Chavis: Promise Keepers Won't Renege on Arkansas Outreach
by Jim Brown
May 25, 2005
(AgapePress) - Several liberal organizations are displeased that the Colorado-based men's ministry Promise Keepers has been granted permission to use facilities at the University of Arkansas for one of its stadium events. Critics claim PK is non-inclusive and intolerant and should therefore be precluded from visiting the campus.
Next month, Promise Keepers will be holding a conference at Razorback Stadium on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville. However, groups like the Arkansas chapter of the National Organization for Women, the Washington County Green Party, and the Omni Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology want the Christian men's outreach organization barred from the campus. PK is being accused of intolerance of non-Christian religions and promoting a narrow-minded viewpoint.
Steve Chavis, PK's communications director, says he was surprised to hear the upcoming event has generated so much angst. "I think the question is about tolerance," he observes, "and about diversity of ideas. The point is, diversity of ideas does not stop with Christianity. If you're going to be an open organization, and if you're going to invite in a diversity of opinions, Christianity, certainly, gets a seat at the table."
Chavis says the critics will not deter PK from reaching out to men and conveying to them a sense of the warfare being waged over their spiritual lives, as well as "a sense of their place in society, in culture, in the marketplace, and in the university." He contends that by giving men a sense of their place, role, and calling in life, the ministry is "finding men released into fantastic Christian experience."
As a result of Promise Keepers' programs and events like the one planned for Fayetteville, Chavis says, "We are really seeing guys connect the dots on their faith and make a difference in their community." The upcoming PK conference at Razorback Stadium will be held June 10-11.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
