Full of erroneous historical, Biblical, and gender assumptions. In fact, Eldridge even criticizes Biblical scholars for never interpreting the Bible the way he does - ha! What a laugh - a sad, sorry laugh. (Not to mention that his writing is atrocious.)

However, if you are a) a man looking for Christian validation for modeling your life after William Wallace but who will never actually interact with women or b) a jaded scholar of history, religion, literature, film, or gender studies looking for amusement, go ahead and read it, I guess.

Not recommended! Just wishing there was a zero star option!

This book gave me a different perspective of men and women. Although I've been single for awhile now, I already had in mind what kind of man I wanted in the future and made me think that I can always find someone better than the person in front of me. This book allowed me to focus what I wanted in a man in a way that was refreshing and much more focused on his natural abilities of being "wild at heart."
In the same way that men were created to be adventurous and seekers of challenges, Eldredge points out that women were created to be beauties and shines when she is being admired and loved for her beauty. He wasn't talking about just an outwardly beauty but beauty that shines from inside out. Just enjoy being the creation you're meant to be. It is the most beautiful and most satisfying state of being one can ever be.
Eldredge narrows such a broad topic of the difference between men and women to the most fundamentally understandable ways.

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.

I have a handful of friends who are strong believers in the message delivered in this book by John Eldredge. Its ideas are, in a sense, very appealing to (Christian, American) male sensibilities. Eldredge makes the case that much of the reason why men are discontent, bored, uninspired, un-alive, and lukewarm (particularly as Christians) is because they are out of touch with the wild, adventurous, and manly instincts instilled in them by the creator. Modern society and the expectations of work and family have domesticated the Man and made him a weak, docile, bored shell of what God intends him to be. In order to be fully alive and to renew his passion for God, he must transform his attitude about life and seek, in Eldredge's memorable phrase, "adventure, battle, and a beauty" in accordance with God's plan for his leading creation.

The message is particularly appealing to certain types of men. It appeals to younger high-school and college aged guys who are in the process of discovering themselves, forging their own faiths, and establishing their own identities. It appeals to middle-aged men who are either bored of domestic routines or approaching their midlife crises. Perhaps a few feel after reading this book that their faith harmonizes for the first time with their instincts and natural passions instead of existing as an abstract thing done out of guilt or obligation on Sunday mornings. In all cases, it is probably fair to say that Wild at Heart appeals because here, in a simple prescriptive book aimed at advancing the Kingdom of God, is a new way to worship the Creator. No longer does "passion" for Christ have to mean singing dry hymns or waving your hands in the air during church. Eldredge seems to offer a way -- and a justification -- for worshipping God in the Cathedral of Nature, unhindered by "religion" and rather animated by Saint Irenaeus's famous dictum: "The glory of God is man fully alive."

I have so far made the message sound fairly good in a summary that I hope is representative of the book. The problem is that Eldredge's few good insights are twisted into a simplistic, blinkered prescription that carries with it a lot of intellectual baggage and theological misapprehensions of which Eldredge seems to be unaware.

His chief error is to conflate the act of being "fully alive" with a narrow, misguided, and unbiblical view of what it means to be a man. For Eldredge and his narrow interpretation of masculinity, a man can only be fully alive if he is "wild at heart," living in the way he was created. This is both unbiblical and illogical, as I explain in more detail later on. But there is an additional unbiblical twist that derives clearly from a middle-class 21st century life: Eldredge thinks that being "wild" means, in effect, going out into the wilds and doing outdoorsy things. The few concessionary statements he makes to gloss over the idea that a passionate faith and a passionate life can derive from other pursuits are buried under a morass of William Wallace metaphors, stories about camping, and tales of adventurous hardihood that would please the most vocal proponent of the Boy Scouts. Indeed, the take-aways people have gleaned from his book and the many camps it has spawned have almost made the Wild-At-Heart enthusiast into a parody -- beard-growing, flannel shirts, rock climbing, backpacking, backwoods exploration, camping, hunting, mountaineering, working with one's hands (eminently more "manly" than office work as a professional), and any other "dangerous" or "wild" pursuit by which men can show themselves -- and above all their approving comrades -- just how "wild" and "alive" they have become.

