Subject: IWG Daily News Promise Keepers Coverage Letter
From: Interfaith Working Group <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 22:37:31 -0500 (EST)

The following went out on IWG letterhead listing 12 congregations and
organizations and 54 clergy from 15 religious traditions. If you are in 
the general Philadelphia area and represent a congregation or religious 
organization or are clergy, let us know if you want to be added - all faiths 
are welcome. We will also be happy to help start similar organizations in 
other areas.

January 16, 1997

Philadelphia Daily News
PO Box 7788
Phila., PA 19101

Dear Editors:

	We were surprised that Ron Goldwyn's article about
the Promise Keeper's rally and the press conference
held by Equal Partners in Faith concentrated on and
oversimplified the question of racial reconciliation.  
	Promise Keepers may have helped conservative
Christian men make friendships across racial lines,
which is a good and socially useful thing.  That,
however, was not the question that was raised at the
press conference or by other critics of the Promise
Keepers' leadership.  The questions that have been
raised are whether an organization that claims to fight
racism is actually doing anything to eliminate
institutionalized racial inequality; whether the
policies favored by the political organizations and
individuals with which the Promise Keepers leadership
are associated are helping or hindering economic
equality for racial minorities; and whether absolving
white Christian men of atrocities such as slavery and
the holocaust or referring to slavery as "redemptive" 
is either helpful or appropriate.
	Race was not the only issue raised at the press
conference.  Promise Keepers unabashedly concentrates
on gender roles and male superiority; the leadership of
the organization has a history of conservative
political activity; they may have a potentially
disastrous long-term effect on local churches which
have men's groups answering to an outside organization;
and they have demonstrated an unsatisfactory level of
respect for those of minority faiths and sexual
orientations.   
	As long as the Promise Keepers movement attempts
to organize in local churches, people of faith with
differing opinions will voice their concerns, whether
those attending Promise Keepers' events think those
concerns are "bogus" or not.

Sincerely,
Barbara Purdom     Christopher Purdom
Interfaith Working Group Coordinators

-- 

Interfaith Working Group                Religious organizations, congregations
[email-masked]                      and clergy supporting gay rights,
http://www.libertynet.org/~iwg/         reproductive freedom, and the 
215-235-3050                            separation of church and state.