Men's dinner? No woman present?

Context:
WASHINGTON, D.C., is full of smart, hard-driving, interesting people. A wide variety of religious faiths are represented, as well as a significant proportion of atheists and agnostics. When I was invited to speak at the
annual men's dinner at a highly regarded Protestant church just outside the District, I gladly accepted. It was an inspiring evening as prominent leaders, teachers, and blue-collar workers collectively let their hair down to talk earnestly about their faith, and to ask penetrating questions about how science and faith can contradict or reinforce each other. For a good hour of
discourse, goodwill filled the room. And then one church member asked the senior pastor whether he believed that the first chapter of Genesis was a literal, step-by-step, day-by-day description of the origins of the earth and of humankind. In an
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