UHG! no no no! This book is bad news. John teaches a man to live according to the wild nature of his flesh, rather than according to the grace and love of the Spirit of God. As if a man can be spiritually free if He's emotionally free and wild? This is not the message of Christ, nor His gospel.

Christ didn't come with an attitude of macho-ism. He came in meekness gentleness and love. He is an all powerful God, and He is not a containable God, but that doesn't make Him wild like the nature of the flesh! This book is down right blasphemous!

I'm kicking myself at this point for not burning the book while I had the chance. Instead I just threw it out.

Do yourself a favor, and do the same.

Apart from the ruthless elimination of hurry, this is my second favorite book I’ve read. Truly a tear-jerker, inspiring, and a guilty pleasure to read…. As it is a book about men for men. I can’t help myself but love it.

First off, ALL CAPS THIS BOOK IS NOT ONLY FOR MEN. Oh my word it is not only for men. Yes, it speaks to the untamed nature of who a man is but whoa, there is so much truth here. Strength is how the Father’s voice speaks, surrender is how we get there, and living with a misunderstood heart in this world (because we are living from the Father) is part of the adventure. From the many men I’ve had the pleasure of asking the question to, most unanimously say that the Father is who they are closest to in the entire Trinity. It really showed me that the Father’s voice is really the most organic voice of what a man hears in his own unique spiritual life, and that is truthfully so beautiful.

haha the only thing I would have to comment about is how Eldredge basically compared Mother Teresa to a noodle — which, if you lived in spiritual desolation for twenty years, founded an entire missionary ministry, strapped yourself alongside gang members and the poorest of the poor on street ministry and are only about 4’5” tall, I’m guessing there’s laughter up in Heaven for saying something like that. She’s probably sitting right beside Jesus at this very moment. Not a noodle.

You won’t feel the same way I do about this book. I’ve heard some friends rave about it, while others criticize its author & contents—and neither person is wrong. It’s just one every man must read for himself to see where he falls, the lessons he learns, or the problems he sees with it.

Eldredge is intense, and that leads to some of the mixed feelings I’ve heard around this book. But I’d rather an author write what we believes, truly believes, to be true, rather than another book that is highly touted without really saying much.

I don’t know if I agree with everything he writes. Some things I won’t understand until I’m a father, or husband, or trapped in the same routine. But the underlying message, to truly honor God through masculinity, is one that resonated and inspired me. It’s an important message for every man, young and old, to discover. I want to live like Christ, being both tender and wild.

P.S. I want to catch, cook, and eat a fish.

Eldredge took Robert Bly's splendid, groundbreaking, ennobling book Iron John: A Book About Men as his inspired point of departure & produced, in Wild at Heart, a Christian treatise on masculinity that is, ultimately, as dangerous & misguided a book as I've ever read. Where Bly understands the need to prevent the masculine longing for wildness (a longing that is vital, life-giving, necessary) from proliferating as aggression, Eldredge subscribes to the view that wildness & aggression are (& must be) inextricably bound together, that the Bible sanctions the latter as the ultimate manifestation of the former. For every sensitive, perceptive observation about manhood & faith Eldredge makes (and there are a few, I grant him that), there seem to be three (one of which would be Eldredge's pointed, dismissive attitude re: Christ's imploring us to turn the other cheek, instead encouraging his son to exchange blows with the bully giving him grief at school) that reveal Eldredge's frightening inclination to twist & snarl Biblical narratives into endorsements of violence. I'd bought the book & had been looking forward to finding it an inspiring fusion of Bly's masculine sensibilities with Christian wisdom, but found, instead, a book that was chilling where I'd expected it to be enlightened; I returned it for a refund after mulling over whether or not to burn it.

While I disagree with almost everything written in this book the premise intrigued me: deep within every man is a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. I actually agree with the premise; the problem is that I see those things so very differently in the pages of scripture. The battle to fight is against sin and the flesh - we must be killing sin lest sin be killing us (John Owen; Gal 5:16-18; Eph 4:20-24; etc.) The adventure to live is the Christian life (Phil1:21; 2 Tim 3:12) - there is real adventure in being counter-cultural in secular society. The beauty to rescue is the church, the bride of Christ (Acts 20:28-30; Matt 25:1-13; 2 Tim 4:1-5) - she is in need of being rescued from pastors and authors practicing "narcigesis" (having your best life now) and proclaiming a prosperity gospel that saves no one. Avoid such books as this.

Eldgrdge has no concern for gender fluidity. I didn't swoop in and save my wife so I'm not a real man. I like camping though, so maybe I'm a guy?
His narrow components to masculinity easily support any man looking for an excuse to join the good ole boys club, any man hoping for a woman to spend all day serving him or any parent who thinks "boys will be boys" is an excuse for sub-par behavior. There are better options out there for the 21st century.

