Promise Keepers: stick to your original purpose, and keep out the politics...

The BBQ Pit
1

Note: I am not pitting Promise Keepers in general, though I realize many of you probably have strong feelings on the topic. In general, I think calling men to be better, more responsible, and more loving fathers, husbands and people is a good idea. I think there are probably better ways to reach the intended audience than charging $79 bucks and holding a two day event in a big arena, but how they conduct their business is their business.

That disclaimer aside, I attended the event in Raleigh, NC this past weekend, entitled “Challenge”. Admittedly, I am probably on the very left-most limit of people who would be willing to go to such events. Though I enjoyed and was uplifted and exhorted by the music and most of the speakers, there were several tooth-grinding moments when I thought, “you just aren’t thinking clearly.”

These moments were when the moderator, a genial older black gentleman exhorted the crowds to support and encourage “our brother in Christ” Roy Moore in Alabama (the Ten Commandments dude), framing the guy who is defying a federal court order as being persecuted for his faith. He even returned to it in his closing exhortation at the end, mentioning sending Moore a “postcard of support” as one of three things every single conference goer should do. :eek:

First of all, as a Christian, I am indeed Roy Moore’s “brother in Christ”.

Second, the millions of people in China meeting in house churches and under threat of persecution, imprisonment, or worse would love to trade their lives for Roy Moore’s version of “religious persecution.”

Third, I am under no compunction as his “Christian brother” to agree with the debacle Moore has sparked down in Alabama. I think his monument is inappropriate, his actions are misguided and his antics have actually damaged “the cause” by causing millions to dismiss all Christians as intolerant nutjobs.

Shame on Promise Keepers for misguiding the thousands of men attending their conferences by misrepresenting the particular views of their organization on Moore as “the right thing” for Christians to do…

2

I agree.

To have an agenda as an organization is one thing.

To have an agenda as an individual is one thing.

To intermingle the two, and try to drag your entire membership into plugging your agenda is quite another.

3

Although, to be fair, at one point they flashed Moore’s mailing address on the TV screens in the arena, so it wasn’t just the moderator’s personal agenda…PK must share some of the blame for sneaking a fundamentalist (and divisive) pet cause like public displays of religiosity into an event that otherwise reflected their wholesome, warm and fuzzy set of professed principles.

4

[hijack]

I once attended the Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association annual rodeo in Washington, D.C. The other major event that weekend was a Promise Keepers rally.

Oh, the scene at Union Station was priceless… :wink:

[/hijack]

Esprix

5

Part of the problem is that Christianity was born in the midst of REAL persecution, and it started out in an oppressed minority mindset. This most certainly impacted the core theology, basic psychology, and established habits of the religion. Today, when
it is by far the majority, these elements are somewhat jarring and hard to reconcile. Hence the apparent solution of some to manufacture and fantasize about oppression in order to feel
closer to the roots of the religion.

6

Yea. The martyrs who got eaten by lions would laugh their ass off at the “Oppressed Christians” in places like Texas.

7

But is there any evidence that this persecution complex has existed throughout the history of Christianity? It has always struck me as a fairly recent invention (re-invention, I suppose, may be the more accurate way of putting it), and peculiar to a particular strain i.e. hardcore fundamentalism.

8

I’m glad the Promise Keepers stand against fudgepackery.

9

Exprix, I’m dying to hear more of that story…

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Actually, in addition to the silly Roy Moore suggestion, one of the other three things they asked everyone to do was to share your faith with one person within 48 hours of the conference. So if the incident with the gay rodeo folks was this year, I’m sure there was some unsolicited faith-sharing going on with cowboy types on their way back from the rodeo, which would have made the scene at Union Station even MORE interesting AFTER the conference…

11

You damn tease, finish the story! Don’t make me hurt you!

:stuck_out_tongue:

12

Not much to tell, really - just seeing all the Christian fathers on one side of the station and the gay cowboys on the other side of the station (each eyeing the other warily) was amusing. No fights, no witnessing, no embarassing scenes. The cowboys behaved themselves, and the Christians wisely kept quiet. T’was just fun to watch. :slight_smile:

Esprix

13

Unfortunately, anything remotely having to do with religion of the Christian variety stands to be hijacked by the Religious Right, which is neither.

For those of us raised in a church that didn’t think it was entitled to dictate politics to the congregation, it’s hard to adjust to. I just stay at home and watch Joyce Meyers.

I know, I know, a woman preaching…some folks object to that, too.

Listen, in a world where pond-scum sucking heardhearted creeps like Tom DeLay can claim to be devout Christians and still act the way he does (and has for the 35 or so years I have known him) i’m about willing to change religions completely.

I’m thinking about becoming a Druid. Trees are pretty nice, ya know?

14

You can always hope that DeLay, like several other icons of the right, is exposed as the exploitive huxster that he is. You certainly saw the Religious Right’s embrace of Newt Gingrich loosen considerably when it became public knowledge he’d deserted his terminally ill wife on her deathbed to take up with a young staffer of his…I wouldn’t take psychiatric advice from a landscaper (or vice versa), so I’m certainly not going to take political advice from a minister (particularly those who proclaim that supporting X is the “Christian thing to do”…people who say stuff like that generally have little or no actual theology underlying their statements…)

15

Wow, I must say that was a refreshingly thoughtful and well-stated OP. (Welcome to the boards, atticus!) I agree, 100%, in that I’m generally offended and annoyed by folks who seem determined to drag politics into religion.

Your second point, in particular, adds a wonderful and much-needed sense of perspective.

16

Excellent OP, brother atticus. Can’t add a thing. Welcome!

17

As a member of a Baptist church that has chosen to stick with the Southern Baptist Convention despite the silly antics undertaken at the national conventions the last 10 years or so, I’m particularly sensitive to this whole “keep politics out of religion” thing.

But then, I’ve always been partial to the whole Roger Williams religious freedom roots of our denomination, and not the absurd antics of the Jerry Falwell strand of religious fundamentalists who have taken over our national Convention. (I must confess (forgive me, Lord!) guilty pleasure watching the Episcopals air their dirty laundry all over the media this summer…nice to have company after the SBC doing it for almost 25 years…)

I am forever having to explain to folks that as a general principle, Baptists as a local congregation or as individuals are perfectly free to thumb their nose and otherwise generally ignore/criticize the silly things that the Convention does that get reported in the newspapers. We call that “autonomy of the local church” and the “priesthood of the believer”

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I just want to say that I am shocked, shocked I say! that people actually hold rodeos, gay or otherwise, in Washington, DC. Or that there is even an Atlantic States association for cowboys. Is there a lot of dairy cow ropin’ out there? :wink:

19

Well then the International Gay Rodeo Association might have a thing or two to teach ya, there, Necros. :wink:

Esprix

20

Yeah, but see where the contact for that page lives? Denver! And all the rodeos but a few are out where they belong, in the West! You Easterners try to bogart everything. :stuck_out_tongue: