Free Exercise cases and jurisprudence and Hamilton v. Regents and ROTC and course in military science and Cardozo and Morrill Act

Promise Keepers emerged in the early 1990s. Here is a little history of the movement, taken from their website. I also will list the "Seven Promises" which are integral to the movement.

"March 20, 1990: The Birth of an Idea

Bill McCartney, then football coach for the University of Colorado, and Dave Wardell, Ph.D. traveled to a Fellowship of Christian Athletes banquet in Pueblo, Colorado. In the context of praying and worshipping together, Coach asked Dave, "What do you feel is the most important factor in changing a man spiritually, from immaturity to maturity?"

Dave immediately replied, "Discipleship."

Coach then shared how there is a special dynamic when men come together to honor Jesus Christ. He envisioned a gathering of 50,000 men at the University of Colorado’s Folsom Field for training and teaching on what it means to be godly men. He was imagining a revival among Christian men who were willing to take a stand for God in their marriages, families, churches, and communities. Revival and discipleship are the two elements that became the foundation and focus of Promise Keepers.

Dave and Coach met weekly in March and April of 1990 to pray and petition God for direction concerning these large gatherings of men. Chuck Lane, who was working with Campus Crusade, and Dan Schaffer, who had discipled men for years, later joined Bill and Dave for these prayer meetings. Dave, Dan, and Chuck each brought to this initial core group experience and gifts in discipling men one-on-one. They began to model one of Promise Keepers’ core values—the men’s accountability group.

In July 1990 seventy-two friends and associates of the core group gathered at Boulder Valley Christian Church to discuss a conference for the men of Colorado. The name Promise Keepers evolved out of Coach Mac’s messages given to a number of churches along the Front Range of Colorado. His theme was "personal integrity." Additionally, those men committed to pray and fast on Wednesdays for a men’s conference to be held in July 1991.

A board of directors was developed, and Promise Keepers was incorporated in the state of Colorado in December of 1990. Promise Keepers first employee was Randy Phillips."

The movement then began to gather steam. I will list the attendance figures for their major conferences for the next several years.

1991 Promise Keepers '91-- 4,200 men to U of Colorado

1992 Leadership Conference-- 1,500 pastors and lay leaders
Also in 1992 National Men's Conference-- 22,000 at U of Colorado

1993 National Conference-- 3,000 pastors and lay leaders. It was the second day of their conference, where 50,000 men attended.

1994 Conferences in six cities (including Portland), where more than 278,000 men attended. CDs, books and videos put out by the movement now were popular. Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper translated into 10 languages.

1995 Thirteen conferences, with attendance at 738,000. In addition, many training seminars and other learning/discipleship opportunities were offered.

1996 A clergy conference in Atlanta drew 39,000 Christian clergy. Attendance at 22 stadium conferences was 1.1 million men.

But, interestingly enough, the numbers began to fall after 1996. By 1997 "only" 639,000 men attended conferences. Attendees in 1998 were about 450,000 despite the fact that the conferences were now free to attend. 1999 saw the first international events, where 20,000 men attended in three meetings. About 306,700 attended US meetings. About 195,000 attended conferences in 2000. Videos and other publications from Promise Keepers continued to be published.

Here are the Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, also from their website.

"1. A Promise Keeper is committed to honoring Jesus Christ through worship, prayer and obedience to God's Word in the power of the Holy Spirit.

2. A Promise Keeper is committed to pursuing vital relationships with a few other men, understanding that he needs brothers to help him keep his promises.

3. A Promise Keeper is committed to practicing spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity.

4. A Promise Keeper is committed to building strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values.

5. A Promise Keeper is committed to supporting the mission of his church by honoring and praying for his pastor, and by actively giving his time and resources.

6. A Promise Keeper is committed to reaching beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity.

7. A Promise Keeper is committed to influencing his world, being obedient to the Great Commandment (see Mark 12:30-31) and the Great Commission (see Matthew 28:19-20).

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The word "theocon" ("neocon" with an interest in God) was coined by journalist Jacob Heilbrunn in an article in New Republic late in 1996. Here is an extended excerpt from it--showing the context in which it arose and the seriousness of the movement. I would contend that the "theocons" are now a significant force in shaping some of the "moral" agenda of the Bush White House.

" On September 26, after the Senate failed to overturn President Clinton's veto of a ban on partial-birth abortions, Paul Weyrich, Gary Bauer and other leaders of the religious right assembled in the antechamber of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's office. The rhetoric could not have been more fiery. As Lott looked on approvingly, Watergate felon and evangelist Charles Colson declared, "a nation which sanctions infanticide is no better than China, no better than Nazi Germany." Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest, went even further. "It is not hyperbole to say that we are at a point at which millions of conscientious American citizens are reflecting upon whether this is a legitimate regime," Neuhaus said. "That is the solemn moment we have reached."

Despite the apocalyptic tone of what was, after all, an open meeting convened by the most powerful Republican in Congress, the gathering in Lott's chambers attracted little notice. But this meeting was not an isolated or aberrant event. It was a harbinger of a political development that has now reached fruition: a full-fledged war between two leading groups of conservative intellectuals over the basic question of what constitutes a moral conservatism and a moral society.

This war is deeply personal. On one side are the mostly Jewish neoconservatives, a fairly small group of ex-New York leftists who have wielded influence greatly beyond their numbers through sheer intellectual energy. Since the conservative renascence began in the late 1970s, the neocons have given it much of its form and heft; building on the earlier work of William F. Buckley Jr., they provided most of the ideas and arguments that allowed conservatism to compete with (and in many areas triumph over) liberalism. As conservatism benefited from the neocons, so did the neocons benefit from conservatism. They made conservatism intellectually respectable, and conservatism made them intellectually important. Now challenging the neocons is an equally small (and equally ambitious, and equally disputatious) group of what might be called theocons--mostly Catholic intellectuals who are attempting to construct a Christian theory of politics that directly threatens the entire neoconservative philosophy. This attempt, in the eyes of at least some of the neocons, also directly threatens Jews. What makes the matter all the more painful for both sides is that, until recently, the neocons and the theocons were, for the best of political reasons, the best of friends.

And this war is fundamental. It is rooted in a battle over the identity of the American nation. The neoconservatives believe that America is special because it was founded on an idea--a commitment to the rights of man embodied in the Declaration of Independence--not in ethnic or religious affiliations. The theocons, too, argue that America is rooted in an idea, but they believe that idea is Christianity. In their view, the United States is first and foremost a Christian nation, governed ultimately by natural law. When moral law--moral law as defined by Thomas Aquinas and enunciated by John Paul II--conflicts with the laws of man, they say, the choice is clear: God's law transcends the arbitrary and tyrannical decrees of what the theocons increasingly refer to as an American judicial "regime."

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