By Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.
Recently, hundreds of thousands of religious American males were on display at the Promise Keepers' "Stand In The Gap" rally in the nation's capitol. What could possibly be wrong with men bonding, praying and pledging to be better Christians, with the goal of becoming better and more responsible husbands and fathers, and active in their local church? Nothing that I can see.
There is certainly nothing wrong with men exercising their First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble and to enjoy the freedoms of speech and religion. There is absolutely nothing wrong with acknowledging that we have done wrong, we recognize our weaknesses,confess our sins before God and the public and vow, with God's help, to change our ways, to do better and to be better men in the future. The genuineness and validity of the religious experience for any of the participants, and any long-range good that comes from it, must be affirmed and respected.
There is nothing wrong with any of that, if that's all there is to it.
However, there seemed to be more to it than that. For one thing, there seemed to be poor, if not false, religious teaching going on from respected, educated and knowledgeable religious leaders. They engaged in religious teaching that used biblical texts out of their historical and cultural contexts, which may suggest a pretext for something more.
But, theologically and biblically, that's exactly who the Promise Keepers' leaders represent. They are the fundamentalist and conservative theologians and biblical interpreters who take texts literally, out of context, with the pretext of preaching and teaching an inerrant, infallible, unadulterated, pure and personal (only) Gospel. They ignore the social Gospel. Historically, that's who these men are!
There is no question that the historical context of the Bible, the Old and New Testaments, is patriarchy and hierarchy. Therefore, the anthropological language in the Bible of both a God above us (hierarchy) who is authoritative, strong, just, judgmental and a decision-maker, but who is also a loving, protecting and benevolent "Father" (patriarchy), is that same "Spirit" of all creation who Judeo-Christians have historically called God. In other words, hierarchy and patriarchy at its "best."
Clearly, then, if our religious forebearers, in their context of nearly 4,000 (Abraham) and 2,000 (Jesus) years ago, were to follow God insetting up gender relationships and family life, this masculine father figure was the model. By implication and perfect logic then, if those of us who want to be God's Promise Keepers and follow "Him" and what the Bible teaches us, this should be our model too. The problem with that analysis is that the biblical context is not our modern context and the Promise Keepers' leaders' irresponsibly fail to acknowledge or teach that difference.
Women now want to be priests, pastors and preach in pulpits. These demands come from a feminist and womanist theology and biblical interpretation born of experiences of denial and oppression from conservative and non-liberating Christian men.
As Christians, we all read the same Bible, but our biblical interpretations are born of our varied life experiences. It was Martin Luther's experiences with Roman Catholicism that led to a critique (95 Theses) that began the Protestant Reformation. Similar experiences have led to modern critiques and new interpretive contributions of scripture and theology that run all the way from the birth of our nation -- atheology that gave us a liberal democratic and constitutionally-based government to replace a traditional, conservative and God-based Monarchy-- to a Latin American-oriented liberation theology; to an African American-originated "Black" theology; to a female-led feminist and womanist theology; to a gay and lesbian theology; all of which respect all religions, advocate for human rights and equal protection under the law for all regardless of race, national origin, sex or sexual orientation, and all of which are liberation theologies reflecting a God of the oppressed.
The Promise Keepers deny the legitimacy of most, if not all, of these theological and biblical interpretations that have grown out of experiences of oppression, and resent our commitment to not go back --theologically, biblically, socially, politically or culturally.
That which, in the past, has been identified as "religious" and "Christian" has not always been liberating and quite often has been oppressive. In South Africa it was the Dutch Reformed Christian Church that provided the religious foundation for apartheid. In the United States' South it was the Southern Baptists and other mainline churches that practiced and theologically justified slavery and Jim Crow. The Ku Klux Klan identifies itself as a Christian organization. It was white Christian ministers who attacked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Birmingham, Alabama for fighting racism that brought forth his "Letter From A Birmingham Jail." At our foundation, good Christian men owned slaves and defined African Americans as three-fifths human in our Constitution, they committed genocide against Native Americans and stole their land, and they denied women the right to vote. In Congress today,many who call themselves religious and Christian, vote against laws to provide food, health care, housing, jobs, education and an equalopportunity to millions of Americans. There's an old Negro Spiritual that speaks to this point. It says, "Everybody talkin' 'bout heaven ain't goin' there."
