*Editor’s Note: How should Christians view masculinity? As something godly to be cultivated? As something toxic to be suppressed? John Eldredge’s 2001 New York Times bestseller Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul gave millions of young men permission to pursue adventurous, valiant masculinity. At the same time, some within evangelicalism accused the book of dangerous implications, even excusing violence and the viewing of women as commodities. In this article, Jeremy Bacon, author of Sermon on the Mount: 40 Days of Learning the Ways of the Kingdom, weighs in on what Eldredge’s landmark book says well—and what it could say better.
I read Wild at Heart shortly after it came out almost 25 years ago. I hadn’t put much thought into what it means to be a man, so Eldredge’s analysis hit me like a lightning bolt. It resonated. I did see in myself a desire to fight a battle, to live an adventure, and to love a beauty. What stunned me and took the Christian world by storm was his argument that in Christianity these impulses find their deepest fulfillment.
Now that I have sons on the cusp of manhood, I revisited the book (the expanded edition), and a lot has changed. Our old cultural scripts for masculinity and femininity are being revised. Unfortunately, the new script for women is about fifteen years ahead of the one for men. Never has masculinity been more homeless. This disorientation (“Where do we fit? What is our role?”) is causing a backlash as many men cling violently to the most oppressive and alienating features of the old model. Welcome to the age of “toxic masculinity.” Yet the counter-reaction to this backlash comes dangerously close to acting like all masculinity is toxic. You can’t tell half a society that they have no constructive role to play and expect that to end well.
“You can’t tell half a society that they have no constructive role to play and expect that to end well.”
First published in 2001, Wild at Heart was early on the “masculinity” discussion. The primary danger Eldredge saw was the domestication of men: “We need permission. Permission to be what we are—men” (page ix). Ever the storyteller, he repeatedly paints pictures of men who feel they were meant for more—to fight a battle, live an adventure, and love a beauty—and who envy men (real or fictional) who are out there doing those things. Going deeper, Eldredge illustrates that these masculine impulses come directly from our Heavenly Father. They are part of his image which we bear.
Unfortunately, we are all fallen. All men ask, “Do I have what it takes?” And, in some way, life has wounded us all, leading us to internalize the answer, “No.” In response, we create a “false self” that hides from the question either by settling for a “safe” life or by over-compensating in hyper-“masculine” behaviors. Both options are unsustainable. We cannot thrive separated from our hearts. God put the masculine heart inside of us. Only he can affirm who we truly are—thus healing our wound so we can fight the battle, live the adventure, and love the beauty that he intended.
Looking at Wild at Heart through the lens of our current cultural moment, Eldredge clearly does not want to promote a toxic masculinity: “Now, let me make one thing clear: I am not advocating a sort of ‘macho man’ image” (page 25). In fact, he himself objects to “John Wayne” as the masculine archetype (page 109). However, he so emphatically wants to affirm the core masculine impulses that the book drips with stereotypical “man” vibes. It’s hard for a guy to read Wild at Heart without getting the impression that he would be more of a man if he knew how to field dress a bear.
“Looking at Wild at Heart through the lens of our current cultural moment, Eldredge clearly does not want to promote a toxic masculinity.”
I owe John Eldredge a great debt—Wild at Heart impacted me, Walking with God was life-changing, and his “Daily Prayer” has long been a regular fixture in my spiritual life. This is a man who has genuinely walked with God. And yet, parts of Wild at Heart leave me unsettled. I think Eldredge is digging in the right place, but in this book I don’t think he goes deep enough.
He is right that men construct a “false self” in order to avoid facing the wounds of their heart (page 114), and that we need to hear our “true name” from God (pages 5, 91-94, 119), “You must ask God what he thinks of you, and you must stay with the question until you have an answer” (page 121). This is a search for identity (page 23).
The problem is that “man” is a demographic, not an identity. If we make a demographic or category our identity, then our identity is whatever characteristics define that group. Unfortunately, there is no set of outward characteristics that define masculinity—that are universal to all men. One would be forgiven for reading Wild at Heart and concluding that a real man climbs mountains, rides horses, fixes cars, and gargles gasoline. While Eldredge loves the archetypes, he also throws the occasional bone to, say, the artists—citing pianists and composers. Masculinity takes different forms. It has to. Look at all the different cultures throughout history.
“Masculinity takes different forms. It has to. Look at all the different cultures throughout history.”
