Bill McCartney, a former college football coach who became one of the most influential religious figures in American life during the 1990s after founding the Promise Keepers movement, died Friday (Jan. 10).
“It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Bill McCartney, beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend, who left this world peacefully at the age of 84 after a courageous journey with Dementia,” his family said in a statement.
In March of 1990, not long after his University of Colorado Buffaloes missed a chance at the national championship by losing to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, McCartney hopped in a car with a friend, Dave Wardell, to drive from the university’s campus in Boulder to Pueblo, Colorado, where he was scheduled to give a speech at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes banquet.
While on the road, McCartney talked about his concerns that American men were losing their faith in God — and as a result, the nation’s families were suffering. During that drive, the idea of Promise Keepers was born.
Within a year, McCartney had grown Promise Keepers from a relatively small group of followers to a gathering of 4,000 men at the University of Colorado’s basketball arena — and along the way, had led the Buffaloes to a national championship after beating Notre Dame in a rematch. A few years later, Promise Keepers was drawing tens of thousands of worshippers to arenas and stadiums around the country — and eventually more than half a million men to the National Mall in Washington in 1997.
“Thirty years ago, he was filling up stadiums — and for football games,” said Anthea Butler, a religion professor, social commentator and outspoken football fan.
Faith in public life
The group’s prominence sparked a national debate about the role of faith in public life and the evolving relationship between men and women, especially in religious communities. During Promise Keepers gatherings, McCartney preached a mix of traditional Christian gender roles, known as complementarianism — with men as the spiritual leaders of their homes and societies — and a softer, kinder approach to masculinity, where men did the dishes, listened to their wives and were known for kindness rather than toughness.
“A real man, a man’s man, is a Godly man,” McCartney said in a 1995 press conference before a packed-out event in Washington, D.C., The Washington Post reported. “A real man is a man of substance, a man that’s vulnerable, a man who loves his wife, a man that has a passion for God, and is willing to lay down his life for him.”
Butler said McCartney’s message resonated with both evangelical men and women — as it portrayed what the movement hoped to be at its best — but often clashed with the broader culture, especially with those who saw the group’s message as an attack on women’s rights.
“The Promise Keepers speak about taking back America for Christ, but they also mean to take back the rights of women,” Patricia Ireland, then president of the National Organization for Women, told The Washington Post in 1997, when Promise Keepers was at the height of its popularity. “Their call for submission of women is one that doesn’t have a place in either the pulpit or the public sphere in the 1990s.”
Promise Keepers was also known for opposing pro-LGBTQ+ causes, which also made McCartney controversial. But the movement also stirred dissension in Christian circles for focusing on racial reconciliation, often in blunt terms.
“Racism is an insidious monster,” McCartney said in a 1996 rally for clergy in Atlanta, in announcing Promise Keepers’ move to focus on issues of race. “You can’t say you love God and not love your brother.” He preached a similar message the following year before the rally in Washington, linking religious revival in the country with racial reconciliation.
“The church has been divided, and a house divided cannot stand,” he said, according to Religion News Service reporting at the time.
To read full story, click here.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Bob Smietana and originally published by Religion News Service.
