On To John

I picked up John Eldridge's book "Wild at Heart" this morning and began reading. Originally, I was going to read the entire book before posting anything on it, but I can see after reading five chapters that he is going to carry his flawed premise on gender throughout the whole of the book. So, I've decided to begin the discussion, but before I do, I would like to lay out some basic groundwork.

I will be looking at this book through the lens of gender-relations. This is not to the complete exclusion of other lenses, but please do not fault me for skipping an occasional issue or theme that is less related to sex and gender.

Furthermore, I want to congratulate Mr. Eldridge for eloquently arguing that people need - and not just need - but were made for adventure. I have no significant arguments with him on this point. I will take issue with his ideal roles each gender should play in an adventure, but overall, I agree we need adventure, but we mostly just watch TV.

Finally, I will be posting in small segments of arguments as opposed to writing one large post. The reason for this is that it makes my blog look a lot less daunting, but more importantly, it gives everyone else opportunity to comment along the way. I do have an outline in my head of where I want to go with this, but I am opening it up as a conversation, which means you, the reader/commenter can change the direction in which we are going.

Now we begin.

The basic theme of the book as seen through the gender lens is something like this. The desires of the hearts of men and women are different, and if we would just understand this point, we'd all be a lot more happy.

There are a ton of things that fly in my face as somewhat offensive, more cultural than Christian half-truths, such as the belief that "getting what I want will make me happy" instead of "giving what others need will give me joy." Yes, there is truth in the idea that our heart desires may point us to our true selves, and there is truth in saying that God transforms our desires, but Eldridge does not balance his book - he only offers the "feel-good" side of the truth. At least this is the case up until chapter five.

But I digress. The first question of the gender issue is always a question of origin. Is gender innate or is it a product? Eldridge claims he can bypass the entire argument by looking at the creation account in Genesis. He says,

Men and women are made in the image of God as men or as women. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27). Now we know God doesn't have a body, so the uniqueness can't be at physical. Gender simply must be at the level of the soul, in the deep and everlasting places within us. God doesn't make generic people, he makes something very distinct - a man or a woman. In other words, there is a masculine heart and a feminine heart, which in their own ways reflect or portray to the world God's heart (p.8).

It will take us a few posts to unpack this paragraph, but let's start at the beginning (a very good place to start!). Eldridge uses the conjunction "or" in his opening sentence - "as men or as women", and then backs up his statement by quoting Genesis 1. But see how the author of Genesis uses a different conjunction - "and".

The conjunction "or" takes two things and puts them in two different boats, so to speak. The conjunction "and" does the opposite. "And" takes two things and puts them in the same boat.

Eldridge's version of Genesis 1 goes something like this - "God made people in his image and either you are a man or a woman." Yet take a look at the whole of Genesis 1. It is poetry itself, and the crowning moment comes with the repetition of the most amazing reality - we are made in God's image. It seems to sadly miss the point to think here, at the crescendo of this poetry, the Genesis author feels the need to stop and point out to his readers that either they are men or women. Why, at the climax of this unfolding drama, does he or she insert this well-known and rather mundane fact? I would assert that the author does not.

Instead, the author uses the conjunction "and". Looking across the spectrum of humanity, Genesis 1 tells us the amazingly good news - that all of us were made in the image of God! That all of us reflect the one who made us - we have value - we mean something! This stands as such due to the conjunction "and" - men and women were made in the image of God. That, my friends, is a crescendo, a climax worthy of the 26 verses that come before.

Next installment..."Hello, God? Is Any BODY out there?"

1ch j19

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/11/2004 10:59:00 AM