The genius of Wild at Heart is that Eldredge looks behind the various external characteristics and identifies desires that may very well be universals for men—the desire to fight a battle, live an adventure, and love a beauty. He is probably right that these desires define masculinity. Yet, since the forms they take can vary, what determines how these desires are expressed? It can’t be my masculinity. These desires are my masculinity. Their expression has to be determined by something deeper. They are determined by who I am. Which means who I am has to be deeper than my masculinity.
My true identity cannot be a group or demographic. It is singular. Unique. It is what makes me “me” as opposed to anyone else. (That is, in fact the technical meaning of the word “identity.”) Theologically, my identity is the specific way God created me to mediate his wholeness to the rest of creation. That is my true self (my “name,” as Eldredge puts it). Because I am a man, I am drawn to fight a battle, live an adventure, and love a beauty. My identity determines what that looks like.
My true self = the specific way God created me to mediate his wholeness to the rest of creation
The issue of identity helps untangle a thorny difficulty with Eldredge’s book. He clearly wants to make a distinction between a “real” man and a “poser” (page 196). Yet the book is constantly ambiguous—at any given point, are we talking about all men, “real” men, or posers? Do all men wonder if they “have what it takes,” or just the posers? Is a “real” man ready to, say, beat down anyone who insults his wife, or is that a “false” man who is trying to prove something? In this ambiguity, the reader often senses the shadow of toxic masculinity and isn’t clear if Eldredge is steering away from it or not. Eldredge wants us to be “true” men instead of “false” men, but he never clearly lays out the distinction between the two.
That’s because the distinction is not on the level of masculinity. What if men are just men? If so, then the real distinction is on the more foundational level of identity. It wouldn’t be so much that there are true or false men. Rather, there are true or false identities that express their masculinity in healthy or unhealthy ways. So the difference between a toxic man and a life-giving man is that the life-giving man is living out of his true self, while the toxic man is not.
Toxic masculinity, rooted in the false self, is trying to prove something. Life wounded us in some way—we internalized some false and negative messages about ourselves—and “from the place of our woundedness, we construct the false self” (page 97). We aren’t really trying to prove something to people out there. We’re trying to prove to our own hearts that the negative messages we actually believe are wrong. But the heart isn’t buying it. That is the essence of the false self.
My false self = the me that constantly, unsuccessfully tries to prove to my heart that the negative messages I believe are wrong.
On the other hand, once you’ve heard from your heavenly Father—once God has taken those wounds and redeemed them; once he has told you who you are and what he thinks of you—you’re no longer afraid because you no longer have anything to prove. No one else’s script for what you “should be” matters. Indeed, you’re no longer tied to outcomes (a classic way men in their false self measure their worth).
In the Bible, “success” is measured not in outcomes, but in obedience. Think about it: How many prophets saw outcomes from their ministry that we would consider “successful”? When we function in our true selves—simply being who we really are—the outcomes are entirely up to God. It would be silly for us to worry about them. God is playing the long game. We have no idea how long it may take for our actions to produce the outcome he’s looking for. Moreover, we have no idea what a “successful” outcome even looks like. Remember, God’s signature move is bringing success out of what looks like failure (or rather, life out of death).
You are who you are because God named you, not because you achieve some results. Eldredge’s universal male question “Do I have what it takes?” feels saturated with the false self’s need to prove. But perhaps the question is redeemed in the true self. In our true identity, we no longer challenge ourselves, stretch ourselves, try to learn and grow in order to prove anything, but for the sheer joy of it. It is a partnering with God in our own cultivation. Adam was not called to cultivate the garden (Genesis 2:15) because it was broken and needed fixing. It was already “good” (Genesis 1:21). Like Adam was called to cultivate the garden, we are called to cultivate ourselves because we are co-creators with God and it’s fun!
“You are who you are because God named you, not because you achieve some results.”
When we function in our true self, our desires for battle, adventure, and beauty aren’t erased (Eldredge’s central theme). They are radically re-defined and taken farther than the false self would ever dare to go. Rather than rejecting Wild at Heart or uncritically embracing it as our field guide for biblical masculinity, the following are three ways I propose we build on Eldredge’s advice:
The true battle is to stay connected to our true selves.
