In the ’90s, an all-male religious group attempted to roll back progress made on women’s and LGBTQ+ equality. Three decades later, they’re back.
A recent New York Times headline blared, “The All-Male Christian Group Seeking a Resurrection in the Trump Era.” In the 1990s, Promise Keepers were an evangelical group of Christian men who pledged to keep their promises to their wives and children in exchange for female submission and service. Relatively apolitical at the time, Promise Keepers even pledged to work toward “racial reconciliation.”
Filling football stadiums, evangelical men and boys felt safe to cry and hug, while reaffirming each other’s masculinity and entitlement to male dominance. By the end of the 1990s, Promise Keepers had faded from the headlines, but now 30 years later, they are staging a revival.
Ms. sat down with Jackson Katz to get his take on the Promise Keepers revival. Katz is an internationally renowned thought leader in the growing global movement of men working to promote gender equality and prevent gender violence.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Carrie Baker: For those who weren’t around or don’t remember, what were the Promise Keepers in the 1990s?
Jackson Katz: Promise Keepers is an evangelical-based “parachurch” men’s movement that burst onto the scene in 1990. It was founded by then-University of Colorado Boulder football coach Bill McCartney. They held a series of public events at stadiums throughout the 1990s, and a big march on Washington in October 1997, where more than a half-million men showed up on the National Mall. Something like 3.5 million men attended Promise Keeper events throughout the ‘90s, which some have argued made it the largest organized men’s movement ever.
They were early adopters of the now-popular idea on the right that one of the main problems in American society is that men have lost their way, and need to reconnect with “what it means to be a man” in brotherhood with other men—within a deeply patriarchal, conservative Christian evangelical framework, of course.
Baker: Was the Promise Keepers movement multiracial?
Katz: It was mostly white men, but a constitutive part of the Promise Keepers in the ‘90s was their talk about “racial reconciliation.” It wasn’t a political understanding of racism—for example, about the need to change underlying economic structures that perpetuate racism. It was more of the “let’s invite a Black family to dinner” method of reaching out. It was an earnest gesture toward racial reconciliation, but it wasn’t based in a more sophisticated understanding of racial justice.
Baker: What were their views on women and the relationships between men and women?
Katz: Promise Keepers encouraged men to think about their responsibilities to their wives and their kids, because the entire rationale for Promise Keepers was responsible men need to keep their promises to their family and to God. This included sexual fidelity. Of course this is all within a framework of Christian evangelical teaching about male headship. It wasn’t gender egalitarian. It was giving men permission to be more emotionally present in their relationships, especially in their family, but it was never a feminist enterprise.
Several Promise Keepers figures made public statements that men should still be in control. Men are still the heads of the family. Men are still the decision-makers. You can ask your wife for her input, but ultimately, at the end of the day, the ultimate decisions are for men to make, because we live in a patriarchal culture, and this is what Christianity teaches.
My friends used to call it ‘Power Keepers.’ It’s not just about keeping promises, it’s about keeping a hold on power. They were trying to roll back the sexual revolution, the women’s movement, the gay rights movement and similar challenges to traditional male authority.
Baker: How were Promise Keepers able to help men be more emotionally present in their relationships?
Katz: Because it was founded by a football coach, and they deliberately held rallies in football stadiums and other sports arenas, it helped to masculinize the more feminine project of men getting in touch with their emotions and being able to express emotions other than anger, especially with other men. This included vulnerability and sadness, as well as feelings of guilt, grief or loss for not having pursued their own dreams, or lived up to their father’s expectations.
Doing it at a football stadium with a group of men made it more acceptable, just like it’s more acceptable in certain ritualized circumstances for men to express vulnerable emotions through sports. Men are allowed to cry sometimes in sports. You’re allowed to hug other men, where you wouldn’t outside of that sports context. I think a hugely important part of the Promise Keepers’ success in the ‘90s had to do with its association with football.
Baker: Why did so many men need this sort of emotional release in the ‘90s?
Katz: I think the women’s movement is one of the biggest factors. In the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, feminism was helping to transform women’s lives. Feminist women were thinking and writing about—and challenging—traditional institutional practices, sexist institutions and the ways in which those limited women’s lives. But these challenges to traditional patriarchal beliefs and practices also precipitated a crisis in masculinity. Women were not accepting their subordinate status in the family or the workplace, and a lot of men were beginning to be confused and decentered by that. And also, heterosexual women were expecting more emotional presence from men in relationships, and were pushing men to be more involved emotionally with their children. A lot of men were responsive to those pushes, but uncertain how to proceed.
