The Promise Keepers: Religious Revival or Third Wave of the Religious Right?

Abstract

While research on the Promise Keepers movement has yielded some highly suggestive findings, it has failed to draw comparisons between it and other groups or movements. In this article I contribute a small piece to this comparative puzzle by using content analysis to compare the elite gender ideologies of Promise Keeper and mainstream evangelical commentators (as represented by the magazine Christianity Today). While both Promise Keepers and Christianity Today commentators tend to embrace traditional gender role understandings, they typically balance these understandings by calling on men to treat their wives as equal partners in marriage, to contribute equally to the care of children, and to encourage their spouses to pursue their vocational dreams. Surprisingly, Promise Keepers commentators emerged as more apolitical than their Christianity Today counterparts, seldom broaching the topic of abortion. Their reticence on this matter challenges claims by critics that the Promise Keepers movement represents the third wave of the religious right.