(5 of 7)
McCartney insists that a man's "leadership" at home actually translates into "servanthood" rather than domination. "You can talk around it, but the man has a responsibility before God," McCartney says. "He must stand before God and give an account. Did you take spiritual leadership in your home?... You know what a woman is told [in the Bible]? Respect your husband. O.K.? The way she would do that is that she would come alongside him and let him take the lead, and he in turn would lay down his life. He would serve her, affectionately and tenderly serve her."
In a section of Seven Promises titled "Reclaiming Your Manhood," Tony Evans, a senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, puts it this way: "Sit down with your wife and say something like this: 'Honey, I've made a terrible mistake. I've given you my role. I gave up leading this family, and I forced you to take my place. Now, I must reclaim that role'...I'm not suggesting you ask for your role back, I'm urging you take it back...there can be no compromise here. If you're going to lead, you must lead."
Many women, nevertheless, have come to the support of the Promise Keepers. Perhaps to Patricia Ireland's dismay, Hillary Clinton, while cautious about its leadership, has praised the Promise Keepers in her book It Takes a Village. And at a Sept. 16 press conference, a group of conservative women from mainline Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches denounced NOW for its attack on the Promise Keepers and decried the negative impact of what they described as "radical feminism" on church and society. "We believe that the feminist fixation on power has sadly missed the point of the present cultural situation," said Mary Ellen Bork, the wife of the failed Supreme Court nominee and a lecturer on Catholic life. "In our view, power is not the goal in life." Added Pat Funderburk Ware, an African-American expert on preventing teenage pregnancy and HIV infection: "So many white women...are so co-opted by the feminist movement because they haven't suffered enough. They really don't know what it is not to have their men there...We've suffered enough."
Promise Keepers even receives some support from a woman who infiltrated its ranks. In 1995 journalist Donna Minkowitz went undercover on assignment for Ms. magazine to a Promise Keepers rally in St. Petersburg, Fla., disguised as a 16-year-old boy. She says that while the group is antigay and antiabortion, that is not the Promise Keepers' main thrust. "In some ways," she says, "I think they are changing men in a really good way that feminists would like. While some of their message is antifeminist and right wing, I think ignoring the good side doesn't do us a service at all."