In the absence of a strong narrative from the liberal/left about how much men and their families would benefit from a progressive policy agenda, the right has rushed into that space and basically said to men that the other side hates you and doesn’t care about you.
Jackson Katz
Baker: Why did Promise Keepers fade at the end of the ‘90s?
Katz: My understanding is that it had to do with certain institutional and organizational problems, such as managing money and personalities. I don’t think it was necessarily tied to larger sociocultural or political developments.
Baker: Why are the Promise Keepers coming back, all these years later?
Katz: I would guess that one of the reasons why the group has re-emerged is that it still has a viable brand. Promise Keepers is a name that resonates with millions of people who remember it from the ‘90s. It’s associated with huge crowds in big public stadiums. It can generate revenue and votes for the right.
Baker: Who are the current leaders of Promise Keepers?
Katz: I’m not familiar with the new leadership. But they do have some prominent supporters, like Charlie Kirk, the rabidly right-wing talk radio host and one of the founders of Turning Point USA. Joe Kennedy is a supporter, the high school football coach who took a case about praying on the football field to the Supreme Court in 2022. Steve Bannon has given his support on his ‘War Room’ podcast. Elements on the Trumpist right understand very well that right-wing, white evangelical men are an incredibly important constituency within the larger MAGA coalition.
Baker: How is Promise Keepers today different from Promise Keepers in the ‘90s?
Katz: It’s more overtly political, and largely partisan Republican.
Over the last 20 to 30 years, white evangelical Christianity has become increasingly politicized. That politicization speaks to men as men, and the need for heterosexual and heteronormative men to “take back the country” from the feminizing and decadent forces of feminism and the LGBTQ revolution.
One of the central political goals of right-wing white evangelical Christianity is to bolster diminished male authority in the family and larger society, and to use the coercive power of the state to enforce men’s power and control over women and children.
Baker: Is it still a largely white movement?
Katz: Yes. And middle-class and upper middle-class, too. There are men of color involved. But the organization seems to have moved away from a strong emphasis on racial reconciliation, in part because I think they see it as too close to a progressive “social justice” notion that is anathema to right-wing belief.
Baker: I went on their website, and right in the center, they talk about the high male suicide rate. It’s interesting their focus on male vulnerability.
Katz: One of the key attractions of the Promise Keepers is their homosociality—bringing men together, whether it’s in big stadiums or in small, local groups. This homosocial aspect is a corrective to the very real problem of men’s loneliness and isolation, which of course were exacerbated by the pandemic. Promise Keepers addresses that genuine need for connection that so many men feel but often don’t know how to achieve.
Their solution is to have [men] double down on patriarchal power and privilege. … It’s paradoxical. Men are being pushed to believe the way to solve their problems is to double down on the very source of those problems.
Jackson Katz
Baker: How have right-wing political movements used men’s vulnerabilities to recruit men?
Katz: They speak directly to men and say, “We see you, we hear you, and we care about you.”
Meanwhile, liberals, progressives and the Democratic Party have done a poor job of speaking directly to men’s economic and psychological needs and problems, and explaining how their policies would benefit those men.
In the absence of a strong narrative from the liberal/left about how much men and their families would benefit from a progressive policy agenda, the right has rushed into that space and basically said to men that the other side hates you and doesn’t care about you. In fact, they think you’re the source of all the world’s problems. They think you’re toxic.
On the other hand, people like Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson and even Donald Trump say that they truly care about and respect men, and want to help them achieve the American dream. They’ve weaponized men’s pain and longing in the service of a right-wing, plutocratic populism. That’s why I’ve argued that the “crisis in masculinity” has now become a crisis in democracy.
Baker: What policy solutions are they offering to men?
Katz: I think the Promise Keepers are tapping into real needs in men’s lives, but their solution is to have them double down on patriarchal power and privilege.
Instead of accepting that the country is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, that women are not going back into second-class status, the Promise Keepers and the larger movement they’re a part of maintains that the solution lies in a restoration of a previous regime of male power and control. That’s “Make America Great Again.” In other words, let’s go back to what it used to be before feminists ruined it, before the LGBTQ revolution ruined it. That’s why it’s a reactionary social movement. It’s looking to the past as a means to reclaim lost glory.
Baker: Do you think that’s actually going to help men if they achieve it? Doesn’t hypermasculinity, in the traditional patriarchal sense, actually contribute to the harm men experience in the world as opposed to being a solution to that harm?
