Doctrines Promise Keepers has been lauded for its Christian focus. However, the group has also been criticized for doctrinal compromises and inconsistent doctrines. Raymond Hartwig, a former president of the
South Dakota District of the
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, commented: "They use the Bible in a very simplistic form, as a springboard to jump into the law."
Same-sex relationships Promise Keepers champion the exclusive legitimacy of heterosexuality and denigrate homosexuality as sinful. Promise Keeper founder, the late University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney, called homosexuals "a group of people who don't reproduce, yet want to be compared with people who do reproduce," and maintained that he believed, "Homosexuality is an abomination of Almighty God." Critics call the Promise Keepers approach to homosexuality "simplistic, sexist, homophobic and patriarchal," and "based on exclusion," and that within the views of the organization, "there's no place for gays and lesbians. There is no place for women except as subservient to men."
Belmont University, a private Christian school in
Tennessee, cancelled a Promise Keepers event in 2023 after the organization published a
Pride month blog post that the university said was "harmful to members of our community."
Role of Women The
National Organization for Women (NOW), an American feminist organization, has expressed the view that the Promise Keepers pose a threat to women's rights. NOW contends that the group encourages inequality within marriages and teaches a doctrine of male superiority. In August, 2020, Promise Keepers chairman Ken Harrison spoke on the topic of Promise Keepers and how it relates to women. "We're really calling men to be humble, proactive leaders in their homes. I don't feel like it's my role to tell women how they should be. That is for their pastor and other people." According to Amy Schindler, "the discourse of masculinity found within conservative religious movements, such as the Promise Keepers and the
Victorian era movement '
muscular Christianity,' is inherently political. Any masculinity project aimed at restoring or reclaiming a 'traditional' male role for privileged white, heterosexual males has a political impact within the tapestry of class, race, and gender power" (1998). Academic Browyn Kara Conrad argued in a 2006 article that the organization reproduces problematic sexual scripts such as the
Madonna/whore view of female sexuality and a view of the male sex drive as uncontrollable. A 2002 article from the
Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research argued that, despite their initial appearance to be pro-feminist, the Promise Keepers build upon
patriarchal assumptions, including having the man as the actor in the family, church, and world, and that they expect women to be passively dependent.
Manhood The organization places particular emphasis on godly manhood, with an emphasis on fatherhood. John Bartkowski saw Promise Keepers' leadership in 2000 as evoking two types of manhood: first, is an essentialist appeal to gender difference advocated by Edwin Louis Cole that emphasizes aggression, strength, and rationality; second, is Gary Oliver's "expressive manhood", which says that all of the traits now traditionally attributed to women were practiced by Jesus, and that men should re-connect with their sensitive side. According to a 1999
Yeshiva University study, when it comes to fatherhood, the organization tends to be more conservative, supporting heterosexist, male predominance in the family.
Race Following the
murder of George Floyd, Promise Keepers launched Promise 6 Sunday, an event aimed toward "building unity" among churches. The event included resources from various evangelical leaders and American public figures including
Samuel Rodriguez,
Tony Dungy,
Alveda King, Donald Burgs Jr.,
Chad Hennings, and Ken Harrison. Patrick Glynn argues that the Promise Keepers succeed in racial reconciliation where politics has seemed to fail. Scholar Siphiwe Dube notes that the organization has open discussions of race that promote racial reconciliation. L. Dean Allen finds that while the organizations' leaders primarily claim that Satan is responsible for fostering racism in individuals and that the best way to counter racism is for people to personally repent and go to confession, PK participants see racism as a more multifaceted issue, citing historical animosity, economic differences, and racial fear. Further, while both leaders and participants see forming relationships with members of other races as important to battling racism, participants do not see PK events as valuable in developing these relationships. Andrea Smith also notes that race relations between Promise Keepers and Native communities is more open. ==See also==