Wild at Heart

by John Eldredge

I have to confess to reading this book with quite a scepticism from the outset. A friend of mine gave it to me and shared enthusiastically about what he had taken from it and was thinking since reading it. Not comfortable with the discussion we had I set out reading wanting to confirm my doubts and find points of critique to that back to my friend.

Eldredge is American and it shows. I mean no offence to Americans but I’m afraid that there is something about the way Americans generally seem to approach things and communicate that just doesn’t help us Brits! On that basis, I have to admit that I’m sure this book would go down very well State-side and I understand it has.

Eldredge is a counsellor and it shows. There’s a style and approach counsellors seem to have and it doesn’t always help me to hear them. The ‘About the Author’ section says that the organisation Eldredge is director of is ‘devoted to helping people recover and live from their deep heart’. What does that mean?! I must add here that counselling is a very important and valuable thing that can be wholly beneficial.

So what’s the book about? Well, Eldredge critiques the picture and model of manhood that is typical in the Christian Church and points to its deficiencies suggesting that it falls way short of what God created in, intended for and for the benefit of women wants from men. Apparently, us men were created to be wild, hence the title. That wildness and its outworking are summarised with three things a man needs:

A battle to fight
A beauty to rescue
An adventure to live

In fairness, I feel an interest and perhaps even a resonance inside reading about these things and it may well be that there is something going on that I need to respond to and deal with so that I can ‘really live’. But here’s where it all loses credibility for me: Pop Psychology.

You might have seen the episode of the Simpsons where Ned Flanders whole world is falling to pieces. He ends up in a room full of psychologists probing him with all kinds of questions. Ned just won’t give and his ‘mask’ won’t slip until finally, after a load of abuse from Homer, he bursts and makes some slightly negative comment about his relationship with his father. “He has issues with his father” everyone exclaims and Ned is released.

Eldredge believes that all men, no matter how good their father was, has a problem, issues, what he describes as a wound or wounds and they stem from a man’s relationship with his father.

What could have been a helpful book – if nothing else, it could at least offer an interesting hypothesis – slips into pop psychology, projects a ‘one theory for all men everywhere’ ‘issues with you father’ line and loses credibility. It may be a consistent theme among Eldredge’s counselling clients, but you just cannot project a single theory onto everyone in that way. It’s not a fair, sensible or pastorally wise thing to do.

I think I like Eldredge and even like his book. But I can’t recommend it because I’m concerned that it might be a very unhelpful, even dangerous book for some people to read.