Given the gender revolution that has developed in the past few decades, part of the reason men responded so overwhelming to the Promise Keepers'call was their need to sort out and come to grips with the confusion and anxiety over their own male identity.
The Promise Keepers' answer to that very real problem is not to look to the future with hope and confidence, confronting the changes needed and reinterpreting male identity in terms of gender equality. Instead, Promise Keepers try to give men identity and, therefore, security, by returning to a familiar past. Their preaching and teaching, mostly subliminal, though not exclusively so, was to reveal a fear of that future. The Promise Keeper answer is to retreat and recapture this biblical past.
When the Promise Keepers' leader, former University of Colorado Head Football Coach Bill McCartney, was asked by the media to respond to NOW President Patricia Ireland's recommendation that Promise Keepers include explicitly "gender equality" as the eighth plank in their platform, his response was that it was inherent in the other seven planks.
One could say the same thing about race and the other six planks, yet Coach McCartney explicitly included fighting for racial reconciliation intheir platform. Why? Shortly, I'll suggest an answer.
Mr. McCartney's answer to Ms. Ireland's proposal, unfortunately, validated NOW's fears of what Promise Keepers were really about. It turns out that what they were advocating was a return to male dominance over gender equality. Several of their leaders in media appearances stated quite openly that in the end, someone in the family has to be the leader and make the final decision. Their answer was that God's ordained biblical model of patriarchy and hierarchy was correct and, therefore, that is what Promise Keepers were out to restore.
A truly helpful approach for the Promise Keepers would be to ask, "How do others handle such a problem?" For example, what does Congress do when they are deadlocked? When nobody can impose a decision or get a bill or program through? How do we handle such conflicts, roadblocks and impasses? We have to "work it out" if anything is to be accomplished on behalf of the country. We have to creatively figure out essentially peaceful ways of resolving conflicts and making joint decisions. Why and how are we able to do this? We are able to do so because there is a balance of power and checks and balances mandated by the Constitution and incorporated into the rules of Congress.
While Congress may not be a perfect parallel, a balance of power between the genders will create the same dynamic. In the end, for the good of the whole, families comprised of equals, with real and perceived equal power, will have to be creative, give and take, compromise (it's not an inherently bad word) and resolve conflicts peacefully. Families will have to talk it out and compromise instead of physically fighting or ideologically elevating one gender over another.
We may not now know whether this missed opportunity occurred consciouslyor unconsciously, whether it was a sincere mistake reflecting human ignorance and limitations or a calculated effort with political motives. Regardless, the end result was the same. This Promise Keepers rally exploited American male fear and anxiety rather than elevating men through a program of reeducation. A program of reeducation would help in the transition to a new male identity, as we seek gender equality.
The other big debate about the Promise Keepers "Stand In The Gap" rally was the suspicion that this was not just a religious and spiritual gathering, but that at least their leaders secretly had a political agenda. This was consistently denied by everyone associated with the Promise Keepers rally and, on the surface, it certainly appeared to be that way. Below the surface, it is less clear.
In this regard, apart from the comparable size of the Promise Keepers Rally and the Million Man March, I thought the most interesting political fact was the parallel content of the message of the two demonstrations,especially when compared to another religious leader's marches on Washington, those of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Both the Promise Keepers' and the Million Man March's leadership brought a million men to the nation's capitol, the seat of government, and said to them, "Don't bother these people with political power. Go home and pray." That spiritual message just happens to parallel the anti-government political message of the Republicans. The fact is, both groups let the political order completely off of the hook!
By contrast, when Dr. King marched on Washington August 28, 1963, his purpose was to confront and put the political order on notice, and to make demands on the peoples' government -- the government of, by and for the people. And when he was assassinated, he was organizing a Poor Peoples' Campaign to bring thousands of people to the seat of government and, in his tradition of non-violence, disrupt business as usual, fill the jails of the nation's capital with poor people and their supporters if necessary, and remain until the government responded to the peoples' needs.
