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Assume Nothing: One doesn't hear as much these days about Promise Keepers, the Christian organization that, until a short time ago, got big press for routinely filling stadiums across the country with men praying and pledging to do right by the women and children in their lives. This fading of attention is unfortunate, as no American institution or movement over the last decade has done more to encourage men to honor their most important responsibilities. If this lower profile has an upside, it's that fewer critics seem to be making the most outrageous--which, is to say, bigoted--comments about the group and its adherents. Slanders, for example, about Promise Keepers being a "militaristic, antiwomen organization" that poses "the greatest danger to women's rights." (Credit the National Organization for Women for these bits of tolerance.) Yet what has been clear all along is that when participants in the Promise Keepers talk about men becoming the "spiritual leaders' of their families, they are talking about their becoming "servant leaders," not autocrats or anything of the dictatorial sort. Of this, I must say, I've been perfectly confident. But why so? Mainly for the seemingly paradoxical reason that the Promise Keeper message is firmly grounded, not only in what some might describe as old-time religion, but also in the most current and "enlightened" ideas about how men should treat their wives and nurture their children. This is the case, I would argue, because just as it's impossible to escape many of the coarsest aspects of our culture, it's also hard to avoid some of its healthier features and trends--even if one wanted to. The film critic Michael Medved, for instance, has lamented that no matter how hard one might try, it's virtually impossible to escape Madonna, as she oozes everywhere. He is right, needless to say. But in much the same way, it has been nearly impossible over the last generation to avoid being influenced by the much more benign likes, say, of Bill Cosby and the world-class husband and father he played on television. But don't take my impressionistic word for it. Consider, if you will, a recent review of empirical research with the telling title, "The Evangelical Family Paradox: Conservative Rhetoric, Progressive Practice." Writing in the summer 1999 issue of Responsive Community, its two authors, W. Bradford Wilcox of Princeton, and John P. Bartkowski of Mississippi State University, make points like these. On the one hand, more than 85 percent of evangelicals believe "the husband should be the head of the family," as opposed to 48 percent of all other Americans. And it was only a little more than a year ago that the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest denomination in the evangelical Protestant tradition, adopted a resolution urging wives to "submit" to their husbands. But very much on the other hand, evangelicals "are in many ways more progressive than other Americans" in their parenting. So, for example, Wilcox and Bartkowski report that both evangelical mothers and fathers praise and hug their children more often than other parents. Likewise, evangelical fathers are more likely than their nonevangelical counterparts to have dinner with their children, volunteer for youth activities such as Scouts and sports, oversee their kids' homework, etc. "In many ways," Wilcox and Bartkowski conclude. "evangelical men more closely resemble the iconic new father of the 1990s--the expressive, involved, egalitarian family man--than do other fathers." As for why this is so, they offer several theories, but my favorite is the following. "From stadiums filled with Promise Keeper men weeping overtheir sins to mega-churches offering small groups for every imaginable emotional need, evangelical institutions have turned their attention in a dramatic way to the psychological well- being of their members." This "expressive ethos," Wilcox and Bartkowski contend, "has undoubtedly carried over into the family." While it may seem a stretch, I'm reminded of an interview I did a decade ago with a local editorial writer who was curious about this new "conservative" think tank, Center of the American Experiment, that several colleagues and I were starting. Being a journalist of finely tuned multicultural sensibilities, it was clear that he was concerned that any organization claiming to be something other than liberal wouldn't be nearly open-minded enough in matters of race, ethnicity, and the like. To allay his fears (albeit at the price of pandering). I started reciting the not inconsequential number of my associates who were in mixed marriages of various sorts. I don't know if he was assuaged. -- Mitchell B. Pearlstein is president of Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis. |