What Eldredge Does Right

Not everything in the book "Wild at Heart" should be thrown out the window. Yes, Eldredge starts (and stays) with a flawed premise on gender (among other things). His flawed premise, to recap, is simply that "there is a masculine heart and a feminine heart." If you read the essay on the post "More Clarity", you will find a great discussion on this issue.

I suggest that each of us are made in the image of God (as opposed to women as half of the image of God and men as the other half). In other words, there is a commonality in humanity. Sex (as well as culture, athletic ability, intelligence, whatever) is an element of a holistic person, but not a defining or dividing element.

The Genesis 2 account of the woman being formed out of Adam's rib stands over and against popular thought of the day (particularly of the Greeks later on) that women were not the same creatures as men - in other words, men are to women as fish are to birds. Genesis, on the otherhand, says there is one humanity - made of one substance, not two humanities made of two different substances. (Incidentally, notice the similarity of this to the Trinity - one substance, three persons.)

Now, once Eldredge has divided humanity, he shares with us the three different desires of men and women - which means all men have a certain set of desires and all women have another set of desires. They are...

The Desires of a Man's Heart
1) An adventure to live.
2) A battle to fight.
3) A beauty to rescue.

The Desires of a Woman's Heart
1) An adventure to share.
2) To be fought for.
3) A beauty to unveil.

My first thought when I look at the #1 desires of the hearts of men and women, is that perhaps all the women should get together and share an adventure and let the men go on their lonely way, since it seems only the women want to share! My second thought is I wonder if first century Christians who were being fed to lions would have said the #1 desire of their heart was adventure - perhaps they would have said peace?

Ok, but here's what Eldredge does right. He speaks to our culture - and he's right in the context of this culture. We long for adventure because we spend most of our lives in front of the TV! So then the question becomes, is there a universal human desire that culturally becomes the desire for adventure here in the West? This is the question I put to you...comment and let me know!

As a final note, Eldredge tries to make a distinction between men and women by emphasizing that women want to share an adventure, but really this mostly just falls flat. Sharing is a two-way street. I think this is relatively obvious, so let's not beat a dead horse.

But comment! Please do! Tell me what universal desire humans have that is translated into our culture as a desire for adventure!

And as for the other desires, we will continue our discussion in the days ahead.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/19/2004 12:20:00 PM

 

Comments:

Some of you people need to get a life!

It seems that some of you would rather spend more time picking Eldridge apart while comparring "your opinions" to his, than finding the gold nuggets and enjoying the richness they can bring.

# by:  Anonymous : 7:07 PM

 

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