Solid testament to the reality of God’s vision for man! I was impressed by the fact that so much of what Eldredge wrote appeals so directly to my heart and my own experiences. This book helped me to see the reasons for some of my struggles in family relationships and the route to healing.

This is a much-needed message in the midst of a culture that tries to propagate the lie that men and women are fundamentally the same. Equal, yes. The same, no. “God created them male and female.” The true desires of a man’s heart in this life line up nicely with Wild at Heart’s “a battle fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to love.” These are fundamentally different than the desires God has placed inside every woman, and the world needs to understand this reality. While some of his choices of Bible or pop culture references didn’t appeal to me, the themes this book is based on hit deep.

I think Wild at Heart is relevant for any Christian man, but I definitely see the ways where the Catholic Church in particular goes much deeper in appealing to the heart of man… and would encourage any readers who are not finding true masculinity in their Christian church to look into Catholicism. We haven’t lived these ideal perfectly either, but there is far greater depth and encouragement for men in the Catholic Church, for those who seek it.

So thanks to Jordan for inviting our Men’s Fellowship to read Wild at Heart - I’ve grown a lot in my passion for living as a true Son of God while reading it!

This book really helped me to understand who I am as a man in terms of creation. Why do I like to drive motorcycles, why do I love to travel the world where the average person dare not tread. Why at the gym I have the need to lift more weight and drive my heart that much harder? It's because that is how God made me. God has a wild and dangerous aspect to His personality. We can see it in creation itself and it's reflected in every man.

from ChristianBook.com:
Helping men rediscover their masculine heart, Wild at Heart, a guide to understanding Christian manhood and Christian men, offers a refreshing break from the chorus of voices urging men to be more responsible, reliable, dutiful ... and dead. God designed men to be dangerous, says Eldredge. Simply look at the dreams and desires written in every boy's heart: to be a hero, to be a warrior, to live a life of adventure and risk. Sadly, most men abandon those dreams and desires---aided by a Christianity that feels like nothing more than pressure to be a "nice guy." It's no wonder that many men avoid church, and those who go are often passive and bored to death. In this provocative book, Eldredge gives women a look inside the true heart of a man and gives men permission to be what God designed them to be---dangerous, passionate, alive, and free.

Muuuuy buen libro. Una explicación "políticamente incorrecta" de la masculinidad, pero muy real. Termina uno la lectura muy animado por demostrar con hechos la verdadera razón de ser un hombre.

Okay, I would definitely have to agree that if you have a son, if you are married to a man, if you have a brother or a father, or if you have ever had a conversation with a man you should definitely read this book!
It really was just so enlightening to what makes a little boy a little boy and how those things don't really change when that boy grows up. But it's not in a Men are from Mars sort of way (or maybe it is, I actually haven't read that book!). Anyway, I am very glad that I read it. I think that in a way masculinity has been the sacrifice of the feminist movement. Guys just are not allowed to be guys as much now and that is certainly not how I want to raise my son. I want to raise a warrior.

I can honestly say that I find this book trite, over-espoused, and drastically overadored by a great many men and women that I generally like and enjoy spending time with. This doesn't make them dumb, bad, or idiots. It just makes them different than me. This doesn't make me smarter, good, or a non-idiot. It just makes me not a person who fits comfortably into any of the suggested roles that John Eldridge tells us that men secretly long for.
I don't want and never wanted to be a knight, saving fair damsels from horseback and fighting off all the monsters and dragons the dark corners of the world could come up with. I always wanted to be more of a poet, a minstrel, or something equally as corny (in the eyes of Eldridge - from what I can gather according to this smarmy book, anyway). Loving what I do and wanting what I want doesn't make me feminized or effectively spiritually castrated, as John would have me think.
I'm actually really okay being who I am and longing for what I do. It's what our Abba has sewn into me, and I am thankful for it.
The dangers inherent in overgeneralizing the Christian walk and the inner life with Christ can be found in many forms within these pages. I know that it's served as deeply encouraging to many, and challenging to others. I'm not dissing those experiences, and I'm thankful that they've happened for other folks. They just didn't happen in any way at all for me while reading this.
Nada. Nothing.
Nothing except annoyance and frustration, that is, and I'm enough of a philosopher and self-questioner to do plenty of self-examining as to why that was: was I uncomfortable because he was pushing some buttons I'd denied existed? Was he right on about things I was unhappy to admit were real? Etcetera, etcetera?
Nope.
I just didn't like this at all.
The end.