A Rather Dry Ending To Part 1

This is the third installment in a discussion over the book, "Wild at Heart" by John Eldredge - to begin at the beginning, scroll down to the May 11th entry, "On To John".

I have finished reading "Wild at Heart." Actually, I skimmed the last of the book, but enough to get the point. I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but I just want it to be known that Eldredge does some things really well - namely, speaks to our culture. And that's not a bad thing. We will discuss this soon...

But as for our discussion concerning the flawed gender premise Eldredge uses - we've discussed the first and second parts of the quote on page 8 of "Wild at Heart." We have said (1) Eldredge divides the sexes into pieces of the imago dei while the biblical author unites the sexes under the one image of God (2) Eldredge denies God has physical attributes, but we know that Jesus did and may still have - furthermore, we've stated that it may be possible that other members of the Trinity have physical attributes, but this is something we, at this point, cannot determine.

From this point, Eldredge says, "God doesn't make generic people, he makes something very distinct - a man or a woman." He's right. God doesn't make generic people, he makes you, and you, and you, and you, and me, and Tony and Tim and Suzy and Jane... God doesn't make generic people at all. Eldredge shoots himself in the foot here by stating that God doesn't make generic people, and then proceeds to tell us how God makes two types of generic people. I suppose there's more that can be said, but really, what's the point?

The next statement by Eldredge is his conclusion, which is, "there is a masculine heart and a feminine heart, which in their own ways reflect or portray to the world God's heart." This statement is augmented by an early statement in the passage. That statement is, "gender simply must be at the level of the soul, in the deep and everlasting places within us." Both of these statements make for Eldredge's conclusion on the gender debate. However, as we have examined the passage, these conclusions simply cannot be drawn. His argument is not sound.

Does that make the conclusion false? Not necessarily. I believe it's false and I've never had anyone make a good case to the contrary, but I am open. If anyone wants to make a better argument than Eldredge's argument about the existence of a "masculine heart" and a "feminine heart", then I am all ears.

In the next post, I will lay out my beliefs about masculinity and femininity and some interesting stuff about appreciating the sexes (I think so, anyway). I'm very excited about that post, because I think it sheds quite a bit of light on the whole issue and because I think it will open up a whole new and exciting discussion.

This post has been a little dry, but the next one will be LOTS of fun!

Until then, I remain arrogantly...
"Changing the world, one woman at a time!"
(just kidding)

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/13/2004 08:34:00 AM