Promise Keepers was founded in 1990 by Bill McCartney, then the head football coach at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Promise Keepers' most notable event was its Stand in the Gap: A Sacred Assembly of Men open-air gathering at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on October 4, 1997.

Rally attendance and finances continued to suffer and a planned millennial march to take part at the capital of every state was cancelled.

[5] McCartney resigned as president on October 1, 2003, after a personal leave of absence to take care of his ailing wife, who had a severe respiratory illness.

[8] Under Harrison's leadership, Promise Keepers then began a "relaunch" campaign with a new approach focused on having one stadium event per year and following up with Bible studies and other resources.

Raymond Hartwig, a former president of the South Dakota District of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, commented: "They use the Bible in a very simplistic form, as a springboard to jump into the law.

"[13] Critics call the Promise Keepers approach to homosexuality "simplistic, sexist, homophobic and patriarchal," and "based on exclusion," and that within the views of the organization, "there's no place for gays and lesbians.

[19] A 2002 article from the Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research argued that, despite their initial appearance to be pro-feminist, the Promise Keepers build upon patriarchal assumptions, including having the man as the actor in the family, church, and world, and that they expect women to be passively dependent.

John Bartkowski saw Promise Keepers' leadership in 2000 as evoking two types of manhood: first, is an essentialist appeal to gender difference advocated by Edwin Louis Cole that emphasizes aggression, strength, and rationality; second, is Gary Oliver's "expressive manhood", which says that all of the traits now traditionally attributed to women were practiced by Jesus, and that men should re-connect with their sensitive side.

[21] According to a 1999 Yeshiva University study, when it comes to fatherhood, the organization tends to be more conservative, supporting heterosexist, male predominance in the family.