Numen Old Men

Since the early 1990s there have been various movements designed to encourage 'masculine spirituality'. All these movements share a concern that spirituality has become too feminine and that men's experiences of the spiritual are being marginalized. The task of masculine spirituality is to promote 'authentic' masculine characteristics within a spiritual context. <em>Numen Old Men</em> examines these characteristics to argue that masculine spirituality is thinly veiled patriarchy. The mythopoetic evangelical and Catholic men's movements are shown to promote a hetero-patriarchal spirituality by appealing to either combative and oppressive neo-Jungian archetypes or biblical models of man as the leader of the family. <em>Numen Old Men</em> examines spiritualities that aim to honour and transcend both the masculine and feminine and offers gay spirituality as an example of masculine spirituality that resists patriarchy.