One million New Testaments were en route to the National Mall on Thursday as the men’s movement Promise Keepers and city officials prepare for what is expected to be one of the largest religious gatherings in the nation’s history.
The shrink-wrapped pallets of paperbacks, donated by a New York publishing company, will join a dozen JumboTron video screens, 20 “prayer teepees” and miles of speaker cable on the National Mall, where Saturday’s evangelical Christian prayer assembly will be held.
The six-hour event, titled “Stand in the Gap,” is the climax of seven years of explosive growth for Promise Keepers, which has been hailed by some as the leading edge of a national religious revival, while others criticize it as a front for male chauvinism or conservative politics.
Undaunted by the critics, men began to arrive Thursday by car, bus, train and plane from around the country.
Area hotels are near capacity. Several streets are being closed to traffic while shuttle buses bring attendees in from parking lots around the city and nearby stadiums.
The Metro subway system also is adding extra trains.
Along with their primary audience of American men, Promise Keepers officials expect religious leaders from 57 foreign countries to gather around the assembly’s rock-concert-size stage, erected in the shadow of the Capitol.
In contrast to the organization’s trademark stadium events, organizers say the growing crowd also includes sizable representation from a group they never sought to attract–women.
“An amazing number of women are here, and children too,” said Randy Phillips, Promise Keepers president. “Women are participating in praying and volunteering and great shopping sprees.”
The one thing Promise Keepers officials are refusing to discuss, before or after Saturday’s gathering, is a crowd estimate.
Alluding to the bitter controversy that grew out of the widely varying crowd estimates of 1995’s Million Man March, officials warned that any numbers attributed to their assembly would have to come from other sources.
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Zachary Smith, spokesman for the city’s office of emergency preparedness, said Thursday that the estimates of 500,000 people his office had given earlier in the week were conservative.
He added that he expects “one of the largest crowds” ever on the Mall, which held 1 million people for the Bicentennial fireworks in 1976 and 1.2 million for President Lyndon Johnson’s inauguration in 1965.
In addition to park police officers and many of the city’s 3,600 police officers, Promise Keepers told officials they would bring 500 unarmed “marshals” of their own, including many off-duty police officers.
None of the officials expressed concern about security.
Food, however, may be another matter.
Promise Keepers, which has vowed not to sell any merchandise at the free event, originally planned to concentrate on spiritual hunger and leave growling stomachs to private vendors.
But even after the city issued more vendor licenses than it had for the Million Man March, officials were worried that the assembled hot-dog carts might not be enough to feed the crowd.
At officials’ request, Promise Keepers has scrambled to make 300,000 box lunches available.
The event, which begins at noon Saturday, will bring 44 preachers and evangelists to the podium before it adjourns at 6 p.m.
Phillips said that unlike the stadium events, “Stand in the Gap” will not feature lengthy speeches. Instead, he said, the focus will be prayer.
Meanwhile, several groups, including the National Organization for Women, plan rallies of their own just off the Mall, in opposition to Promise Keepers.
Promise Keepers leaders insist that the complaints of detractors, and even the growing buzz about the size of their own group, are nothing more than a sideshow.
“We could have a billion men here and it wouldn’t thrill me,” Phillips said. “But will we have a profound effect on men . . . in the weeks and months to come? That I could celebrate for the rest of my life.”