I'm not trying to insult any of these things. They're all good for their own sake, and most participants of adventure sports aren't trying to be inauthentic when they hike a fourteener, or go careening down a trail at Mach-5-with-their-hair-on-fire on their brand new Trek bike. I do most of these things myself and I enjoy them very much. Rather, what I question is the idea, put forward in Wild At Heart, that doing such manly, wild, adventurous things are necessary in order to imitate the character of God -- a proposition that runs like a golden thread through the entirety of Eldredge's book.

Eldredge arrives at this perspective by a peculiar twist of logic. In order to be spiritually alive, a man must be emotionally alive. In order to be emotionally alive, a man must do wild and adventurous things -- the kind of things that appeal to machismo outdoorsy types -- in order to fire his primitive instincts and fulfill his true created purpose as a "warrior" made in the image of God. Never mind, of course, that not all men are made "alive" by doing masculine things, much less outdoorsy things, which the Coloradoan Eldredge sees as a litmus test for all things masculine.

Eldredge's message, in short, has been taken way too far. Somewhere on the internet I read an interview with Eldredge in which he responded, when questioned, that promoting such ideas is valid and worthwhile if it is bringing more young men to Christ. On the contrary, it is highly questionable that this book is bringing many to Christ; and for those who already believe (indeed everybody who subscribes to the book's message), it is promoting a set of debilitating and almost dangerous ideas about how a Christian man ought to act and live. That is to say, Eldredge's message is giving Christian men a false idea of what it means to be passionate and "on fire" for God. It is misleading men by encouraging them to model themselves after a "warrior God" whose "wild" character is unsupported, even contradicted, by scripture. By criticizing the modern, domesticated, settled life, Eldredge is helping to create more unsettled, maladjusted, restless men who see it as their manly right to seek an adrenaline rush when they get bored by work or family life. The book legitimizes old-fashioned, un-Christian, and oppressive ways of viewing a man's role and purpose in life. And it is doing it all of these things in the name of a "god" whose alleged character as a "warrior" is completely unsupported by the canon of Christian scripture. If Eldredge thinks the Old Testament accounts of God leading the Israelites to victory over their enemies is evidence of a "warrior" God, then he clearly never paid attention when learning the theology of the New Covenant and its departure from the Old Covenant, a pillar upon which the Christian faith is based.

Even worse, in his attempt to persuade men that their chief calling is to be "wild at heart," he depicts women, not as created believers in their own right, but as passive companions in a journey that is really all about the man. Tales are told and examples are given of women who stymie their man's "wild" nature, to the detriment of both, with the message clearly being that women ought to be passive supporters of whatever makes their men feel happy and alive. In Eldredge's interpretation, gender is defined in simple, discrete, definable categories. Men are *this* way, Eldredge suggests (invariably masculine in the William Wallace way). Women are *that* way (invariably passive and subservient, like a mythological princess). On the basis of his simple-minded and reductionist understanding of gender characteristics, he then proceeds to prescribe how exactly men and women can become fully alive as Christians, which obviously only works for people who already fit his mold for how men and women ought to be. His insistence that being "wild at heart" entails pursuing a beauty makes no concession to men who feel called to become a priest or otherwise to lead a life of singleness. By suggesting linking the two and by insisting that they are essential to man's created nature and therefore his spiritual vitality, he is essentially delegitimizing or at least denigrating the faith journeys of anyone who remains single, whether by choice or not. These are issues that must enter the mind of every insecure teenage guy who reads Eldredge's book, and yet Eldredge writes as if *everyone* should look and act like a William Wallace in their conquest of some unsuspecting beauty. His wife's book, Captivated, is little more than supporting documentation of the idea that women will get everything they need, all their deepest yearnings, if only they are "captivated" by their warrior man and give his "wild" yearnings free reign. This may work for their marriage and some others, but it is a despicably small-minded view that perverts the scriptures and simplifies the complexity of gender relations.

Moreover, what does this say about the Beauty herself? Does she have no purpose in life but to sit around waiting for her Prince Charming? What if she happens to have aspirations of her own and she doesn't want to be *just* her husband's plaything for those times between his many adventures? Is God's creation of Woman really supposed to be submissive and elusive, passively awaiting her suitor to rescue her from singleness? Is her role in life merely to be an outlet for, and object of, her husband's masculine exploits? This sounds like a script for a Disney fairytale, but not for a serious Christian treatise.