As Eldredge says, “The battle is for our freedom” (page 25). Yet true “freedom” is the ability to be who you truly are in Christ. The barriers to that freedom are all internal. Therefore, if you don’t have it, nothing external can give it. And if you do have it, nothing external can take it away. It is a battle that takes place in your heart. Indeed, it is a battle to connect to your own heart (page 7). This is exactly how Eldredge presents our fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil (chapters 9-10).
Perhaps a purpose of all the “chest-thumping” in the book is to make guys comfortable enough to approach this battle. Guys often treat the interior life as sissy, namby-pamby stuff because, quite frankly, they are terrified of it. They’d rather fight the Nazis or a grizzly bear. Why are we so afraid to look at the wounds in our heart—those deep internal messages that tell us how worthless we are? Because we believe them. Facing them takes an extraordinary type of courage. But we have to: “Whatever is denied cannot be healed” (page 97). We must go there so we can invite Jesus in (page 116). Only he can take the falsehoods and trade them for his truth. He was there in our times of wounding, and only he can redeem them. If we are to function as our true, life-giving self, this is the battle we must fight, and this is the battle we must revisit every time Satan tries to drag us back into our false selves (page 102).
“Guys often treat the interior life as sissy, namby-pamby stuff because, quite frankly, they are terrified of it. They’d rather fight the Nazis or a grizzly bear.”
While Eldredge’s archetypal imagery—placing us at Agincourt or on the beaches of Normandy—may rouse our courage to fight, it is unfortunately tied to the fact that men of all times and places are drawn to fight the wrong battle. Eldredge could clarify this more. Strangely, he never cites Ephesians 6:12: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood.” That’s a clarification we desperately need these days. Jesus so radically redefines the battle that, in the external struggle, we become warriors for peace. Peace is a dominant theme of the entire book of Ephesians, and in the armor of the spirit, peace is what soldiers of Christ bring: “With your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15). A peacemaker (Matthew 5:9) is a warrior through and through, but a warrior of a radically different stripe.
The true adventure is to live connected to God.
Another clarification I think Wild at Heart could use is that our “strength” (probably the most-used term in the book) is derived. Our true self is the unique way God created us to mediate his wholeness to the rest of creation. God has harsh words for people who are impressed with their own strength (Deuteronomy 8:17-18; Psalm 33:16). His exhortations for both Joshua and Gideon to be strong are grounded in the fact that “I will be with you” (Joshua 1:5-9; Judges 6:11-16). We must never get confused—God is the life-giver. Thankfully, he chooses to have his life flow through us (John 7:38).
Recognizing that we are stepping out in God’s strength is important because the adventures God invites us into aren’t just dangerous. They are impossible. Your strength is the strength to live in your true self in Christ and the strength to show up when God calls. That’s it. The rest is on him. You have the strength to step out of the boat. You do not have the strength to walk on the water.
On the adventures God invites us into, there is no script, no charted path, no metrics for success. They are wild beyond anything we would ever choose for ourselves. One of Eldredge’s strongest points is that God and Christianity are not tame (page 186). The “suburbanization” of Christianity is, at best, a cartoonish parody of what the Church is called to be (page 191).
“The ‘suburbanization’ of Christianity is, at best, a cartoonish parody of what the Church is called to be.”
The true desire for the beauty is to live connected to others.
No doubt, the woman has a special place in a man’s heart. But he can’t connect with her if he’s not connected to himself. The internal battle is terrifying, but she gives him something to fight for. She forces the false self—that wants to stay separated and safe—to acknowledge a desire to connect to the other. Yes, our desire for the woman can go very sideways, but the desire behind the desire is for connection. “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18).
The caveat for the unmarried man is that connection comes in many forms. If the hero of the great stories doesn’t have a woman, he has a team (usually both). The story of the loner is, quite frankly, boring. The true self is a piece that longs to function in a larger whole—like the member of a body (1 Corinthians 12:7-14).
We all have roles, but a role is not an identity. If a man is threatened by our culture’s re-writing of gender roles, it’s because he doesn’t know who he really is. He is not yet grounded in his true self in Christ. As a man operating in my true identity, the battle I fiercely engage is the battle to stay connected to my true self. My true self shapes the adventure I live with God and the way my desire to love a beauty is expressed. Whatever else we call “gender roles” is often a much more superficial script someone is trying to impose on us. Scripts make people comfortable. The wild man is unsettling. But, as Eldredge repeatedly points out, God is constantly going off script. He is the Wild One. And he insists that we have what it takes to step out of the safe “known” and set foot on the water.
