Princess or Priest

I stumbled upon this one when I was checking where the traffic for my site was coming from. No, this blog didn't link me. But rather someone else was searching something concerning John Eldredge and Ransomed Heart Ministries and I followed their google search to this place. I really like some of the things Laura Robinson has to say about the book "Captivating".

Choosing Priest Instead of Princess: The Pitfalls of Ransomed Heart Ministries

Some time back I did a series on Wild at Heart and John Eldredge. I have a love/hate relationship with his ministry.

An Old Article from Christianity Today

I'll link it here for those who have not seen it yet.
I like this author's approach and brief history of the men's movement.
Jesus for Real Men

Human Structures in Review

We have spent three months on human structures.
In March we looked at Job, false structures and started talking about order vs chaos or Apollonian vs Dionysian and even touched on yin/yang.
In April we looked at the Wild at Heart phenomenon and how it has affected the church and perpetuated a not always female friendly male vs female structure. We also looked at the tiny boxes or structures that small-minded men build for women using religion to beat them into down into those boxes.
In May, we looked at big-hearted men and contrasted the loving freedom they offer to women with the limiting, restrictive structures that small mind men uphold for their sisters. We also did a rather long series on Chimananda Adichie's "Single Story" and how this applied to human structure.

Perhaps I've spend an inordinate amount of time on human structures. If so, it is only because I want people to start discerning the existence of these human structures and begin to hold them up to the light of scripture in order to debunk the false structures.

But this month, the lovely month of June, we will turn our attention on some of the ways that God structures things and how they differ from human structures.

And here I will leave you a verse.

Isaiah 55:8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord.
Vs 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, SO are My ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.

"Save Men from the Evil Feminine"

This is a quote from a blog post that critiques "Wild at Heart".

The author has listened to interviews of John Eldredge, read both WAH, and Captivating and has come away with a bad taste in her mouth.

http://lklouise.com/231/christian-masculinites-wild-at-heart/

As I mentioned, I enjoyed Wild At Heart. But I never really thought about the side of it that said that the problem with men is feminizition.

If that really was his message, then all I can say is that I'm glad I missed that part. Also, if Eldredge really thinks that, all I can wonder is, how did women become so powerful that they were able to destroy the masculine in men? How many women would even want to if they had the power?

Women never were that powerful. And most women have no desire to destroy the masculine in men. There is something else going on. I want men healed and delivered. But I know you don't have to blame women in order to get there. In fact, blaming women for it only confuses the problem and makes it harder to get to a real solution.

Hind's Feet on High Places

I have another book to recommend. It just sort of goes along with the heart healing message of Wild at Heart, but is geared more for women. Also, like WaH, people either loved it or hated it. So I recommend it with the warning, your milage may vary. It is fiction and allegorical and I liked it better than Pilgrim's Progress.
http://www.amazon.com/Hinds-Feet-Places-Hannah-Hurnard/dp/0842314296

A Deeper Magic

There is another phrase from the Chronicles of Narnia that I feel applies to this whole John Eldredge, "Wild at Heart" discussion.

Just as an explanation, when the Hero, Aslan the Lion, defeats the Snow Queen He does it by applying a "Deeper Magic" than the magic the Snow Queen knows.

What I love about John Eldredge's book, "Wild at Heart" and what Eldredge is trying to do is to heal the deep wounds of the hearts of men. Now, I'm sure most of you know that many men would rather jab their eye repeatedly with a sharp object than to talk about their feelings. Yet, Eldredge is able to open up his heart and get to the heart of many men through his book. So, in the end, this is what I love about "Wild at Heart".

Some of the negative reviews that I have read about "Wild at Heart" accuse Eldredge of being 'shallow'. I could not disagree more. The things of the soul are very deep and hidden from view. "Wild at Heart" deals with the deep places of a man's heart and the deep wounds that a man can acquire as a boy, specifically from his father. And, though he never uses the phrase from the Narnia books, Eldredge appeals to a "deeper magic" than even the level of the soul. He points men to draw on the deeper things of the Spirit and get their healing from God their heavenly Father.

As a person who also looks to the Father, the Spirit, and to Jesus as the Healer, the over all message of Wild at Heart is much appreciated.

The short comings are that Eldredge focuses a bit much on the wounds that a father gives to the neglect of other wounds, like from a mother, or from culture. There are so many things that can wound a child. It can be one or both parents. It can be passed down curses or family dynamics. It can be negative ancestral influences. It can be cultural influences.

My point is this. When a child is conceived and given birth to, there is much foundation building in the early part of the child's life. Anywhere along the way, things can be missed or abuses can be committed. What the child should have been given, in the way of development was withheld. Also what the child might have developed naturally, if just given a stable environment, can be destroyed by someone or something in the child's surroundings.

