Cruising her religion

Part A In today's Guardian Mary Kenny has some reflections arising out of Madonna's getting of religion. I don't have any interest in Madonna's recent spiritual development, but that's just me. I also don't begrudge Mary Kenny, or anyone else, whatever they get from their religious faith. What I find remarkable in her article, though, is the entirely effortless, unthinking way in which she appropriates to religious belief values that can equally well be secular in their grounding and content. Kenny writes:

You don't expect the unattached Bridget Jones, or the average chick-lit heroine, to be drawn to the spiritual life, but it does happen to a noticeable number of more settled mothers: suddenly, they want to transmit to their children that je ne sais quoi of a worldview with slightly more uplift than the morals and mores of Big Brother.

They want to give their children values. And they quite often feel a stirring of these transcendent values themselves, at about the same time.

Just like that: between the normative world of Big Brother and... religion, an implied empty space; for spiritual life, uplift, values, transcendent values, it's just natural that your 'settled mothers' would want to turn to religious belief. Kenny doesn't even feel the need to pause over the possible alternatives, if only to dismiss them. The variants of secular humanism are nowhere.

Part B Another element in Kenny's article takes off from those mothers being, particularly, women. 'Faith', for her, 'is a feminine thing'; or, again, 'It's a girl thing'.

Kabbalah no doubt answers that human - and specifically feminine - need for spiritual enlightenment...

I have some questions here. First, how does Kenny know that faith is feminine? She doesn't say. But I can think of a few counter-examples: the Pope, Desmond Tutu and a Jehovah's Witness I once made the mistake of inviting through my front door for a chat. I'm compiling a more comprehensive list but won't be able to post it till... I'll have to get back to you on that. Second, if the need for spiritual enlightenment is, as Kenny says it is, human, how is it specifically feminine? I'm not one to quickly take offence, but even allowing for my strong feminine side (I mean I have all those sisters), I'm going, as a male, to object if human just turns out to mean feminine. Give us guys a break, hey.