Symbolism counts too. Since such marches by definition are drama and symbolism, it is politically significant to observe that both Minister Farrakhan and Coach McCartney staged their marches so that, symbolically, their speakers had their backs turned to the government, looking and speaking away from the seat of political power; while Dr. King stood on the Lincoln Memorial to give his speech, facing the political order, and spoke his message toward the Congress urging them to do what political power can do to meet the needs and respond to the conditions of the people.
Let me make another spiritual and political observation with regard to these two groups and the potential appeal of the Promise Keepers in the Black Christian community. Many Black Christian ministers publicly spoke out against, did not go to, and opposed any of their men attending the Million Man March. But many of those same pastors and leaders were present, supported and encouraged their men to attend the Promise Keepers' rally. In other words, Black men could not go to their own rally to hear Minister Louis Farrakhan, but they could go to an essentially white men's rally and be exposed to Rev. Pat Robertson and Coach McCartney. In fact, in my church, located in the Second Congressional District of Illinois, there is no Million Man March organizing committee because my pastor would not allow it. But there is a Promise Keepers' committee because an Assistant Pastor attended the "Stand In The Gap" rally and he was highly impressed.
All of that would seem to reinforce the idea that the Promise Keepers rally was genuinely religious and spiritual, not political. That's certainly possible. However, there could also be a more subtle and sophisticated political strategy at work here.
In his book, Politically Incorrect -- which, incidentally, is subtitled,"The Emerging Faith Factor In American Politics" -- Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition Executive Director, said he is not just thinking about political tactics from election to election, but strategizing for where he wants the country to be 25 years from now. Further, he outlined a specific strategy recommendation for increasing minority participation in their conservative political movement through the churches.
Reed suggests that the religiously-based political right pursue two themes in order to break the color barrier. "First, social issues are the key to unlocking support in the minority community. Republican candidates traditionally run on taxes and cutting government spending. The result is that they have won only a small percentage of the minority vote since 1936, when blacks left the party of Lincoln for the party of FDR. Moderates in the Republican Party who call for the inclusion of more minorities in the party want to beat a retreat from the social issues, a flawed strategy that would virtually lock the GOP out of the minority vote for the remainder of this century. Jesse Helms, for example, received a higher percentage of the black vote than Ronald Reagan in North Carolina in 1984 by campaigning in minority churches on issues like school prayer.
"The second theme," Reed continues, "is the need for religious conservatives to work more actively within the Democratic Party. Despite their essentially conservative views on the issues, Blacks and Hispanics remain strongly Democrat in their loyalties, partly because of the legacy of civil rights. If the pro-family movement hopes to make realistic gains among these voters, it must become more aggressively bipartisan and resist the temptation to become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican party. The Traditional Values Coalition has understood the importance of this strategy, working the minority pastors in a bipartisan way to oppose legislation granting minority status based on sexual preference. Religious values cross racial lines; all too often, party loyalty does not" (emphasis added).
While the Promise Keepers' organization has gone to great lengths to distance themselves from the Christian Coalition, they may be taking a page from their play book. Political conservatives know that African Americans have economic needs and are, therefore, economically liberal. But they also know that the African American community is, at the same time, deeply religious and socially conservative.
So, Reed says, if the political right wants to attract people of color to their movement, focus on social issues and stay away from economic issues.
Focus on social issues that the religious and socially conservative minority churches, both Black and Latino, identify as moral issues and reflective of moral values -- the support of voluntary school prayer and the putting of the Ten Commandments in public schools, opposition to abortion, homosexuality and pornography, and the support of school choice (vouchers).
On the other hand, Reed preaches that religiously-based political conservatives cannot win if they try to organize minorities around economic issues -- jobs, taxes, health care, housing, affirmative action, job discrimination and so forth.
This strategy, then, has the form of the classic Republican tactic: "wedge issue" campaigns which organize around social issues that unite political conservatives with minority religious and social conservatives, but which also divides them from political progressives. If political conservatives try to organize around economic issues, it will unite even socially and religiously conservative minorities with political progressives, and keep them away from political conservatives.