When Eldredge combines his outdated ideas of gender with his overemphasis on "manly" outdoor adventurism, he ends up promoting ideas that carry a lot of moral and intellectual baggage. Most readers of Wild At Heart might be a little surprised to discover that the broad outlines of Eldredge's ideas were stated long ago. Eldredge's view that men should be "warriors" in the image of God draws heavily upon the doctrine of "muscular Christianity," the idea that proper manhood involved physical as well as moral vitality. The idea has a few innocuous expressions in the YMCA and other sports-related pursuits, but it appealed primarily because it granted a moral and theological license to the use of violence to spread Christianity to the "savage" peoples of the world. One writer praised the Englishman in 1901, at the height of the British Empire, for "going through the world with rifle in one hand and Bible in the other," adding that "if asked what our muscular Christianity has done, we point to the British Empire." Muscular Christianity, and the masculine ideals it promoted, were upheld as the surest means of conquering and evangelizing the world (which were often seen as one and the same thing!). Only in hindsight can we see clearly that Empire was a source, not of Christianization and civilization, but of brutality and exploitation that violated the scriptures and tarnished the gospel message everywhere. Muscular Christianity actually finds its most enduring legacy in the Boy Scout Movement, which was the brainchild of Robert Baden-Powell, a committed imperialist and arch racist who wanted to make British boys more adapted to the conditions they might encounter while conquering new African colonies. The United States showed equivalent moral platitudes about "muscular Christianity" when it sought to raise up soldiers and settlers who could first conquer and subdue the "savage" Native American tribes in the West, and then settle the land and make it a fount of American civilization.

The theology of "muscular Christianity" was itself highly dubious from a scriptural point of view, but it fit the prejudices of the age, when people (including Christians) sincerely thought that Europeans were racially superior, and that masculine toughness was a reflection of superiority and the source of future national (or imperial) greatness. These social and political ideas of the imperial age were combined with theology by those who believed that Christianity is best spread and defended by masculine "warriors" equipped to prevail in a Darwinian struggle against competitors on the world stage, particularly in a military struggle, which has always been regarded as the ultimate expression of masculine virility. (It is no coincidence that Eldredge's chosen heroes, repeatedly analogized through Wild At Heart, are violent Hollywood warriors like Braveheart and Gladiator.) A set of beliefs and theological principles created to legitimize and rationalize empire-building (and all the cruelties that attended to it) is not exactly a good foundation for a book aimed at hapless readers in the 21st century.

These ideas might be dismissed or overlooked easily enough as the product of a bygone age were it not for Eldredge's insistence that they represent the very character of God himself. Eldredge has apparently cherry-picked the Old Testament for passages that support his view of a Warrior God, who since he created man in his image must have wanted a bunch of Warrior Followers as well. But didn't Christ admonish Christians to turn the other cheek? That love, hope, and peace are the greatest commandments? That only him with no sin can throw the first stone? That the laws of the Old Testament were fulfilled and made new? And that henceforth the Kingdom of God does not have to *physically* fight battles against Egyptians and Hittites and enemy tribes because it is, on account of Christ, open to anyone who believes in Him? Ironically Eldredge's best example of a "violent" and "wild" Christ is when He overturned the Pharisees' tables for defiling the temple. Judged by that standard, Christ might be inclined to torch the pages of Wild at Heart.

Another prominent theme in the book is the notion that the conditions of the modern world have sapped the life from people and cut them off from the invigorating beauty and pleasures of God's natural creation. In Eldredge's story, such ideas are used in his criticism of the tedious, mundane, unexciting lives that the majority of men on the planet must endure, the unfortunate routines that cause men to lose their spark of life. By being "wild" and "fully alive," he suggests, we can overcome these impediments to our spiritual and emotional vitality. The idea is good so far as it goes. But it is important to remember that Eldredge's notion of how to overcome the pitfalls of modern life derive from modern ideas and modern solutions, particularly from the Romantic Movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, which emerged as a reaction against the ideas of the Enlightenment and the scientific rationalization of nature that occurred during the Industrial Revolution.

Why does this criticism matter? What does it really mean? It means that Eldredge's objections to the mundane, domestic, un-alive realities of modern life -- such a big part of why his story appeals -- have nothing to do with the character of God or the message of Christ. The boring and uninspiring life that most men lead are the result of modern problems and modern socio-economic conditions. Their solutions, discussed since the Romantic Movement, are likewise the product of a particular time and place, and have nothing to do with scriptural admonitions of how Christians ought to live. In other words, it is shaky logic indeed to use 19th-century ideas as an answer to 21st century problems and then to ascribe them to a body of scripture that was written 1,900 years beforehand in a completely different historical context. The point is not that Christian scripture is irrelevant in the 21st century, but rather that Eldgrede is *suggesting* that scripture is irrelevant by seeking answers from an intellectual source *outside* the scripture -- and then describing these modern-day answers as fundamental to the "character of God."

