I think I had imagined Promise Keepers to be some kind of overblown, cringey, Christian men's support group; or one of those things you went to if you were having some trouble with your marriage.I had also lumped it into the whole mega church phenomena; partly correctly, partly incorrectly as it turns out.Anyway, it was not something I imagined myself getting involved in, but a friend twisted my arm enough to get me along to their recent event.There were some things that didn't quite gel with me, like the "rock concert" music thing, however the quality of speakers did make the day worthwhile.Mostly good sound, biblical ministry to men, on Christian life and practical family related topics.For example, I enjoyed the ministry by Benny Tan, who spoke about his childhood in Malaysia where he was "purchased as an insurance policy" against old age by a barren couple, who later did have their own child after which he became kind of an unwanted nuisance .The process of God healing the deep wounds of childhood and giving him love, assurance, ability to forgive and the inner strength needed to be active in the ministry was a touching story with valuable lessons for all.Perhaps the most insightful ministry of the day was that of David Murrow, author of the book "Why Men Hate Going To Church".Here are some figures from the US that he mentioned..Average church is only 39% male.Young men aged 18-25 account for only 3%.25% of married woman in church are there without their husbands.This is particularly interesting when you realize that the same imbalance is NOT the case for any of the other world religions.What is going on? Well, he started by talking about the kinds of movies that men and woman like.The theme in the men's favorite movies is usually something to do with a man saving the world against impossible odds.Woman's favorite movies however are usually more about them finding a relationship with a man who loves them.He pointed out that the focus of a much preaching today is to "come and have a personal relationship with Jesus, who loves you".While valid at a certain level, it is essentially tuned to the feminine psyche.However, the focus in the early church was in effect, "We need to save the world against impossible odds, as well as face almost certain danger along the way".This is a much more active, much more masculine message.He then described how so many aspects of church are essentially feminine and do not appeal to guys.He commented that the whole polarity needs to move from feminine to masculine, reasoning that if you get the men you get everyone, men woman and children.And part of that argument was saying that woman are comfortable with the masculine, but men are not comfortable with the feminine.A photo of a woman using a skill saw, as opposed to him carrying his wife's handbag in a store was enough to demonstrate the truth of that.Essentially I believe he was onto something here, though the direction it ended up taking in his speech, and in Promise Keepers itself, seemed cosmetic and worldly.After a while I got the idea that making church masculine was about changing the decor, changing the music, allowing blokishness in church, playing video clips of war movies, and so on.All just bringing worldly, and often stupid, expressions of masculinity into the church.For me this whole issue is not about having a barbeque with only meat, or men playing Laser Strike, but it is about reviving the big dangerous masculine challenge of the "radical Christian life".Overall I also also felt that he may have missed a related issue; that modern church is just too artificial.Whether orientated to the feminine or masculine, sitting in an air conditioned building isn't a living, vital or challenging place to connect with God.I suspect the gender balance would swing pretty quickly if, for instance, we were a persecuted church meeting in a forest.Now of course, Promise Keepers wouldn't be Promise Keepers if it didn't include talks about sex.To be fair, I think most men could benefit from the wise biblical counsel that came out about sex, marriage, children and family dynamics.It did remind me that a lot of Christians are really struggling in their relationship with their children, especially teenagers, and often in their relationship with their spouses too.Woman seem to often take a great deal of interest in all these issues, and it's beneficial for men to take some interest too, even if it's not the kind of focus we're wired with.The issue of addiction to pornography was big, which is not hard to understand.We live in a culture full of sexual imagery which connects with very deep and instinctual drives in men, and that is added to now with easy and anonymous access to Internet pornography.It was estimated that at least 50% of Christian men were struggling with some degree of pornography addiction.Someone spoke of it as an underground weed that is destroying the strength of men in the church (and destroying marriages and children too).I absolutely believe this is correct.While there were a many suggestions made, personally I am a great believer in Internet access that is filtered at the source (the ISP).Accountability programs and filtering software loaded on a PC can be got around, but if you hook up to a filtered Internet service you are simply removing yourself from the source of temptation.An additional reason is that, even if you yourself aren't tempted in this area, you should be aware that porn is so pervasive online sometimes it can be stumbled on inadvertently.If you have children and you don't have filtered Internet, then I'm going to be so bold as to rebuke your serious lack of wisdom in this area - please, just get it.1.OK, now I've held back on talking about the one thing that I found absolutely appalling about this Promise Keepers, because there were things that were good and I didn't want to tarnish that.The unfortunate theme was a terrible statement as to an almost ubiquitous misunderstanding in the modern Church to do with the role of Christianity in the world.If I hadn't already paid, and promised a friend that I'd be there, I probably would have turned away from the door totally disgusted at the presence of armored personnel carriers, a howitzer, and a variety of other military gear.I knew the slogan for the event was "leave no man behind", borrowed presumably from the US army rangers motto, but I did not realize how far the military theme would be taken in the event.The presenters wore military uniforms and dog tags, and military equipment and camouflage was strewn all over the stage area.Even worse, they played a number of clips from completely worldly war videos that espoused schmaltzy Hollywood heroic values that, while relating in a vague way to Christian values, were actually a perversion of them.The early church would have nothing to do with fighting wars.They were "wise as serpents but harmless as doves".(Matthew 10.16).How has it happened that most of the Christian church has completely lost sight of the fact that we are under a new covenant? (Hebrews 8.13).The shift in thinking about war from the old to the new covenant is expressed clearly in Jesus teaching when he says..You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the sons of your father in heaven.(Matthew 5.43-45).Under the old covenant God was dealing with men in the flesh, but in the new he is dealing with the new man in the spirit.We are not meant to fight for earthly territory, or even for our own peace, but we are called to consider ourselves as sheep for the slaughter (Romans 8.36) because we do not seek an earthly city, but a heavenly one (Hebrews 13.14).We are to strive to reach the world with the gospel through the display of selfless love and faith, not to try and reach it the crusader way, through the sword or these days the barrel of a gun.Yes, certainly Jesus is the LION as well as the LAMB, and I believe that as men we need to 'put on the lion of the tribe of Judah'.As Christian men we need to put a certain masculine strength and courage, but it is not the courage to kill, it is the courage to save, and to endure hardship along the way.I fear that war now seems like the only true masculine adventure left and those who are seeking to revive male strength in a church that long ago compromised with the world on the issue of war, now end up promoting something that is of the devil.One of the video clips shown had a very inappropriate line by Mel Gibson saying something like 'And Lord, please disregard our enemies heathen prayers and help us blow them to hell'.Unbelievably inappropriate! Promise Keepers even had army recruiters on hand so that attendees could actually join the army, perhaps go to somewhere like Afghanistan, and literally blow the heathen to hell.But it's all so weird.I just can't see Paul the apostle, or Peter or John, running around with guns and hand grenades.They would have wanted to love and serve the heathen, yes even the Muslims.They would have wanted to get right in amongst them at peril to themselves and speak to them about how they could be saved.This deception to do with war is a terrible one, and I foresee a day when Christian's will mistakenly fight wars that will bring the beast of Revelation 13 into power.They will kill to establish the evil empire and they will die for the glory of Satan.They will stand before God with blood on their hands wearing only the filthy rags of Christian deception.What a terrible thing this will be; I just pray that many will see the truth and be led out of this darkness that has infiltrated the Christian community.
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