Reed's chapter entitled, "The Curse of Ham" spells it out. He points to the Bishop Knox incident in Mississippi to illustrate his point. Bishop(his first name, not a religious title) Knox is the African American principal who created a national controversy by allowing student-initiated prayer in an integrated public high school.
Reed says, "The Bishop Knox incident...exemplified the unity among whiteand black Christians on social issues such as prayer in school. In a statement that could have been made by Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, Knox argued that anything that restored moral values in our young people,including prayer, could hardly be viewed as harmful."
The practical political advantages of this approach should be obvious. The social issues will attract and unite a segment of the conservative Black and Latino churches, which will allow their pastors and congregants to coalesce with the white political right who are overwhelmingly Republicans. At the same time, they become divisive and confusing wedge issues in the minority community for multi-ethnic economic liberals and progressives, who are overwhelmingly Democrats.
That is why Coach McCartney strategically insists that fighting for racial reconciliation as a moral and religious issue (not connected to its economic implications) must explicitly be in the Promise Keepers platform. They have symbolically launched a moral offensive and crusade on racism.
Beyond weak lip service and presidential "race commissions," Democrats are vulnerable to this strategic approach because they no longer have an identifiable morally or religiously compelling campaign or opposition to racism. The Promise Keepers do. President Clinton did not accept the recommendation of his own race commission chairman, Dr. John Hope Franklin, for a conservative national apology for slavery. PromiseKeepers' speakers called for such an apology as being religiously and spiritually necessary at their rally.
But neither have Democrats addressed racism's economic underbelly. They have been too busy joining with the Republicans in "balancing the budget" rather than fighting for the $200 billion urban economic investment program promised in the 1992 election campaign, which helped to mobilize people of color to vote Democratic.
How will the Promise Keepers race initiative be converted into a moral crusade? The most important announcement that Coach McCartney made during his address at the DC rally was to indicate that over the coming months Promise Keepers will conduct 18 sports stadium and 19 sports arena rallies. How is that different from past rallies? In the past they have charged $60 to attend. The rallies of the future will be free! Who do you think that is designed to attract? Obviously, poorer Black and Latino men who will join with the white middle class men that have already been attending.
Reverend Jesse Jackson eloquently reminds us that the only economic development going on in urban America today is the building of new jails and new sports facilities. Virtually all of the old and the new stadiums and arenas are very accessible to the Black and Latino communities -- and the Promise Keepers rallies will be free.
Religiously, the male-filled jails of 1.6 million people (overwhelmingly Black and Latino) represent moral failure and sin. That's the Promise Keepers' message and it resonates in the gut and soul of every minority person. Politically, the jails represent economic failure and political indifference, but the Promise Keepers can get off of that hook because they keep telling us they are not involved in politics. So they will never have to address that failure.
But just as the visual image of a million men waving Bibles on the National Mall had a huge moral impact, so too will a highly integrated audience of black, brown and white men rallying and praying together in these sports stadiums and arenas. The image of men fighting spiritually,among other things, for racial reconciliation will visually and subliminally turn these rallies into moral crusades against racism. The rallies, of course, will be devoid of any economic content -- unless it is connected to volunteerism, the private sector or free market forces --and will appear to be devoid of politics.
Politically, I believe this is one of the reasons Coach McCartney is willing to include "racial reconciliation" in their platform, but not "gender equity." I suspect that their polls and surveys are telling them that the particular religious market that they are appealing to believes in a biblically-based patriarchal and hierarchical family structure so that if they can contribute to building a strong family man, the woman will follow. Besides, apart from any reality, it has been the IMAGE of racism that has cut into their moral authority and fostered the lack of involvement of people of color in their conservative political movement (not women), and that has severely limited how far to the right politically they can push the country.
This is their leadership's attempt to strengthen this weak link in their conservative political army. The real effect of religiously-based social conservatives, of course, if not their conscious intent or agenda, is to protect the interests of the rich. At the same time, it will under cut the ability of the whole society -- which necessarily includes government action -- to attack the contributing and underlying economic factors of racism and sexism, as well as deny a redress and fulfillment of minority economic needs.