Katz: Yes, exactly. That’s why it’s paradoxical. Men are being pushed to believe the way to solve their problems is to double down on the very source of those problems. The limitations of conventional notions of “manhood” is a big part of the reason so many men are struggling in the first place. If men could get beyond reflexive defensiveness, if they could open up a little bit, they would see there’s a different way to think about what’s best for them.
I see so many sad and lonely men. So many broken men. The “deaths of despair” are mostly men, and they’re disproportionately happening in red states and counties. Parts of the country that love Trump and continually vote Republican have some of the highest rates of poverty, opioid addiction, suicide.
Baker: What about young men?
Katz: There is data that shows young men are moving to the right, at least in terms of how they might vote in November. Some of this might be a result of Joe Biden’s unpopularity with young men.
It’s important to note that for the last few years, important “manfluencers,” like the podcaster Joe Rogan, have repeatedly and emphatically mocked Joe Biden as feeble, weak and not in control of his own administration. This was considered a non-debatable fact among millions of young men—who wouldn’t want to be caught dead supporting someone who is characterized that way.
Now that Kamala Harris is the Democratic nominee, hopefully some of that will change. Wouldn’t it be interesting if they were more comfortable identifying with a Black and Asian woman who’s branded as energetic and “tough,” than an old white guy who’s supposedly soft and feckless?
They call it ‘religious freedom,’ but these so-called religious freedom cases are overwhelmingly about the right of Christian evangelicals to enforce their form of religious belief in public spaces.
Jackson Katz
Baker: Are you worried about a Promise Keepers revival?
Katz: I think we should be worried about the broader movement of Christian nationalism, the confluence of white evangelical Christianity with right-wing political activism and plutocratic policies. There might be doctrinal or ideological nuances, but I tend to see the Promise Keepers as a subset of this broader movement of Christian nationalism.
My concern is the explicit politicization of evangelical Christianity. For example, people on the right increasingly say out loud that they don’t agree there should be a separation of church and state. They claim that supporting that separation makes you a kind of bigot against religion. You hear this every day on right-wing talk radio and on social media. They’re angry about it, and they’re fighting back.
We need to be concerned with how they’re trying to break down the institutional walls that separate church and state. They call it ‘religious freedom,’ but these so-called religious freedom cases are overwhelmingly about the right of Christian evangelicals to enforce their form of religious belief in public spaces, such as the 10 Commandments on the walls of public buildings, Christian prayer in schools and on the football field after a game.
A big part of it is also anti-LGBTQ, and the threats to traditional heteronormative power and especially men’s heteronormative power. Large segments of the right don’t accept rights that many people thought were settled, such as marriage equality. They’re working to undo the legal architecture that underpins some of these basic freedoms.
Baker: What do Christians see in Donald Trump?
Katz: They see Donald Trump as both a symbol and instrument of resistance. Even though Christians are nominally the overwhelming majority of Americans, and our institutions are not anti-Christian, they see themselves as victims of a secular culture. They see Donald Trump as kind of a crude figure who is nonetheless righteously standing up for them and defending them against secular bullies.
White men have been the driving force behind the country’s slide to the right over the past half century. But I don’t believe that was inevitable. I don’t accept that. Things could have gone differently.
Jackson Katz
Baker: Do you have hope for the future?
Katz: I believe there are non-delusional reasons to be optimistic.
White men have been the driving force behind the country’s slide to the right over the past half century. But I don’t believe that was inevitable. I don’t accept that. Things could have gone differently. I’ve been saying for years that we need to create narratives on the left that include white men as part of the positive changes happening in our society. If we can do that, and just pull a small percentage of those men back into a liberal/progressive coalition, we can finally get the electoral majorities needed to make some of the big policy changes that will improve everyone’s lives. This is one of the great challenges of the next few decades. I’m hopeful. But check back with me on November 6.
Baker: What are some organizations doing this work?
Katz: Equimundo is a multinational organization based in Washington, D.C., that produces great research about men’s issues from a clearly profeminist position. There are groups like A Call to Men, which focuses on men’s violence against women and other issues.
I’m involved with a group of activists that are trying to get the Democratss and others to address the issues and needs of young men across the ethnic/racial spectrum. It’s called the Young Men Research Initiative.
Men for Harris and White Dudes for Harris are examples of groups sprouting up organically to address the ways in which men to the left of center can contribute to change as men.
What we’re seeing is a growing willingness on the part of men to engage on these issues, which is all to the good. And not a moment too soon.
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