Talk on “Men’s spirituality”

I was recently invited back to one of my previous parishes to give a talk on “men’s spirituality”. I was a bit surprised when they asked me to speak on this question, because I honestly wasn’t sure I was qualified. I mean, I’m a man, and I’m spiritual, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you know anything about men’s spirituality. In fact, I wasn’t 100% sure there even *is* such a thing as “men’s spirituality”. After all, there is only one Heaven, not two. On the other hand, though, there is no question that men and women are different. The question is, does that difference make a difference, when it comes to spirituality?

As I reflected on it, I had to conclude that yes it does. There is always a danger, of course, of making false generalizations, or of trying to universalize what are really cultural conventions regarding gender roles. Still, like I mentioned before, men and woman *are* different, and not just in a cosmetic way. We don’t know if Adam and Eve were tall or short, fat or thin, blonde or brunette or whatever. What we do know is that they were male and female, and they possessed the image of God in them precisely *as* a male and a female.

So rather than just leap into “men’s spirituality” I decided to focus the first part of the evening on the theology of gender difference, and then try and work out how my own theory of socionaturalism fits in that theological framework. It was actually quite fruitful. While I unfortunately forgot to record the talk, I did produce some Powerpoint slides to go with the presentation. Between those and the aforelinked Essay on the Nature of Human Culture any readers should be able to get a good sense of the content of the evening.