Anyway, whatever goes on that wounds or even destroys the child, this is a deep wound in a deep place of who the child is. It takes something deep to reach that soul realm. The soul is very deep. But there is "a deeper magic still" that is found in the spirit realm.

And we are encouraged in the Bible to look at and trust in that which is deep an not readily seen.

2 Corinthians 4:8 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds (ages) were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

Sometimes going deeper is intimidating or even frightening. But I believe in the deeper things of the Spirit.

Not a Tame Lion

I'm pretty much winding down as far as talking about Eldredge's "Wild at Heart" except for a couple things.

One of the phrases that Eldredge uses is from C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia". Aslan, the representation of God in Narnia, is a lion which is symbolic of Jesus being the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. One of the things that is said about Aslan is that He is not a tame lion. And Eldredge uses this to refer to men, that like Aslan, men were not created to be tamed and controlled by culture and civilization.

The saying about Aslan was that He was not tame, as in controlled. But He was good. Very, very good. And Eldredge uses this to call men to be their own wild and free selves, yet to remember that they are to be good in this deliriously wild freedom.

I have difficulty with this, not because Eldredge tells men they don't have to be 'tame' and controllable but rather that the implication that can be picked up is that women ARE to be tame and controlled. Whereas men can represent themselves in God's image as a lion, women are left to represent God as lambs. And this is a completely false correlation. Both lions and lambs come in male and female versions.
Jesus is referred to as both a lion and a lamb. Both men and women are referred to as sheep in the Bible. And both men and women can think of themselves as being as bold as lions when they walk in the righteousness of Christ.

Certain men, with itching ears, do not have the right to claim "lion" status for themselves while relegating women to "lamb" status. Men who do this are creating false structures that nature, God's own creation, witnesses against.

I'm not a tame lion either. I'm not subjugated and controlled by the men and culture of this earth. I run wild in the lioness freedom that Jesus, the Lion and the Lamb, my older Brother... I run wild in the Spirit Wind freedom that He bought me. And I'm not going to let arrogant little whelps tell me any different. Those that try to take my lion status away in order to give me a lesser role are preaching a different gospel.

Now, after this rant, you may think that I really do hate Eldredge's book. But I don't. I only hate what others have done with it and how they have misused it. The next post is about the good in his book and why my love for it eventually does win out over my frustration.

People of the Spirit Wind

John 3:8 The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

This scripture is found in the same chapter and same conversation as the famous John 3:16 verse and where Jesus talks about being born again.

And if this verse doesn't speak of the freedom of God's people, I don't know what does. The wind blows where it wills. This is what the people who are born of the Spirit should be like. They are to be free.

This concept is extremely frightening to people who embrace rigid structure. This appears to be a frightening thought to many men when they think of their women, mothers, wives, daughters. What are they afraid of? That their women will abandon them? Fly away like the wind? No wonder some men feel compelled to control. They fear abandonment if their women are given 'too much' freedom.

It's funny. I never hear preachers preach on this verse. You hear about the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus about being born again and about God loving the world so much that He gave...

But who ever talks about those born of the Spirit and how they are like the wind?
Are there no messages about being as free as the wind because men are afraid people will be gone with the wind?

There is some concern over this. After all, wasn't it here, on this blog, that I linked a review for Wild at Heart by a woman whose husband read the book, then he was gone with the wind?

Yes. Radical freedom can be a frightening thing. Perhaps this is why preachers don't preach it. Perhaps this is why, instead of freedom and liberty for the captives, structure and roles and 'divine' order are taught. It's because of fear.

And people are being crushed under the weight of so much order keeping people in their places. People of the Spirit wind were not created to bear such heavy loads. You can't fly free when you are overburdened by structure and order.

People of the Spirit wind need to be released from the oppressive structures of religion so that they can mount up with eagles wings when they wait on the Lord.

It Doesn't Fit

We were in a hurry that morning. My daughter was on the cell phone talking to me about the traffic that was in her way keeping her from picking me up on time. Finally she gets to our house and my younger daughter and I go out to get into her car. It's a two door so I have to pull the little lever and make the seat go up so my younger daughter can get in the back seat. I set the seat back up straight, but unbeknownst to myself in my state of hurried panic, the seat didn't slide back. Because my car is a four-door, it never occurred to me to check it. And as I was trying to fold my 5' 9" frame into a space far too small, the car door comes swinging back, knocks my arm, and my coffee goes flying all over me.

Don't worry, I wasn't burnt. I put too much milk in it for it to be scalding. But it was a mess.

The moral of the story is: Don't try to reduce yourself down to a size that doesn't fit even if you are in a hurry and/or being pressured by someone else.

