A MATCH MEDE IN HEAVEN
Pharr, Suzanne
A Match Made in Heaven Lesbian leftie chats with a Promise Keeper by suzanne pharr In February, as I boarded a plane to Portland, Oregon, I overheard a man say to a woman, "We're almost all...
...I told him that was going a little too far for this feminist—I think women might have some responsibility for the negative side of the ledger, too...
...For the first time in our lives, we were the maSuzanne Pharr is the director of the Women's Project, a social-justice organization based in Arkansas...
...How smart to bring them into sports stadiums around the country to sing, touch, do the wave, and bond through physical and emotional contact they rarely allow themselves...
...How smart it is to recognize not only the anger and confusion that men have about this changing society, but also their desire for connection and purpose...
...they are not victims...
...I've just been to the Promise Keepers meeting, and I'm returning to my small town in Oregon...
...jority in airplanes, subways, buses, restaurants, and the streets...
...This talk about leadership made me feel that I was in a time warp in which the women's movement had never occurred...
...Many progressives write off the latter, discarding them as ignorant or mean...
...He told me that he was pastor at a Baptist church, married, father of a teenage son, and that he would enjoy talking about his experience with the Promise Keepers...
...Forty-three thousand pastors," I thought...
...But adding an eighth promise would have to be up to the leadership...
...Me too," I replied...
...Is there any hope for preventing the merger of church and state if we do not hold authentic conversations with those who believe ferventlv in the inerrancy of the Bible...
...This is not judging...
...when the leaders are ready to move their men in response to their agenda, they will have thousands disciplined to obey and command...
...Finally, how do we carry on this conversation and organize as progressives committed to equal rights for evervone—nothing more, nothing less...
...It seemed to me that a great difference between us was his belief in the literal truth of the Bible, and my belief that it is a historical document with great spiritual content...
...that men are often so absent emotionally that women would be willing to give up autonomy in order to gain their husbands' presence...
...Then one day he phoned me long distance from his small town, saying he was just calling to keep in touch and to say what a profound effect our conversation had had on him...
...In the end, I thought we had communicated honestly with each other and that on some points, we had moved toward one another in understanding...
...I asked if he was returning from Atlanta...
...The Promise Keepers on the plane seemed to be having a similar experience, as though they had found each other for the first time...
...They want to protect them...
...This conversation led me to think more deeply about the difference between the right's leaders (those engaged in an organizing strategy that threatens democracy) and its followers (those searching for solutions to social and economic instability, whose heartfelt beliefs make them easy targets for manipulation...
...As a Southern lesbian-feminist and anti-racist worker, I am keenly interested in any group of white men organizing around issues related to women and people of color...
...He said, "No doubt if Jesus returned today, he might not be accepted in many churches...
...This is a contradiction...
...Now it wants to be on the right side, he says...
...We are returning from an Atlanta meeting of 43,000 pastors...
...I asked the pastor about the Promise Keepers' attitudes toward lesbians and gays...
...He reminded me very much of my brothers from rural Georgia...
...Of everything that happened to this pastor at the meeting, the most life-changing, he said, was racial reconciliation...
...At a meeting with black pastors, Reed admitted that the Christian Coalition has a history of being on the "wrong side" when it comes to race...
...That's like 43,000 organizers because they have influence over their congregations...
...It eliminated whole areas of ignorance for me," he said...
...Just as the right is hungry for people of color who are willing to denounce affirmative action and the civil-rights struggles that have traditionally benefited their communities, the Promise Keepers' recruitment of black church leaders looks like a way to persuade the black community to act against its own best interests...
...I told him I thought that almost all of Christendom falls somewhere between those two positions...
...A Match Made in Heaven Lesbian leftie chats with a Promise Keeper by suzanne pharr In February, as I boarded a plane to Portland, Oregon, I overheard a man say to a woman, "We're almost all Promise Keepers on this flight...
...The experience was exhilarating...
...With that introduction, we launched into an hour-and-a-half-long conversation...
...I believe the Promise Keepers are the ground troops in an authoritarian movement that seeks to merge church and state...
...I asked him if Jesus today would not be thought of as gay—an unmarried thirty-three-year-old who spent almost all of his time with twelve close male friends, one of whom in particular was "beloved...
