Cultish admiration and worship of a strong leader Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney began making his public career not simply as a religious-right rabble rouser, but as a football coach. At Promise Keepers, McCartney's persona often eclipses other speakers. Not surprisingly, his charged rhetoric is laced with sports metaphors, undoubtedly a holdover from his days as one of the most successful coaches in college football prior to his 1994 decision to resign from the game and proselytize full time. The fact that Promise keepers stages its events in athletic venues like stadiums has evinced surprisingly little curiosity from the media, other than to suggest that the athletic ambiance is a familiar one to many American males. Mass spectacles of any kind alter the psychology and behavior patterns of participants.
Individuals become part of the mass.
Stadium spectacles can suppress any critical faculty in persons who have become anonymous components of a massive group. Albert Speer recognized the compelling potency of mass spectacle in orchestrating the Nuremberg rallies for Hitler and the Nazi Party. The totalistic ideology, however, continues in follow-up environments. Each member must answer any probes concerning his marriage, family, finances, sexuality, or business activity. I don't think a woman would get in my face, go toe to toe with a guy, whereas a guy could tell me, 'I don't like it.