This post is the first in a series about how masculinity is presented in the Christian world.  They will be book reviews, musings, and calls to action. Some of these posts will be critical, some will not. I have started this project because I know I am often uncomfortable expressing my "gender" in a strict binary that is also attached to my physical sex, and live by many of the unspoken rules in order to not get harassed. I want to work to positively identify characteristics of masculinity and femininity in a positive manner only (not saying "masculinity is the negation or opposite of the feminine").

In two of the recent interviews I've watched my boss conduct, I've been hearing about "Wild At Heart" and Christian Masculinity.  Wild at Heart is a book by Frank Eldredge, a man who worked at Focus on the Family before founding Ransomed Heart Ministries.  Wild at Heart follows the familiar refrain of many Christian self-help books aimed for men: namely, that they need to reclaim the awesome, aggressive masculinity that Jesus totally lived to teach them, and that our culture is so feminine and that’s bad. It is also one of my least favorite "Christian Books" ever due to it’s absolutely terrible theology. There are even people who agree with his premise of masculinity who still hate the book.

The summary of the book is as follows: Our culture and churches have emasculated men. According to society, this means "masculinity needs to be cured." This means thing are going to be hard for boys because churches & schools have not taken into account the "unique features of masculinity" such as "predilection to adventure, rowdiness, and risk" into consideration when designing classes. Because our culture ignores masculinity, we have created a bunch of bored and withdrawn boys and men. And the only way boys can be masculine and become men is by being around other masculine men, women cannot 'impart' masculinity.  Finally, "Every man needs a battle for which he can live in die."

I want to know what group of women have managed to do all this feminization and emasculating (the words are apparently the same thing to Eldridge) of Christian men.  In most of the conservative Evangelical denominations don’t allow women in leadership roles. No one would walk into a Southern Baptist Church and say "My God!  Look how those strong, empowered women are forcing boys to give up their natures!" It’s a somewhat humorous (although mitigated, because these folks think it’s true) thought.

But really, what does Eldredge think of women (if he thinks of them at all?.) Eldredge explains in an interview on CBN:

We went after men first for a reason. I you can get the man, you can get the world, you can get his home, his family, his wife, his children. Men are crucial, and they are harder to win. They are harder to ransom, actually. It is the most difficult mission on earth.

Eldredge still believes that men are the most important, because really, all those other people he controls, or at least, should control by the end of reading his book, will fall in line with the plan. This is at best, a complete and total logical failure from the point of his book (we need to save men from the evil feminine) and to whom he targets (the men) because they make the decisions. At it’s worst, it shares some pretty ugly thoughts about how important women are in Eldredge’s world.

To give credit, he does tell men it’s their fault they are in this emasculating situation. So, there’s some attempt at personal responsibility. Except not so much an overall win, because really, what men did was “chose Eve over God” (pp. 113-115).  Men need to realign their thinking about women and put them on an (even lower) pedestal. This line of thought gets worse when you start to read a later book he wrote with his wife, Captivating.This book is meant for women so they can find their “feminine vulnerability”. Except he doesn’t mean vulnerability,  he means co-dependency. According to Eldredge, a woman is always a beauty in need of saving, and a man needs to rescue. Women, if you’re not beautiful, you should make yourself so. If you can’t, well it’s still your fault for not validating your man, sucks for you. As for anyone that isn’t heterosexual, sorry, you’re just struggling with a psychological problem because “Homosexuality is an attempt to repair the wound by filling it with masculinity.” There’s a great double entendre there.

This book paints men as the victims.  Men have been subject to hurt from their fathers, their churches, their wives. They are “wounded” and wanting to be at war again. That’s the heart of every man. If you disagree, you’re just denying your own strength. This is a familiar refrain in a lot of Evangelical exegesis. The crux of Christianity, which all people have been infused with the very image of a God who has made Himself human in order to live a fully authentic human life, is not understood. Eldredge’s story has turned the restoration of the world and the salvation of the marginalized into a cheapened personal and privatized inner healing.