...I entered the plane thinking, "We're sunk...
...I told him that I was a feminist, a civil-rights worker, and a lesbian, that I have very mixed feelings about the Promise Keepers, and that I wanted him to tell me about them...
...As a long-time community organizer, I have to admire the brilliance of the Promise Keepers' organizing strategy...
...We then talked about how few were the references in the Bible to same-sex relationships and how many were the references to sharing wealth, caring lor those who have less, and opening one's home and heart to others...
...But why...
...When I asked what this meant, he said, "Man's role is laid out in the Bible— 'As God is to man, man is to the family'—and it is to take charge of his family...
...It does not matter that a rightwing agenda is not overt in the formative stages of this movement...
...He said the Promise Keepers were not to dominate their wives but to lead them...
...She is the author of "Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism" and "In the Time of the Right: Reflections on Liberation...
...The pastor said it was not for a Promise Keeper to judge homosexuals ("That is God's job") but that they believe homosexuality is immoral because the Bible says it is...
...I thought...
...I thought about stories I have read that mention how pleased some Promise Keepers' wives are to have their husbands taking a dominant role in the family...
...My final question to him was: Can you and I live in homes side by side, borrow sugar from one another, and encourage our children to play together...
...He agreed...
...I suggested the Promise Keepers could make an enormous contribution to women if they added an additional promise to their credo: that they would not lift their hand against women, and that they would stop other men from committing violence...
...With some sadness I considered how damning this is of many male-female relationships...
...How do we point out the differences between the generals of this army and their recruits...
...This means listening to their needs and wishes, then deciding what is best for them...
...How do we talk to people who are different from ourselves...
...Our conversation stayed on my mind for weeks afterwards, and I thought of this one Promise Keeper with respect and continued interest...
...The pastor told me that the first thing the Promise Keepers make clear is that men are responsible for all that's wrong with the family...
...then, did fundamentalists not have a strong economic agenda for the redistribution of wealth'1 It's true, he said...
...He said that he was sure there were many of us who were fine people but that we suffered from being identified with our "fringe'' people who marched in those San Francisco parades...
...How do we get closer to people's real needs and their values in our organizing for change...
...He said he had never thought about himself as someone prejudiced or discriminatory, and he came to recognize it in himself: "I'm not an emotional man, but I cried along with the audience when the men of color were called to the stage and they could not get there because they were intercepted by white pastors hugging them, shaking their hands, pounding them on the back...
...We share the conversations, but I make the decisions," he said...
...He said yes...
...The plane was full of men dressed in casual clothes, many sporting new Promise Keepers shirts...
...The Promise Keepers are against harming women, he said...
...How do we hold different beliefs and still live in harmony...
...I said, "As a feminist, I am deeply concerned about shared decision-making, about equality...
...against women and children...
...I thought about the current status of women struggling with families, jobs, and intimate relationships...
...After trying to escape through reading, I finally gave up and began chatting with the man next to me, dressed in a blue work shirt and jeans and reading a Tom Clancy novel...
...During the flight, they stood in the aisles, talking excitedly...
...For the last couple of years I have been watching the growth of the Promise Keepers with fascination and fear...
...Rather, moving into black churches gives the religious right a foothold in the black community In this way, the call for racial reconciliation is one of the most insidious aspects of the Promise Keepers and their allies on the Christian right...
...The pastors were sent home, he said, to work to bring about racial reconciliation in their churches...
...Since my conversation with the pastor on the airplane, Ralph Reed has been calling for racial reconciliation in the wake of the recent rash of black church burnings in the South...
...My job is to lead...
...You are the second homosexual I've ever met," he said, adding with a grin, "I think...
...The scene reminded me of the 1987 March on Washington, which I attended along with thousands of lesbians and gay men...
...My conversations with this Promise Keeper made me understand that progressive people must rethink their relation to the American right...
...I wondered, can people who have very different beliefs and cultural practices live in peace with one another...
...Calls from the Christian Coalition and the Promise Keepers for racial reconciliation do not include any effort to end institutional racism, or to stop coded attacks on "welfare mothers" or immigrants or affirmative action...
...Yes," he replied...
Vol. 60 • August 1996 • No. 8