At the very least, this approach is a slick public relations campaign designed to say to a general political audience (but specifically not in clear or hard political terms that would inevitably turn away religiously-based African American, Latino and many white conservatives) that we are Bible-based, Christian men, concerned about family, moralvalues and racial reconciliation. As the political analysts in the media so easily and mindlessly purred, "What could be wrong with that, and who can be against it?" In other words, Promise Keepers are nice people and politically safe. A major public relations coup.
And, of course, the millions of participants in the Promise Keeper rallies are nice people, but they are also largely politically naive and innocent. The same cannot necessarily be said of their leadership. Coach McCartney has been politically active in anti-gay and anti-choice campaigns. Many others in their leadership have similar records of conservative activism and political action. This is really the thirdwave of the religiously-based conservative political movement. First, there was Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority. Then there was Rev. Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed's Christian Coalition. Now there is Coach Bill McCartney's Promise Keepers, with an African American Chairman of the Board, Bishop Phillip H. Porter.
A religiously-based appeal to racial reconciliation, alongside an appeal for men to be men, including African American and Latino men -- to take more responsibility, get reconnected to their wives and children, involve themselves together in their local church -- combined with a religious condemnation of the sin of racism, abortion, homosexuality and pornography, is the perfect non-political POLITICAL pitch and approach to the Black and Latino communities.
Some may ask, what if this analysis is true? It still won't attract even half of the Black or Latino community to vote for Republicans. They don't need half! Lee Atwater, the creator of the racist "Willie Horton" tactic for George Bush's presidential campaign in 1988 -- who incidentally was Ralph Reed's idol and mentor -- said that if the Republican Party could just STRATEGICALLY attract 15-to-20 percent of the Black vote, Republicans would be in power for a millennium.
Additionally, they may not need to increase the Black and Latino Republican vote. A spiritual approach may merely deplete enthusiasm for a Democratic turnout and vote. If Christ is the true answer to our real problems then government solutions pale by comparison. This is an especially appealing message to those who have been left out by government or who have seen little, if any, impact on their lives from government action or programs in the first place, regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans have been in power. This is the real "gap" that the Promise Keepers are exploiting and standing in. The Promise Keepers' spiritual message, precisely because it appears devoid of politics, potentially could have this double-edged political effect, which would be the desired result of every Republican political strategist.
It is control of the South that political conservatives see as the base from which to control the rest of the country. Fifty percent of those attending the Promise Keepers rally were from the highly religious and Bible-based South according to a Washington Post survey of the rally. Fifty-three percent of all African American people live in the eleven former confederate states of the South.
Since the founding of the country, the leadership in the conservative Bible-belt South, the section of the country with the greatest economic needs -- which, incidentally, should make them the most progressive region of the country, not the most conservative -- has always had a disproportionate influence on the nation. Especially in the beginning, great numbers of our Secretaries of War, Presidents and justices on the Supreme Court hailed from the South. In fact, the American Civil War was actually precipitated by the denial of the expansion of slavery into the new western territories. This would have eventually weakened these slave states' political power, and curbed their ability to carry out this region's historic and continuing psychological and political defensive/aggressive behavior -- which Dr. King referred to in his 1963 speech as its "nullification" tendencies.
Promise Keepers are aware that Matthew, Mark and Luke all urge us to"watch as well as pray." What do progressives need to watch for?
(1) Watch Bill McCartney, Rev. James Robison, Rev. Pat Robertson, Rev.Jerry Falwell and the other leaders and supporters of the Promise Keepersand follow their every action and activity with a keen spiritual and political eye because they all have a history of conservative political action.
(2) Watch for the Promise Keepers' biblical and other language of patriarchy and hierarchy which undermines a commitment to equal protection under the law for all Americans, or any expressed thoughts that are in opposition to full gender equality.
(3) Watch the Promise Keepers with an open political eye because the Post survey revealed that fifty-five percent of those who attended the DC rally supported Bob Dole in 1996 and only 15 percent supported BillClinton, and if the people of color were removed from the survey the Clinton percentage would have gone down even further.
