As many of you know, I’m an intern with RUF at Virginia Tech. (For more info about RUF, check out this website: www.ruf.org. And for my experience with RUF, click the link to the right.) I’ve gotten to meet with many students from many different backgrounds, and have truly enjoyed hearing their stories, their hopes for college, and in some cases, their struggles. In one conversation with a student, the book Wild at Heart came up in conversation, as he’s been reading it recently. He made the comment that it really has helped him think about God and what it means that we’re made in his image. I hadn’t read the book for myself, but have heard various reviews of it, so wanted to form an opinion of my own about it.
“Read it with a grain of salt.” That’s what I’ve been told about many books (including this one), and what I’ve told many people to do in recommending a book. But with this book, I’d recommend at least seven grains of salt. Now, before you think I’m just going to rip it apart, let me say that Eldredge does offer some good observations about men in our culture. There is a shortage of real men. Many people have been hurt by their fathers. But just because he identifies the problem correctly doesn’t mean that he gets the remedy right. With that said (and realizing that I’m a little behind the times with this book), here are the grains of salt I’d recommend keeping in mind if you’re going to read this book or are talking with someone that is gushing about the book. (And for the record, if you’re the student I’m reading through this with this semester, stop reading.)
1. Eldredge has a low view of scripture overall, and frequently misuses scripture or takes verses out of context.
Before Chapter 1 even starts, Eldredge offers a verse that is supposed to beg the question of what it is that makes men tick.
“The heart of a man is like deep water… -Proverbs 20:5″
The only problem here, is that this is only part of the verse. The whole verse (from the ESV) is:
“The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.”
Do you see the difference? Eldredge’s rendering makes “the heart of a man” the subject of the modifier “like deep water.” But the Bible is clear that “like deep water” describes “the purpose in a man’s heart.” We’ll get to this later, but our hearts are not that hard to understand.
Even more, Eldredge frequently misinterprets scripture. For example, in the chapter about men needing “a beauty to rescue” (see number 7), the book of Ruth is said to be about Ruth using her seductive prowess to entice and encourage Boaz to do the right thing, marrying her and being her kinsman-redeemer. I did some research, including reading various commentaries and reading some summaries of the book of Ruth, and it appears that Eldredge is the first and only author to cast the book of Ruth in this light. Overwhelmingly, commentators point to the book of Ruth as an example of how God provides for His people. Even “in the days when the judges ruled” (a time marked by everyone doing what was right in their own eyes), when “there was a famine in the land” (including Bethlehem, literally, house of bread), when even Jews went “to sojourn in the country of Moab” (the land outside the promised land, a traditional enemy of Israel), God still provides for His people. (All of these problems are mentioned in verse 1 of Ruth.)
Finally, Eldredge’s low view of scripture is evidenced by the fact that he doesn’t actually refer to it that much. Often he’ll site a movie or song for evidence of the points he wants to make, and sometimes he even makes comments about God or our nature without referencing scripture. The fact is, Braveheart, Gladiator, Paul Simon, and Henry V get more face time in this book than Scripture does. I’d give you some references for this problem, but just open the book and see what you come to first.
In my opinion, this is the biggest error of the book. Many, if not all of the following problems, flow from this low view of Scripture.
2. Eldredge evidences a low view of God.
“God is a person who takes immense risks.” (30) “From cover to cover, from beginning to end the cry of God’s heart is “Why won’t you choose Me?” (36) “God has been trying to initiate you for a long time.” (105) “When [Jesus] encounters the guy who lives out in the Gerasenes tombs, tormented by a legion of spirits, the first rebuke by Jesus doesn’t work.” (166)
More than just a low view of God, Eldredge’s conception of God is inconsistent at best. He fights for us, but is helpless to save us unless we let Him. He has a plan, but He’s a risk-taker. This is ridiculous. God is sovereign. As the Westminster Confession puts it, “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.” (III.I) And God isn’t needy, either. He doesn’t sit around brooding, asking “Why won’t you choose me?” If he did, no one would ever be saved. Rather, God acted. He calls sinners to Himself, redeems them by His own blood, and sustains them by His Spirit. In spite of his protests, Eldredge does advocate open theism (32).