You know. When you give your heart to Jesus, you just love Him. You love what He's done for you and what He still wants to do for you. And when someone comes along and, with great authority, tells you... "In order to please God you must do this..." you are inclined to believe them.

This what is happening in far too many segments of Christianity. And too many women are told to reduce themselves down to a smaller size in order to please God. They are told with great authority and many adjectives and many proof texts from the Bible.

The women try to do it, try to follow it because they love God and want to please Him. But it doesn't fit. It's too restricting and confining. But women try to make it fit and conform and turn themselves into something they are not. It is like me trying to fold my full frame into vehicle where the seat is pulled up far enough that only a person 5' 1" would fit.

This is what the restrictive roles of CBMW and sweeping generalizations of Wild at Heart do. And there comes a time when a person has to throw off such things and to stop listening to men of great "authority" because those men are not preaching the gospel. They preach their personal preference in culture.

A Window Into My Soul

I have an Internet persona and keep my personal life very private. But for the sake of explaining the appeal of Wild At Heart to me personally, let me tell you about myself.

Even though I now live in the fertile prairies of the Heartland, I was not born here. I was born in one of the Plains states. It is rugged and wild country that I love. And most people not from that country have a hard time appreciating the beautiful, untamed, desolation of that area. John Eldredge is also from the wild country in Colorado. So when he described chasing a deer over that country, it set my heart on fire and made me remember my roots. They are roots that my friends from the Heartland, or the South, or the East Coast don't understand. My ancestors cut out an existence in those unforgiving plains. They went through the Dust Bowl for Pete's sake. They were strong and stoic and sometimes I get impatient with the spoiled heartland dwellers who have only known green and tamed terrain.

In my next post I'm going to link a Rich Mullin's song about the beauty of the plains. One of the lines goes like this, "How the Lord takes by its corners this old world and shakes us forward and shakes us free to run wild with the hope that this thirst will not last long that it will soon drown in a song not sung in vain." The state I was born in is listed in this song.

Rich was an anomaly. A Quaker boy born in the green, moist and tame Heartland wouldn't normally have an attraction to the desolate plains. But Rich did. He appreciated it and he wrote a song about it and about praising God that makes my heart sing. Funny. Other people are not nearly as stirred by that song as I still am.

Further back in my past, my family is from Denmark. Another rugged and desolate place of warriors and Vikings. Their men weren't just fierce, so were their women. They had to be to survive. I read a book that was made into a movie call "The Thirteenth Warrior" and was amazed at the feeling of affinity I had with some of the Viking thought processes. In the next post, along with the Rich Mullins link, I'll link an ancient sounding song with images from the old country which also touches a terrible deep place in me.

Why am I telling you this? I'm explaining the structures in my life, set up by my culture and my heritage that are not dissimilar to the structures in John Eldredge's life. But where he tries to make these structures into Biblical foundations, I know better. They are extra-biblical. This doesn't make them bad. I'm proud of my heritage. But these foundations are not Biblical. And they are not sturdy foundations to build a house of wild, spiritual, freedom on. The word of God is quick and active and sharper than any two edged sword and is able to cut between the soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12).

Hopefully, after the post with the song links, I can present Bible verses that promise us freedom. These verses ARE a firm foundation and are not someone else's culture and perspective. They are a spiritual foundation and aren't given to us to cancel out other people's cultural influences.

Made of the Same Stuff

The Greeks were one of the most misogynic cultures known back in the day. The philosophers taught that men and women were not even made from the same substance.

The Jewish culture knew better because they had the creation story. But the Greeks? They had Pandora and taught that men were made of higher material and women were made of lower substance.

This is one reason Paul's letter to the Ephesians is so important yet it's significance is so lost on us. While modern day teachers try to force hierarchy on Ephesians 5, the concept of men and women being made of the same stuff and are even from the same body is completely overlooked.

The Head and the Body are part of the same thing. They aren't made of different things nor were they made in different places, like Eldredge says. The head wasn't made outside the garden while the body was made inside.

So Ephesians 5 is more evidence of the closeness and connectedness of the male and female in God's creation. And it is the New Testament foundation that defies John Eldredge's claim that men and women are polar opposites and originated in different places. They aren't. They are different expressions of the same creation.

Now, hopefully, in a future post, I'll be able to deconstruct Wild at Heart's claim verses cultural conditioning. And I don't mean male/female conditioning. I mean wild/tame conditioning.

These conditionings are forces to be reckoned with, but they absolutely, positivily are NOT biblical foundations.