A similar objection can be made to the kinds of activities he prescribes for "wild" living. Why all the talk of outdoorsy, Colorado-esque, machismo, lumberjack type stuff? If the whole point is to make men fully alive in order to renew their passion for Christ, then why not cast the net wider to embrace the millions of Christian men who come "alive" in different ways? Eldredge's myopic view of masculinity gives him a narrow view of what makes men come alive. And because of his narrow view of what makes men come alive, his book is extremely disingenuous to any young man whose personality and disposition lead him to prefer, say, books over campfires, piano keys over pocket knives, and painting over hiking. Eldredge is basically suggesting that such "soft" young men can never be fully alive, can never even imitate the character of God, unless they act like a Maximus or Braveheart, or cut a figure like Paul Bunyan. That is absurd and un-Christian.

To sum up my objections with Wild at Heart, Eldredge puts entirely too much stock in an out-dated, theologically naive, almost dangerous idea of a Warrior God, who is supposed to be the model to which all men aspire. So why is this book so popular? Why are people so attracted to the image of the Wild Man? While do people feel compelled to defend Eldredge's message as somehow more "Christian" than the reservations I have registered here? It is probably not very much of a stretch to say that this book is "successful" because it is telling Christians what they want to hear. It appeals, in the first place, to individuals who happen to fit the rather narrow gender or personality roles that Eldredge's prescribes for all Christians. The message gives license to fathers who tired of their work, bored with their home life, and regretful about the opportunities they missed as young men -- to men, in short, who are approaching their mid-life crisis. It gives license to sons to bend (or break) the rules, or to do the dangerous things their parents forbid, all in the name of a "spiritual" treatise that claims such behavior is necessary to be "wild at heart" and to live in the image of God. The book provides (however dubiously) a theological rationale for reasserting the manly prerogative. It reasserts the old ideals of what it means to be male or female. It depicts women as a submissive and passive creature whose greatest purpose in life is to fulfill Eldredge's 19th-century conception of how gender roles should work. Above all, it glorifies the image of Man as a dominant, aggressive, wild, untamed hero-like figure -- a William Wallace or a Gladiator, but nothing like our Christ.

"Wild man." "Warrior." These are terms that now, because of this book, make me cringe.

This book and "Waking the Dead" were powerful influencing factors in my 17 year-old psyche, but now I'm not so sure I agree with the general feel of his book. For me and many of my guy friends this book was important in letting us accept our manhood and face the deep questions and wounds of our masculinity. I like that it got us to the table to discuss and wrestle through a topic that is usually hidden. I don't believe that this book appeals to all guys like it did to us already adventuresome "manly men". You don't have to be into rock climbing or mountaineering to be a man, but I think Eldredge would agree. I have heard him criticized for making it seem like real men have to be outdoorsmen and do crazy stuff. He makes no such claims and I think the reason people have a problem with it is that they could be supersensitive to the topic. I like the strong central theme and unapologetic writing. It's very true and important that this society needs men who will face challenges and not back down, get bored, or leave those they should stay and love.

It's crap. Granted I can agree that most people should step away from the computer screen, their smartphones, tablets, and ordinary lives and enjoy the nature of God's natural world. Other than that it's pretty damn sexist and contradictory to the Jesus' teachings of loving one another and aiding those in need of help.

I hate this book so much.

If you can look past the Protestant commentaries and inaccurate science, you can get a lot out of this book. I know I certainly have.

A lobotomy would hurt less than reading this drivel and would be over faster, too

1.5 stars

Ok, here it is: don’t read this book.

It’s just … not worth it. For one, Eldridge has a writing style that tends to wander and ramble with every whim that comes to his mind resulting in a text that is just painful to read (especially when you’re trying to figure out what the heck point he’s actually making, like I was). For another, the good parts are buried in Chapter 7, by which point the reasonable among us have either stopped reading or have so bought into the ‘be a man, be adventurous, go outside’ reduction of Eldridge’s point that we completely miss these good parts.

