Wild at Heart, by John Eldredge, is a book aimed at helping men reconnect with the masculine nature which God placed inside them. This book is targeted at men who are feeling stuck in modern society and Christian men feeling bored with their religion. It is an easy read with Eldredge sprinkling in many enjoyable anecdotes pulled from his childhood and time as a father. Eldredge tells of three missions for a man to live life in contentment: a battle to fight, a beauty to rescue, and an adventure to live.
The book opens by discussing the wild and untamed masculine nature God placed in men to reflect His own image. Modern society has deemed the image of God problematic, and consequently has misrepresented it as pathological. The solution to this supposed problem is the feminization of men to curb their nature. Even Christian churches are involved in this suppression of masculinity by feminizing Jesus and God. However, Eldredge shows us that God is fierce and that Jesus was no wimp, contrary to the emasculated caricature presented to us on crucifixes.
Eldredge then dives into male fear of failure and traces it back to a lack of a proper mentorship and subsequent initiation into manhood by a boy’s father. I would say it’s pretty obvious that western society is openly hostile towards boys—be it in educational institutions designed for girls, culture wars waged against them, or pharmaceutical assaults on their bodies and minds—and they not only lack proper guidance on their path to manhood, but are also taught to reject it. Men need to recognize that the battle to fight is one both within and without. The self-defeating internal monologue all men possess, to varying degrees, is the first enemy to fight. The systems built by the collective sin of the world and the temptations of the devil are the external enemies that need to be defeated.
With Eldredge often being quite romantic, I was pleasantly surprised to see him dial it back reasonably well at times when discussing men’s relationship with women. He points out the destruction men face when navigating women without a proper understanding of them. Men have abandoned God for the idols they’ve made of women, but those seeking validation from women to rid them of their own insecurities are searching in the wrong place. It’s a dead end, and it’s a turn off to women. This book doesn’t explore the mind of a woman in much detail, but many Christian White Knights would do themselves a favor by reading this “guide to Eve lite” and save themselves a lot of humiliation. Eldredge understands a man doesn’t go to a woman and beg her to let him into her life, he simply pursues his ambitions and invites her to be his companion on his journey—that she may live vicariously through his successes. A beauty to rescue is something that every man needs, and Eldredge tells men they need to find this beauty in a wife and that the battle for her will be fought and won in everyday challenges. Men need to be willing to struggle for greatness through the difficulties of marriage.
To truly come alive, men are told we need an adventure to live; something that ignites our passion and moves us in such a way we relinquish safety and control for excitement and fulfillment. Eldredge encourages us to pursue the things today that we have been putting off for tomorrow. He goes on to say we need to engage in our spiritual and romantic lives with this same spirit of adventure. There are no formulas for our relationship with God or our wives, and we must be creative in our approach to growing these intimate connections.
Overall, I found the book to be an interesting reflection on manhood from a Christian perspective, though it was lacking in actionable steps for the struggling man to properly transition into manhood. Eldredge has his eyes open to much more than most Christians with regard to the dangers posed to boys by society and women, but he still has enough blind spots to miss some obvious truths. For example, at one point he talks of how much the public school system emasculates boys, yet sends his boys to public school. How about home schooling them rather than sending them through the meat grinder? Regardless of my gripes, this is a good book to give to a young man who has little knowledge about navigating society and women, and certainly a good introduction to a truer representation of Christianity for anyone exploring it. It’s a solid book and I’m grateful John Eldredge shared his vision of the potential for men.
Quotes and Passages From the Book
Man was born from the outback, from the untamed part of creation.
The spiritual life cannot be made suburban. It is always frontier, and we who live in it must accept and even rejoice that it remains untamed.
Howard Macey
Society at large can’t make up its mind about men. Having spent the last thirty years redefining masculinity into something more sensitive, safe, manageable and, well, feminine, it now berates men for not being men. Boys will be boys, they sigh. As though if a man were to truly grow up he would forsake wilderness and wanderlust and settle down, be at home forever in Aunt Polly’s parlor. “Where are all the real men?” is regular fare for talk shows and new books. You asked them to be women, I want to say. The result is a gender confusion never experienced at such a wide level in the history of the world. How can a man know he is one when his highest aim is minding his manner?
What is a Christian man? Don’t listen to what is said, look at what you find there. There is no doubt about it. You’d have to admit a Christian man is . . . bored.
Most of the earth is not safe; but it’s good.
God wants to be loved. He wants to be a priority to someone.
The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.
Albert Schweitzer
He begins to die, that quits his desires.
George Herbert
All men die; few men ever really live.
Braveheart
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight.
Bruce Cockburn
No man, for any considerable period of time, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the truth.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A man does not go to a woman to get his strength; he goes to her to offer it. You do not need the woman for you to become a great man, and as a great man you do not need the woman.
There are no formulas with God.
To simply forgive a broken man is like telling someone running a marathon, “It’s okay that you’ve broken your leg. I won’t hold that against you. Now finish the race.”
Understanding does not equal healing; clarity does not equal restoration.
Enemy-occupied territory—that is what the world is.
C.S. Lewis
You will always encounter three enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil.
The world is a carnival of counterfeits—counterfeit battles, counterfeit adventures, counterfeit beauties. Men should think of it as a corruption of their strength.
The devil no doubt has a place in our theology, but is he a category we even think about in the daily events of our lives?
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. The paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.
G. K. Chesterton
Beauty is not only a terrible thing, it is also a mysterious thing. There God and The Devil strive for mastery, and the battleground is the heart of men.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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