(4) Watch and analyze them with regard to their off-year election activityin the 1998 mid-term elections, which I anticipate will not be that much. However, we should especially watch them with the presidential campaign of 2000 in mind. Remember, it was the White House in the year 2000 that the Rev. Pat Robertson was targeting when he was secretly caught on tape talking to his Christian Coalition leaders in Atlanta recently. Republicans believe they are going to retain control of the House and Senate in 1998 -- which may or may not be true -- but, given that belief,what they are really after is to join congressional control with White House control in 2000. Unencumbered, that would enable them to appoint more of their conservative friends to the Supreme Court and, like the fifty-eight year impact of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, help to foster their very conservative political agenda for the next half-of-a-century.
(5) In this regard, we need to watch their staging and timing, again with an eye toward 2000. Their critics asked them, "If the Promise Keepers do not want to be political or even perceived that way, why did you come toWashington, the nation's capital, the center of politics and government?" Their answer was reasonable and believable. Because only here could they have the kind of media impact that they were trying to achieve. That makes sense. From here, however, they are going to do the thirty-seven Promise Keepers' stadium and media events over the next couple of years,culminating all of this activity on January 1, 2000, with big rallies, not in a variety of religiously symbolic places, but in all fifty state capitals. Again, they chose political and governmental sites, not religiously significant places, to make their mass "spiritual" witness. The same media argument used in DC cannot be used for January 1, 2000, because most state capitals are not media centers, but smaller cities reflecting the nation's early agrarian and small town past when the state capital sites were selected and established. The Promise Keepers' religious and spiritual justification for selecting this date is that it is the beginning of a new millennium. These unapologetically Christian men are not interested in just launching a divine decade, they want a century for Christ. Coincidentally, politically, it just happens also to be the beginning of the primary and caucus season of a critical presidential election year.
(6) Watch also how they are collecting names from the Promise Keepers' rallies. In many ways, there is nothing more valuable to a political campaign than a list, especially one where the initial contact was a positive one. People tend to vote for the people or the party who registers them to vote. That's a mere secular act. What kind of, even indirect, political influence do you think Promise Keepers could have on people who experienced through their organization a high spiritual experience. The Promise Keepers organization is compiling a huge mailing list and they already have a very sophisticated computer setup thatallows them to communicate with their supporters. Will Christian Coalition or Family Research Council "Voter Guides" now begin to show up in Promise Keepers' homes? And Promise Keeper lists can certainly be made available to political campaigns later.
Their lists can be made available just to friendly political campaigns who, in turn, can very efficiently target their direct mail, phone banking or other campaign efforts to a Promise Keeper home with a positive or negative message that they know will appeal to this family. They will not even know that Promise Keepers was involved. It will just look and feel like all the other political material and approaches they receive around election time. Through all of this, of course, Promise Keepers can truthfully and legally say that they are not involved in politics, that their mission is religious and spiritual.
(7) Finally, we must watch where the Promise Keepers raise the money to pull off their ambitious future plans and activities. What is its source? Promise Keepers is a $117 million operation. Where did this money come from? They said most of it came from the nearly two million people they have attracted to their past stadium rallies where they charged $60 per person to attend. But the future rallies are going to be free? Assuming future free rallies will be bigger than past paid rallies, who will be picking up this $117 million-plus price tag? Now that they have clearly established their preeminence for religiously-based mobilization, and their surveys show the rallies to be attracting overwhelmingly Republican-oriented men, look for the really big Republican supporters and political donors to ante-up.
In light of the personal exposure that many individual and corporate donors have received during the 1997 congressional campaign finance committee hearings, these contributors will have one additional advantage with the Promise Keepers over the political hard money, and some soft money, they usually give to political candidates, campaigns and parties-- it will be tax-deductible soft money to a religious organization. This unlimited money -- cash, checks or in-kind contributions from private individuals or corporate donors -- will be eligible for politically-supported and government-supplied tax write-offs. Finally, since such contributions are in the private sector their names will not even have to be publicly revealed.
Who are the Promise Keepers? A political Trojan Horse? Genuine religious and spiritual leaders who are wise as serpents, but harmless as doves? Or wolves in sheeps clothing? Watch, as well as pray!
[Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. is a second term congressman from the Second Congressional District of Illinois who serves on the House Banking & Financial Services and the Small Business Committees, and has a Master of Arts Degree in Theology from the Chicago Theological Seminary.]
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