Promise Keepers peaked in the 1990s and no longer has massive stadium events, but it still exists as an organization. The new chairman, Ken Harrison, is calling on men to avoid pornography and to be the spiritual leaders that the homes, churches, and nations need. At the live-streamed Promise Keepers Marriage Summit, Harrison said, Some men tell me that when it comes to pornography “they can’t help themselves and God created them to be that way. I say, ‘no no no.’ God didn’t create you to be that way. God created you to have an intense longing for your wife. For the two to become one flesh. Sin created that same longing for every other woman. The Bible says we must flee from sin. It’s an action. It’s a running in terror from it, because it will separate us from God, from our kids, from our wives. Men think that they have to live their lives laden down with lustful thoughts and lust. I’m telling you that you don’t. The Bible didn’t tell you to flee from lustful desires when it couldn’t actually happen. You can’t get there in your flesh, you can’t get there by trying harder, you can’t get there by feeling guilty, but you can get there by giving your life over to Christ. Those people who are making that movie are not doing it because they’re your friends. They’re doing it because every time you click on a mouse, they make more money to exploit more women. Even with all the problems that people are having in marriage today, marriage is the safest relationship on Earth. You have a 100% chance of success in marriage when you do it God’s way.” At the same event, Pastor Samuel Rodriguez said, “Healthy marriages produce healthy families, healthy families assimilate and make up healthy churches, healthy churches produce healthy communities, a healthy community will produce a healthy state, a healthy state will be part of a healthy nation” (“Promise Keepers,” The Christian Post, Jan. 12, 2022).
CONCLUDING NOTE: All of this is true as far as it goes, and it needs to be preached in every church. At the same time, Promise Keepers can’t solve the most fundamental issues, because they don’t know what a true New Testament church is. They don’t preach repentance and a clear gospel of regeneration. They don’t believe in the Bible’s doctrine of apostasy. If they did, they couldn’t possibly call for ecumenical unity among all churches, including Rome, as they have done from their inception. Evangelicalism preaches some truth and therefore is enticing, but evangelicalism doesn’t preach the whole truth and therefore is dangerous. There are additional reports about Promise Keepers at the Way of Life web site, www.wayoflife.org.
(Friday Church News Notes, February 11, 2022, www.wayoflife.orgfbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)