If you pick up a copy of this book, it’s because someone told you it’s about manhood (or worse, they told you it was about biblical manhood - it’s not). So it’s unfortunate that the introduction and first chapter paint a picture of what’s wrong with manhood in our world that is speculative at best and deluded at worst. In Eldridge’s mind, it’s three things: men lack a battle to fight, and adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.

But, before I get carried away, perhaps the biggest mistake I could make in a review is to convince you this book is trash from front to back. Because it’s not, to be fair. So, in an effort to not throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater, allow me to first defend these good parts.

* The Baby *

The progression of this book is essentially this: men have a problem -> the problem is a “wound” received when our father made us feel unmanly -> the solution is a relationship with Christ -> we can now go do what we were made for (namely, fight the battle, live the adventure, rescue the beauty).

And Eldridge is exactly right that Jesus is the One that heals our wounds. Absolutely. No issues here. As I mentioned earlier, when Eldridge is firing on all cylinders with this ‘Jesus heals your wound’ thing, I was right there with him, even found some good nuggets to underline and think about.

And let’s be clear, we do have a battle to fight. Sin is prevalent in our world, no arguments there. As long as that’s the battle in question, Eldridge does a decent job exploring what it looks like to do that. And life with God is in adventure! He has some practical advice to give, and there’s a lot there to find.

* The Bathwater *

Uggghhhh, ok here we go:

The problem is sin. It’s bigger than one wound of insecurity to a masculine identity. Also, like, we probably have tons of wounds, and our fathers don’t have a monopoly on the wound-giving. Eldridge completely whiffs on that point.

We were made for so much more than fighting a battle with sin and rescuing the beauty (to say nothing of the fact that Jesus was not married). Any effort to frame manhood around our need to “rescue the beauty” is reductive at best.

Eldridge is so so liberal with the text, even going out of his way to say that we over-use the “turn your other cheek” verse so much so that it’s worth entirely disregarding. Like … big yikes!! Actually, gunna bother me if I don’t drive that point home: Eldridge tells his son to learn to punch bullies back (“be a man, stand up for yourself”), and completely misses the fact that Jesus was trying to tell us about fighting injustice by emphasizing the injustice. Ah, but I digress.

For a book claiming to be a biblical perspective on manhood, there’s way to much wisdom from other places. For example, William Wallace (who Eldridge ~loves~) is like the masculine ideal here. But was he a Christian? I don’t know, doesn’t matter apparently, because he was a man’s man and lived adventurously and freedom and face paint and the whole thing. You couldn’t go three pages in this book without Eldridge falling back on “like in this movie where …” or “on a hike the other day I … ”. Bleh! Use some scripture, my guy!!

Perhaps my biggest pet peeve: Eldridge loves to kinda just make stuff up. “Most men in the church believe God put them on the earth to be a good boy” … uh, says who? Not at my church, for sure, maybe in yours? Either way, he just over-generalizes based on his own experience. Give me a survey or something, golly! Oh, and these three pillars of manhood he defines (battle to fight, adventure to live, beauty to rescue)? Yep, also made up! These things, supposedly so core to manhood that they merit a whole book, don’t have any solid backing besides “pages of literature”, films men love”, or “what men do with their free time”. So then my question is if Hollywood can point to it and say “that is masculinity”, how could the church ever sign off in agreement?

*Deep Breath*

I think I’m most frustrated because Eldridge makes this whole thing out like men are on earth to fight sin, to go outside, and to rescue their wives. And some of those are good/helpful, but our calling is much bigger. Love God. Love your neighbor. Make disciples. Fight injustice. Be quick to listen and slow to anger. God wants us (men and women) to partner with Him in bringing His Kingdom to bear. And if you’re so obsessed with being a man (whatever that means), then I’m worried you’ve missed the point. There’s just way too much noise in this book that crowds out the good stuff - I would be worried to give this to any brother who might walk away thinking that this is all there is.

I believe there are some truthful, biblical teachings in this book. But they are coincidental and complementary, and do not contribute to the author's main points on the best masculine life: an adventure to live, a battle to fight, a beauty to rescue.
It is very possible to glean some truth here and there. But if the reader pays attention to everything being said, it is unscriptural, and ultimately not a true teaching that every male can or should apply. I did personally resonate with most of the author's "lifestyle" ideals, and I did feel that they might be true for me. But this certainly does not make them biblical prescriptions, which is precisely what Eldredge is claiming.
Eldredge begins his arguments with a limited understanding of how most men feel. This, in turn, is backed up by hand-picked passages from the Bible; that is not good hermeneutics.