My Continued Ambivalence

As Darcy brings up, there's a lot to love about Eldredge's Wild At Heart. It helped me. I absolutely cannot deny it and will always have a soft place in my heart for it for what it has done for me. But unfortunately it has been a catalyst for some very bad behavior in men, including mine. I could go into stories but I thought this heart rending review would give a better understanding. And as the reviewer said, it wasn't the book that caused the problems, but rather it was gasoline thrown on already smoldering embers. This reviewer's experience is on the extreme end. Many women and children have suffered lesser versions of this. (The link will jump to the place to make a comment. Just scroll up.) http://www.amazon.com/review/R2H72YKWGDT2NW/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8ASIN=0785268839&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=#wasThisHelpful

Link Ransomed Heart Ministries

As I have a heart to see women free, John Eldredge has a heart to see men free which I respect. I just wish his work wasn't so easily used by other men to bring women under bondage. http://www.ransomedheart.com/

My Main Issue with "Wild at Heart"

As I mention in my 4/1/11 post, I read a book called Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. There is a link in the 4/1/11 post to the book on Amazon.

I mentioned that Wild at Heart has been used by men like Mark Driscoll to form a religion giving emense freedom to men while continueing to supress women in a puritianical strangle hold. And I speak of my frustration with such men.

But even knowing that John Eldredge is the author of a book that other men have abused for their own personal gain, I still can't hate Eldredge. As I read his book, I read what came from his heart. He wanted people to be free, men and women. And he understood at least one thing. If men aren't free, they sure as heck aren't going to allow their women to be free. Whatever degree of bondage men are under, they will most likely turn and place their women under worse bondage.

Even so, I disagree with the foundation of sand Eldredge laid for his doctrinal house. He made the claim that since man was made outside the garden, he was fundamentally wild and free. Women, however, were made INSIDE the garden and therefore were fundamentally domesticated.

This is pure speculation and amounts to nothing more than shifting sands and I'd like to address the error with actual scripture.

When God brought Eve to Adam, he wasn't amazed at their differences or in the different places they were created. What he said was, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called Woman Because this one has been taken out of Man." (Genesis 2:23)

Adam gloried in their similarities, not their differences. He majored on how much alike and a part of him she was, not in the cute or annoying little things about her that made her different. He didn't jump up and down and start defining and building a box or role for her. God brought him a companion, one like him that he could be with.

The fall completely broke this so that when God confronted him, he turned on this one made like him and betrayed her in front of both God and her. It was as though he betrayed himself. And the drive to push her away and make her different, foreign and less continues to this day.

This is an Old Testament proof against Eldredge's premise. I also have a New Testament proof.

Wild at Heart Link

I couldn't make the link work in the previous post so here it is for anyone who has never heard of John Eldredge's book

http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Heart-Discovering-Secret-Mans/dp/0785268839

Yearning for Freedom

Once a person embraces the rigid structures of religion, he/she wilts under its weight and wonders if this is all there is.

Puritanical religion doesn't just hurt women, it also hurts men so men look for a way to get out from under the burden.

One of the latest moves among men is led by a man who wrote the book, Wild at Heart.

http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Heart-Discovering-Secret-Mans/dp/0785268839


Now I read Wild at Heart and enjoyed it and took the message to heart for myself, that I also needed to be wild and free in the Lord and that it wasn't just limited to men, even though the author implied that it was men who needed to let loose their spiritual wild side, not women. But I hold no grudge toward the author. Not when his book was used to help me shake off some false structure that had attached itself to me.

However, I do hold a grudge towards certain preachers that have taken the Wild at Heart message, ran with it and excluded women from the freedom they feel men need to walk in.

Mark Driscoll is just such a preacher. While he teaches that it's okay for men to burp and fart and cuss and drink beer and a whole lot of other wild manly things, he still holds women to a structured, religious oppression and even calls on them to be saved by fulfilling a role.

Mark Driscoll Quote: "Women will be saved by going back to that role that God has chosen for them. Ladies, if the hair on the back of your neck stands up it is because you are fighting your roll in the scripture."

Through slight of hand, men like Driscoll allow themselves some Dionysian freedom from Apollonian over structure while making sure their women remain under rigid structure and control in order to fulfill the needs, wants, and desires of men. While the men get some level of freedom, women continue to wilt under puritanical control.

Actually, there is one place that Mark pushes for Dionysian freedom to the hurt of women, as my friend Jane pointed out. One place and one place only. This place is in the bedroom where she must throw off all inhibitions and change from a mild and meek mouse and turn into a nymphomaniac porn star. All for the sake of satisfying men and keeping them from straying off to real porn stars.

So, here is the dynamic of Apollonian and Dionysian being used and manipulated so that the man gets the best benefits of both principles and the woman must conform to the structures men create for them.

This building of structures on the sand of human thinking is hurting and even destroying many. This is why it is needful to see the false structures and false dynamics for what they are. Human, man made, and false.

We have looked at a couple of overviews of Apollonian/Dionysian thought and structure. I hope to look at a few specific arguments used against women.