3. Eldredge clings unwaveringly to a high view of man.
Without fail, a low view of God results in a high view of man. To be sure, we were created with class. Man was made in the image of God (and I’m using man as male and female here). We were created with the capacity to create, to be holy, to relate to others. Unfortunately, the Fall tainted each of these capacities. We create idols to substitute for God, we pursue our own desires over holiness, and our relationships are, no matter how good, broken. In the Fall, we all “became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.” (WCF, VI.II)
Eldredge lingers on the “created in God’s image” without recognizing the full extent of the Fall. He does mention the Fall, but doesn’t seem to see it as the problem that it is. For example, Adam’s sin seems to be somewhat… noble. After Eve ate the fruit, Eldredge suggests that Adam chose Eve other God. For proof of this, he encourages us to look around at all the “art, poetry, music, drama devoted to the beautiful woman.” (116) Without a doubt, some of the most beautiful poetry has been written for love: “O my luve’s like a red, red rose/ That’s newly sprung in June;” “Wait in thy cushioned chair/ Wi’ thy white bosom bare./ Kisses are sweetest there:/ Leave it for me./ Free from the chilly air/ I will meet thee.” and of course, “Dear heart, how like you this?” But is our capacity to recognize and rightly appreciate true beauty not also tainted by the Fall? Are we to also look to the billions spent (and made) each year on pornography and assume that there is something good there? The billions spent on war and assume that this is always right? Our longing for something does not mean that it is worthy of worship.
The fallacy here comes from Eldredge’s repeated insistence that the heart is good (134, among others). For some reason, this good heart is the one that God gave us but we somehow lost and need to reclaim. Or it is our true heart that we need to reclaim so that God can regenerate us… I’m not really sure. (There’s a lot of inconsistency in this book.)
Yes, believers have been given a new heart, a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone, but it is not perfect. What’s more, Eldredge never once mentions the necessity of Christ’s death to provide us with this new heart, nor the fact that we must confess our sin and repent to be able to claim Christ’s righteousness as our own. In fact, it seems that the first step in our “journey,” according to Eldredge, is admitting that we’ve been wounded by others (apparently for every guy it’s a wound inflicted by his father: I can’t identify with this), not that we have and continue to sin against God and man.
For further evidence that our heart is not good, read the Bible. I’m not kidding. Genesis 5 (and he died… and he died… ), Judges (everyone did what was right in his own eyes), Psalms (surely I was sinful at birth 51:5), Jeremiah (the heart is deceitful above all things 17:9), Matthew (out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder…etc 15:19), Romans (I do not do the good I want.. ch 7), etc.
4. Eldredge displays a low view of the church.
Positive side of the argument: whenever Eldredge does mention the church, it is to rag on it for emasculating men, exhausting women, and being bastions of “nice people.”
Negative side of the argument: whenever Eldredge talks about seeking God, he suggests heading to the wilderness. (For this, he offers the example of Jesus, who was led into the wilderness by the Spirit of God. True, but Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, not to find God.)
God promises to be with His people, active in and zealous for His church. Why would we not seek Him where He promises to be? (For more about the importance of the church, read The Enduring Community by Brian Habig and Les Newsom or Why We Love the Church by Ted Kluck and Kevin DeYoung.)
5. Eldredge constantly references extra revelation other than scripture.
Movies, poems, songs, dreams, and voices (I’m not being petty here, he actually claims to hear voices). Rather than providing pictures of truth or analogy for how God deals with his people, Eldredge says flat out that God speaks to him through these things. “God’s word to me comes in many ways–through sunsets and friends and films and music and wilderness and books. But he’s got an especially humorous thing going with me and books. I’ll be browsing through a secondhand book shop when out of a thousand volumes one will say, “Pick me up” – just like Augustine in his Confessions. Tolle legge–take up and read. (200) First of all, Augustine heard children singing, and the book he took up and read was The Bible (Augustine’s Confessions, Book 8, Chapter XII). Second, there appears to be no effort made by Eldredge to test these spirits (I John 4). In fact, the only litmus test to discern whether these voices/dreams/messages are from God or Satan seems to boil down to this: if it sounds good, it’s from God. If not, it’s of Satan.
6. Eldredge evidences a works-righteousness view of salvation.
As I mentioned before, there is no mention in the book about repentance of sins and relying on Christ for our righteousness. In addition, much of this book is about what we must do, whether to reclaim our heart, approach God, pursue our “beauty,” etc. Justification by grace alone through faith alone cannot be found in this book.
7. Eldredge posits his personal experiences and self-discovery as the pattern for all men.
This is nowhere more blatant than in the “every man needs a beauty to rescue” sections. I want to scream out, “What about single guys!?” Jesus certainly comes to rescue the church, but does my lack of a girlfriend or a wife somehow make me 2/3 of a man? (There are three desires/needs in the heart of every man, apparently.) Were Joseph, Daniel, Elijah, John the Baptist, and Paul somehow not real men because they weren’t married? Eldredge claims in the book that we must allow God the freedom to work differently in different people, yet suggests that his experience, struggles, journey, wounds, and… vision quest (okay, now I am poking a little fun) are somehow universal.
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Like I said, read this book with at least seven grains of salt. And a Bible.
