John Eldredge demonstrates the ability to mine an outwardly very fulfilling life for the hidden sorrows of the inauthentic man. Where his life does not achingly enough suggest our separation from the masculine, he brings in a friend who suffered the indignity of a stepfather, but was able to salvage the heroic identity of his father and great-grandfather, taking back his paternal name.

Written to appeal to a TV-educated audience, Wild at Heart employees as many movie examples in this chapter as the others, and for those of us impatient with this, provides many a literary passage as well. It is an easy thing to dip into the Old Testament for masculine inspiration. The Gospels are also used as well, as is the Christian legacy of missionary work. Eldredge goes partway toward uncovering the ideal of the Christian Soldier and commands a wide range of references, such as Dorothy Sayers, who notes that The Church has domesticated the “Lion of Judah.”

None-Christian masculinity advocates will argue that Christianity is an emasculating force—this being one of the easier arguments to make. However, Wild at Heart lays the groundwork for making the case that the use of Christianity to reduce men to cattle is as harmful to Christianity as to those men, which begs the question that is the reverse of the usual atheistic argument: has Civilization co-opted Christianity?

From the normally Leftist ideological perspective that sees The State as an edifice to be plundered, occupied and used in service to ideology, it has often been depicted as the victim of Christianity. But is it?

John continues with a discussion of the value of adventure and that “good” and “safe” are often at variance in the world and links the call to masculinity with the “heart-cry of women.” If the book has a unifying theme, I would have to say it is the call to join with women, for the man to realize that their lot too has been corrupted somewhere along the way.