions. Why is this dangerous? For instance, if by God's grace we were to see a second Reformation, it would not be measured by how many people showed up in stadiums, but how many churches were preaching the Word and offering the sacraments. The "sect mentality" is so difficult to confront because at the same time it claims to be tearing down authoritarian walls, it sets up itself as an unassailable authority. Already, to criticize Promise Keepers at any point is to be charged with getting in God's way. And even as these movements pride themselves on creating a united church, and refuse to allow doctrine to divide, they are very willing to divide Christians over whether one accepts the movement as being from God, as the Vineyard movement has already shown. Randy Phillips tells us that the Holy Spirit told him that this movement would "restore the spiritual identity of God's sons." Who can judge the Holy Spirit?

ISSUE TWO: Worldliness. I know that this sounds odd, since we're given to thinking of worldliness in terms of legalistic taboos. But in Scripture worldliness is being conformed to the pattern of the world's way of thinking as, for instance, when politics, psychology and marketing are relied upon more than the theology we find in Scripture.

In 1994, CURE and Moody Press released a book titled Power Religion. Its contributors included Charles Colson, J. I. Packer, R. C. Sproul, Alister McGrath and a number of others. Its focus was the subversion of the Gospel through the passion for power in various forms: Power politics, Vineyard-style power evangelism, the spiritual power of pop-psychology and the power of numbers in the church growth movement. All of these influences reflect the fact that the church is drown­ing in a sea of modernity — or, what the Bible calls "worldli­ness." If that is true of these movements, then Promise Keepers represents what may be the reservoir for all of these tributaries of worldli­ness in one organization.

ISSUE THREE: Promise Keepers is essentially a Pentecostal movement. The founding leaders of Promise Keepers belong to the Vineyard movement and James Ryle, their Vineyard pastor and Promise Keepers board member, describes himself as a prophet. Now remember, Chuck Smith, David Wilkerson and other charismatics have called the Vineyard movement "hyper-charismatic" and extreme. And yet, what that move­ment could not accomplish through its power evangelism and the more recent laughing revival it seems to be creating indirectly in the form of Promise Keepers, even though non-charismatics participate. As a Pentecostal movement, it has all of the strengths — namely, an ener­getic and zealous spirit — along with all of the weak­nesses — shallowness and a dislike for doctrinal ques­tions. Promise Keepers will probably help make all of our churches a bit more charismatic in the process as the music, the literature and the small groups move from the stadium to the sanctuary.

ISSUE FOUR: Our most important objection to Promise Keepers is its ten­dency to bury the Gospel in therapeutic moralism. The message clearly is not guilt and grace. In fact, I searched in vain throughout the litera­ture to try to find some explanation of God's character — his holiness in demand­ing perfect righteousness and his provision of perfect righteousness for us in Christ. Sin is nowhere clearly and bibli­cally defined. In fact, Robert Hicks, in his Promise Keepers book entitled, The Masculine Journey, says men should "be celebrating the experience of sin," and suggests the institution of a ritual in which the church elders "congratulate" the young people who have engaged in drugs or sexual immorality "for being human." The first step to selling moralism is to sell the idea that we really aren't sinners by nature and that we can turn over a new leaf whenever we want. It's all in our power. The worst thing to tell these men, it seems, is that "negative thought" of Jeremiah, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." As, the problem isn't so insurmountable, so the solution appears quite easy. The Gospel is not only not defined, it is positively misunderstood and confused with psychology and moralism. Instead of finding the answer to sin in Christ's promise-keeping, the Promise Keepers literature seems to find the answer in the ability of men to solve their own problems together. As Randy Phillips put it, "A Promise Keeper seizes the moment for Jesus by making commitments," and for those who are not yet believers he writes, "You need to do five things, to become a part of God's family," which includes living to please God. This is necessary for salvation not only in addition to faith, but before a person even believes, according to the literature. No orthodox Christian denies that it is important to make commitments, but Promise Keepers literature consistently mistakes Law for Gospel.

No wonder Roman Catholic and Mormon leaders are encouraging their people to get involved. These two religious groups have a history of denying the gospel of God's free justification in Christ, but now a bland moralism and emotional hype are sufficient for many evangelicals as the foundation for a new spiritual unity.

We are not critical of the zeal or motives of these men. In fact, they are to be commended. I, for one, would love to have half the energy and zeal. But, as the Apostle Paul said, zeal without knowledge can lead to eternal ruin. Of his countrymen Paul said, "I can testify to their zeal for God, but it is not in accordance with knowledge. For seeking to justify themselves, they did not accept the righteousness that is a gift from God and comes through faith." Promise Keepers leaders say, however, that doctrine is not their "calling." What are we to say of a movement that claims to be bringing a Great Awakening to the body of Christ and yet explicitly pushes doctrine out of the way? Perhaps what we call it is American evangelicalism at the end of the 20^th century.

The history of Arminian revivalism is re-dedication: "I Surrender All." The "PK" literature is full of this "surrender" language, as if the Gospel were our surrender rather than Christ's surrender and his obedience. I recall rededicating my life again and again, hoping that this time it would take. "This time," I told myself, "I really mean it." Like the "Pet Shop Boys" song, I would turn over a new leaf just to tear right through it. You get caught in that cycle of victory and guilt, triumph and depression, and either you become a cynic or you dis­cover that this isn't the Gospel. The bad news is that we are born into this world enemies of God, dead in sin, and helpless. "No one is righteous," says Scripture, "no not even one. There is no one who seeks God." And even after we are united to Christ, we find the Apostle Paul's experience to be our own: "I love the Law, but that which I want to do I do not do and the very thing I hate, that I do. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this wretchedness?" And what's Paul's answer? To redouble his efforts and find some men who can deliver him? No, he finds another answer: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ. For there is therefore now no condemna­tion for those who are in Christ Jesus." Now that's good news. And when you find that you still break your promises, months, weeks, or even days after your Promise Keepers event, drop us a line. We may not be as exciting and we don't have any stadiums booked, but we'll tell you the good news that our fallen hearts too easily forget, that the only reason you are acceptable to God is because someone else kept your promises for you.