Not your momma
Feuerherd, Peter
NOT YOUR MOMMA Peter Feuerherd Saturday, September 21, Sdawns gloriously in New York, the first day of autumn, when the hours of light and darkness are in perfect balance. But today I am to defy...
...7 train to Shea Stadium, the site of the first Promise Keepers gathering in New York...
...A videotape depicts a husband, now converted to Promise Keepers, who confesses publicly to his sins of uncaring apathy in his marriage...
...As I exit the court by late-morning, a particularly cantankerous opposing player offers me the one-fingered international sign of loathing...
...The rallies are all-male affairs...
...I take little offense...
...They seem to be in the middle of a post-Promise-Keepers-happily-ever-after experience...
...It is the kind of transracial solidarity that more liberal groups have largely abandoned or have never come close to achieving...
...with each section competing to see which can yell the loudest...
...As I smugly settle in for the evening, my wife expresses the wish to see a movie...
...As the early autumn sun begins to set, men are asked to share what good things they will do for their wives...
...And as in all male enterprises, there is clawing competition...
...As the sun sets at the end of my long male-bonding day, I leave Shea Stadium with a strong positive feeling about masculinity and Christianity...
...Which one...
...Evangelical pastor Bishop Wellington Boone from Richmond, Virginia, the author of Your Wife Is Not Your Momma, exhorts the men to pay attention to their spouses...
...A "Messianic Jewish" singer offers disparaging remarks about his own background that border on the anti-Semitic...
...But in this bitterly, racially divided society, what other venue brings together black men and white men in a warm, caring atmosphere...
...First, I spend the morning in my weekly ritual of basketball at Crowley Park in Elmhurst, Queens...
...Rich and others have complained about what he calls the movement's reactionary antigay, antifeminist slant...
...I am part of a tribe of paunchy, middle-aged men who are weekend warriors in the "battle of the paint...
...It is time to move on...
...They huddle in trios around the ballpark...
...Exuberance is what Promise Keepers' rallies feature...
...The gathering has much of the same competitive feel I had experienced on the basketball court in the morning...
...Its rallies have attracted more than 1.5 million participants across the country...
...But today I am to defy what the pop psychologists routinely call on men to do...
...I am ready for some kinder, gentler male bonding as I ride the No...
...I ask her...
...His wife is happy about their newly energized conjugal bliss...
...Gays, it has been said about Promise Keepers, need not apply, although I don't hear any antihomo-sexual remarks this afternoon...
...The stadium erupts in cheers of "We Love Jesus, How About You...
...If these guys can succeed in creating a world with more male responsibility and interracial understanding, it's hard to imagine that even the most knee-jerk critics could object...
...There are plenty of good men in this world trying to do the right thing, I think to myself...
...Prayers focus on men living in harmony with their wives, and ask for help for those still seeking a mate...
...As the sun rises over Queens, we are out there...
...Occasionally, an elbow connects with a face, and angry words pour forth...
...There are no referees, and disputes over foul calls generate the kind of passion not seen in this year's political debates...
...While much of Bishop Boone's presentation is pro-wife, in this feminist age his constant reference to "handling" wives is jarring...
...At this one, some 35,000 men, who paid sixty dollars apiece for the two-day rally, fill much of the giant horseshoe-shaped stadium located on Flushing Bay...
...Even though the group professes political neutrality, New York Times columnist Frank Rich has called them part of the vanguard of the Christian Right rearing the ugly head of male domination...
...A warm glow envelops Shea Stadium and me...
...No harm, no foul...
...There seems to be no Catholic leadership and no Catholic speakers, a glaring omission in very Catholic New York...
...Not much room here for vowed celibacy or men who feel called to the single state...
...Well, that's another story...
...My calendar tells me it is going to be a male-bonding day, a time to revel in the glories of testosterone...
...Promise Keepers is a largely Protestant evangelical organization devoted to getting men to accept Jesus, promote interracial harmony, and be responsible fathers and husbands...
...Unexpectedly, I find myself shedding my cynical journalist's pose and return home enthusiastic...
...These caveats aside, there is something overwhelmingly positive about Promise Keepers...
...No balance for me between my masculine and feminine sides...
...Down on the stadium field, men are dancing-with each other-to the sound of a gospel beat...
...Of course, one can be critical...
...No room here for repressed, uptight, un-sharing men...
...The First Wives Club...
...Despite feminist angst expressed about the Promise Keepers' philosophy, most of what I hear coming from the speakers' podium promotes understanding in the war between the sexes...
Vol. 123 • October 1996 • No. 18
